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heart then stop and lift it sweepingly up and backward. She contended that gesture should be spontaneous. Hence she lifted her hands sweepingly up and backward whenever she was seized with the thought of doing so, and if you weren't careful she'd spill your drink.

"Don't you love Paris?" said Mamie.

"No," Grover replied, unwilling to agree with Mamie on any subject. "I detest it."

"What do you stay for, then?"

"Because I hate all the other places more."

"Oh, aren't you difficile!"

"Are you going to sing this afternoon?"

"Floss wants me to."

Grover doubted it but finished his drink in silence, contemplating a series of moves that would bring him into the vicinity of Olga.

"She invited Tamponi to hear me. He knows dozens of impresarios. Or is it ii, Highbrow?"

"Os will do."

"That's him over there by the piano talking to the girl in nasturtium velvet. Who is she?"

Nasturtium—that was it. He had been trying to find a name for the daring shade of the frock Olga wore so well. "I believe she's a friend of Hellgren's," he replied.

"Who's Hellgren?"

"The sculptor!" said Grover.

Floss had broken up the group near the piano and