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RV 283 diously equipped with every practical convenience—from the smoothly-hung window-ventilators to the jointed dressing-table lights, from the little portable telephone, and the bed-table with folding legs, to the tall threefold mirror which lost no curve of the beauty it reflected—that even Lita's careless ways seemed subdued to the prevailing order.

Lita was on the lounge, one long arm drooping, the other folded behind her in the immemorial attitude of sleeping beauty. Sleep lay on her lightly, as it does on those who summon it at will. It was her habitual escape from the boredom between thrills, and in such intervals of existence as she was now traversing she plunged back into it after every bout of outdoor activity.

Nona tiptoed forward and looked down on her. Who said that sleep revealed people's true natures? It only made them the more enigmatic by the added veil of its own mystery. Lita's head was nested in the angle of a thin arm, her lids rounded heavily above the sharp cheek-bones just swept by their golden fringe, the pale bow of the mouth relaxed,the slight steel-strong body half shown in the parting of a flowered dressing-gown. Thus exposed, with gaze extinct and loosened muscles, she seemed a mere bundle of contradictory whims tied together by a frail thread of beauty. The hand of the downward arm hung open, palm up. In its little hollow lay the fate of three lives. What would she do with them? How could one conceive of her knowing, or