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around the room, as if she were looking for some outer support.

"No, no!" she gasped out loud, and huddled tighter under the blanket. "I'll marry Jacques, or Pierre-anyone, anyone, but never you!"

"Me, me, no one but me!" His voice became imperative.

She buried her head in the hot pillow and yielded to the ecstasy of his remembered kisses. At last "Good Night." Then the dull thud of car wheels rumbling along over spark-spitting rails. Far away in the blackness a white tunnel gleamed. An endless white tunnel filled with a golden rain of revolving spotlights, broke into the room, spread wide the walls, dissolved the panes of the attic window. Everything was whirling about in a mad gyration, mingling, separating and dancing about...

She sprang from the bed, washed her face and throat and shoulders with cold water. Calmer now, she viewed her slim nakedness in the tall floor mirror.

A burst of Spring flooded the room. She stood upright, taking in the full length of her young body, feeling no shame, no weakness, no despair. Her life was in full tide, and she was ready to face it.

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