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"I'm going to bawl you out, as I said," began Jock, when they were face to face over two orange-juice wells sunk into two miniature icebergs. "But first I'm going to tell you that I think the transformation is—is miraculous. Duckling into swan, and all in one short year—I don't see how you did it."

"Year and two months," Cecily corrected him. "Well, you don't know how hard I've worked at it!"

"You must have."

"I've remembered every last thing you told me, Jock. Did you notice the dress I had on last night, for instance? 'Get red,' you said, 'something that knocks 'em in the eye.' Did it knock you in the eye, Jock? Say it did!"

But Jock had grown severe. "Right here," he asserted, "is where the fight starts. Did I, or did I not, tell you to run around with men like Loomis, who is one of the lower and lousier gutter-pups, as anybody can see at a glance—and did I ever tell you to go getting potted like you were last night?

"I'll tell you, Cecily," he went on, "the way I feel about it. I feel as though I'd met you up on the top of a nice little white hill, and I'd said, 'Here, here's a sled.' And you'd climbed aboard, and I'd given you a little push, and it turned out to be a big push after all and took you whizzing past where I wanted you to go. It's got me all worried, and I wish I'd left you just where you were."

Cecily sighed. "Oh, dear, I just knew you'd take it that way!"

"Well, sure! How else would I take it? When I was the egg who——