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FLAMING

YOUTH

35

  • What’ll you give me for it?” he teased.

It was the first spur that her instinct of conscious seductiveness had ever known. She replied instantly: “Anything.” “You’re on. Wait for me right there.” While he was gone, a long time as it seemed to her, she

stood surging with an exultant inner turmoil. A man and a girl passed close to her, unseeing in the bar of light. The girl’s eyes wore a strange, sleepy expression as if the lids were almost too heavy to hold open. The man’s shoulder was pressed close upon her. They disappeared. Strange scents of the night crept into Pat’s brain; made her remember things she had never known. The music, softened through intervening walls, was pleading sensuously, urging upon her something mysterious and desirable. She felt her nerves like strung wires already tingling with electric forces but awaiting the supreme shock. “Drink, pretty creature!” The gay, insinuating, mirthful voice was close to her.

“You've only half filied it,” she complained, taking the glass. “Must have spilled some. In such a hurry to get back ‘“There’s plenty more where it to you,” he explained. came from if you like it.” “J don’t,” she gasped. The liquid, of which she had She taken a generous swallow, stung in her throat. said she “Here,” ground. the poured the rest out upon holding out the glass to him. His fingers met hers again. The glass fell and crunched

beneath his foot as he stepped to her. She was hardly cognisant of his arm drawing her. Rather what she felt was some irresistible power compelling her to itself. ‘The

faee of the youth, still gay with laughter, drew down

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