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got to keep that silly tongue of yours from wagging; you'll I have to use your head, and act like a lady. You'll be getting me out of a mess of trouble."

"If you'd say what you mean, maybe I'd understand," Mary remarked, standing quietly with her arms folded.

"Well, then listen carefully." Monique twisted her lithe hips into her dress. Her firmly-enclosed breasts, half bare, glowed through the net of black tulle. On her head, among the platinum blonde curls, fluttered a gleaming black jeweled butterfly. "You understand what I mean?" Monique continued in her dictatorial voice, after she had given Mary precise instructions. "What he needs most of all is a little bit of warming up and encouragement. Naturally you'll have to watch that tongue of yours. Of course, it really makes no difference to me; I'm never going to see him again anyway. But I just haven't the heart to call him up and break the news to him."

Gazing at her cousin's radiant beauty, Mary felt some of her self-confidence slipping away. Her lips parted in wonder as she stared at Monique, and the latter, seeing Mary's open confusion, smiled.

"And you'll have to put on a prettier dress too, and make yourself a little glamorous," she said.

"But what shall I say to him?" Mary's face took on a helpless expression.

"That's of no importance. I leave the whole thing to you. You'll manage to figure something out. Well, I hope you understand. And now au revoir."

While this was going on, Anna, in the concierge's cubicle, learned from Madame Dabbie that the Levitans were the best of people-except that he had a passion for card playing and his wife for the roulette wheel. But those were mere