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  ‘intelligent,’ and no one can imagine how I hate the word!”

“It is offensive, but not so bad as some others. I, for example, have been called a ‘conscientious writer’!”

“Oh, are you a writer?”

“Of a sort, yes. But, as you were saying—”

“As I was saying, everything was going so beautifully until ten days ago, when Helena’s people cabled her to come home. Her mother is seriously ill and cannot live more than a few months. She went at once, but I could n’t go with her—not very well, in midsummer—and so here I am, all alone, high and dry.”

She leaned her chin in the cup of her hand and, looking absent-mindedly at the shimmering rushes, fell into a spell of silence that took no account of Appleton.

To tell the truth, he did n’t mind looking at her unobserved for a moment or two. He had almost complete control of his senses, and he did n’t believe she could be as pretty as he thought she was. There was no reason to think that she was better to look at than