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 eloquent of her inability to express what she felt, and, as her hands descended, clasped them behind her head. "Oh!" she cried. "I think it would be very difficult to believe. No one could believe that such a woman as she exists!"

"Do you mean Mademoiselle Daurel?" he asked.

"Who else? You do not have such people in America! No, nor in England. Nowhere else but in a Latin country could you find natures so extraordinary."

"What has she done?"

"It is incredible," Mme. Momoro said, seeming not to hear him. She came back to the chair beside him, sank down in it, and then, not looking at him but before her, said again: "It is incredible."

"I'd like to ask you something," he began huskily. "On the 'Duumvir,' was it on her account"

"Everything was on her account," Mme. Momoro said bitterly. "Everything! How long I have devoted myself to her! Always I have proved it; and I don't say that always she has been unkind to me, because often she has been very kind—except for her jealousy. That has grown insufferable. You see, she is old; she has been very spoiled all her life—so many, many years in everything she has had her