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368 "Oh, I yield to your memory," said the charming woman, "and I confess my extravagance. But quite, you know, as extravagance."

"I don't at all know,"—Mr. Prodmore shook it off,—"nor what you call extravagance."

"Why, banging the desk. Raving. Shrieking. I over-did it," she exclaimed; "I wanted to please you!"

She had too happy a beauty, as she sat in her high-backed chair, to have been condemned to say that to any man without a certain effect. The effect on Mr. Prodmore was striking. "So you said," he sternly inquired, "what you didn't believe?"

She flushed with the avowal. "Yes—for you."

He looked at her hard. "For me?"

Under his eye—for her flush continued—she slowly got up. "And for those good people."

"Oh!"—he sounded most sarcastic. "Should you like me to call them back?"

"No." She was still gay enough, but very decided. "I took them in."

"And now you want to take me?"

"Oh, Mr. Prodmore!" she almost pitifully, but not quite adequately, moaned.

He appeared to feel he had gone a little far. "Well, if we're not what you say"