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 card from her hand, and gave no sign that ideologism, old or new, or engineers of France, or statesmen of America, had place in her thoughts.

"Quite a blow we had off the old Hook," Mr. Jones remarked, returning a preoccupied gaze to his glass. "Wonderful how everything's quieted down and keeps on flattening. You could hardly tell now that you aren't on a Fall River boat coming up the Sound. That first night out the only well people on the whole boat seemed to be Macklyn here and me."

"No," Macklyn said, also giving up his scrutiny of the card table. "There was that impossible man who kept blatting at us."

"Oh, I shouldn't count him," Mr. Jones returned. "I'd hardly call him 'people'; he's just one of those things our glorious country seems to love to breed. Kept trying to get us to talk to him, Laurence, telling us how he'd never been on a boat before in his life, and how sick his wife and daughter were, but he never touched by a hair; and all about how good business is this year. Pretty awful! By the way, you weren't laid by the heels, were you? Didn't see you about, though."