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 as if she patted a petulant child. "You must not be ridiculous, my friend. I think sometimes you don't know quite how young you are. You are what ladies love to call 'a nice boy'; but perhaps you have still a little to learn and a little to see. You are in a country that is the Arabian Nights, and you aren't 'interested'! My dear, go and get an automobile and leave Algiers behind you. Go up into the Djurdjurra Mountains among the Kabyles and down to the Desert. After that, write to me and tell me, if you can, that you were not interested!"

She was herself again, cool, faintly amused, kindly impersonal; and he was piqued by the change. "I'm not what 'ladies love to call a nice boy'," he said, with a little indignation. "I'm a rather tired, rather lonely man of the world. I'm tired because I've worked too hard, and I'm lonely because I'm not able to like many people, which I realize is a fault"

He was going on; but she interrupted him. "Do you realize that? Aren't you a little proud of it, my dear?"

"That's the second time you've called me 'my dear'," he said sharply. "I wish you wouldn't. It sounds as if you were my aunt. Well, you're not."

"No," she said gently. "I hope I am your friend.