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shade derisive. Yvonne shrugged her shoulders. "Well,—at least I'll have done one really decent thing in my life——"

A moment later Jock's querulous knock sounded, and she opened the door to him, wearing her long chinchilla wrap and the chiffon scarf with which she always protected her throat from the night air. She tried not to look at him. For the sake of composure, she knew it was better not to look at him. Yet her eyes were drawn irresistibly, and she tortured herself with his comeliness. Polished hair, brown laughing eyes, uneven mouth . . . and the splendid indolent length of frame. . . . These familiar things had never had such poignancy. She could have cried aloud, and thrown herself upon him.

She said evenly, "If you'll take this luggage——"

After the cold ride in from the Tavern, Yvonne's apartment was blissfully warm. Fragrant, too, with the indescribable dim perfume of its owner, and illumined by a single lamp with a fringed shade that etched pencil lines of shadow up the walls. Yvonne allowed her wrap to slip off, and dropped on to the divan, where she sat plying a cigarette in a jade holder. Jock stood over the radiator, thawing his frost-bitten hands. "Glad you made me come up," he said. "This feels good."

"I wanted to talk to you," Yvonne told him.

Some such explanation was necessary, for usually after their evening's work he left her downstairs in the lobby and himself went immediately on home. "I