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 "If you insist? … Why I suppose … it's awfully good of you." She flashed him a maddening glance.

"You do me pro—honor," he amended hastily. Then, daringly: "I don't ask much in exchange, only"

"A cigarette?" she suggested hastily.

He laughed, pleased and diverted. "That'll be enough now—if you'll light it for me."

She glanced dubiously round the now almost deserted room; and a waiter started forward as if animated by a spring. Anisty motioned him imperiously back. "Go on," he coaxed; "no one can see." And watched, flattered, the slim white fingers that extracted a match from the stand and drew it swiftly down the prepared surface of the box, holding the flickering flame to the end of a white tube whose tip lay between lips curved, scarlet, and pouting.

There! A pale wraith of smoke floated away on the fan-churned air, and Anisty was vaguely conscious of receiving the glowing cigarette from a