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RV 242 a husband somewhere who refuses to divorce her."

"Like you and Stanley!"

Aggie drew back as if she had been struck. "Oh, no, no!" She looked despairingly at Nona. "When I tell you I don't refuse now"

"Well, perhaps Cleo Merrick's husband may not, either."

"It's different. He's a Catholic, and his church won't let him divorce. And it can't be annulled. Stanley's just going to live with her openly ... and she'll go everywhere with him  exactly as if they were husband and wife  and everybody will know that they're not."

Nona sat silent, considering with set lips and ironic mind the picture thus pitilessly evoked. "Well, if she loves him"

"Loves him? A woman like that!"

"She's been willing to make a sacrifice for him, at any rate. That's where she has a pull over both of us,"

"But don't you see how awful it is for them to be living together in that way?"

"I see it's the best thing that could happen to Stanley to have found a woman plucky enough to give him the thing he wanted—the thing you and I both refused him."

She saw Aggie's lifeless cheek redden. "I don't know what you mean by refusing"

"I mean his happiness—that's all! You refused