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Fifty Candles

“Come on, my boy,” pleaded old Drew.

“All right,” I answered rather ungraciously, and jumped in. Drew followed, Hung piled my bags somewhere in front, and we crept off into the fog.

“Taking Mr. Winthrop to his hotel,” explained Drew.

“How nice,” his wife said in her cold hard voice. I looked toward Mary Will. She seemed unaware of my presence.

Like a human thing the car felt its way cautiously through the mist. About us sounded a constant symphony of automobile horns, truckmen’s repartee, the clank of hoofs, the rattle of wheels. From where I sat on a little chair in front I could see the clear-cut beautiful silhouette of Carlotta Drew’s face against the window, shrouded in fog. I wondered what she was thinking—this woman whose exploits had furnished the gossips of the China coast with a serial story running through many mad years. Of her first lover, perhaps; her

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