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 IV.

had broken out the evening they took Mr. Probert to the circus; she had apostrophised Francie as they each sat in a red-damask chair after ascending to their apartments. They had bade their companions farewell at the door of the hotel and the two gentlemen had walked off in different directions. But up stairs they had instinctively not separated; they dropped into the first place and sat looking at each other and at the highly-decorated lamps that burned, night after night, in their empty saloon. "Well, I want to know when you're going to stop," Delia said to her sister, speaking as if this remark were a continuation, which it was not, of something they had lately been saying.

"Stop what?" asked Francie, reaching forward for a marron.

"Stop carrying on the way you do—with Mr. Flack."

Francie stared, while she consumed her marron;