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"How can you call it beautiful?"

"Isn't it rather fine when two people, a man and a woether, in spite of the fact that everything else is conspiring to keep them apart?"

"I don't know," she said uncertainly "It just see"

"I don't want to discuss it, Mr Akers It is over"

While he ay fros she proratified aentle aloofness, exceedingly appealing, and with the tact of the man who understands wo me very unhappy; Miss Lily," he said "If you'll only promise to let me see you now and then, I'll promise to be as ling, still re to res that Louis Akers was not

"I think I ought not to see you at all"

"Then," he said slowly, "you are going to cut me off from the one decent influence inthat in hershot his bolt, watched with interest the preparation for the little cereian teaspoons, the Crown Derby cups, the bell-shaped Queen Anne teapot, beautifully chased, the old pierced sugar basin Alaze was proprietary And he watched Lily, her casual handling of those priceless treasures, her taking for granted of service and beauty, her acceptance of quality because she had never known anything else, watched her with possessive eyes

When the servant had gone, he said: "You are being very nice to me, in view of the fact that you did not askthat your family does not happen to care about me"

"They are not at home"

"I knew that, or I should not have come I don't want to make trouble for you, child" His voice was infinitely caressing "As it happens, I know your grandfather's Sunday habits, and Iout of town at noon I knew they had not come back"

"How do you know that?"

He s quite a lot of things Especially when they are as vital to me as this few minutes alone with you"