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36
FIDELIA

expressed itself in no particular but which, at that instant, he could examine and it caused him to see Nell as colorless and somber beside her. She had personality, this stranger; it spoke in the timbre of her low, pleasing voice which now reached him as she replied to some inaudible remark of Nell's. Then he was near enough to see her face as Nell and she came under a light.

She had red hair, he saw; and her eyes were beautiful; she was beautiful.

"Hello, David," Nell was saying. "Miss Netley, this is Mr. Herrick; Dave, Miss Netley, who's just come here."

Dave pulled off his cap. "Oh, don't do that, please!" Miss Netley protested, offering her hand.

He pulled his cap on again; and jerked off his heavy glove and took her hand. She had on a light, smooth kid glove and he felt a firm, strong, agreeable grasp replying to his. Hers was an individual grasp; no one had ever clasped his hand in quite that way. He thought, as he gazed at her, "I'd know you anywhere again, if I just heard your voice. If we'd met in the dark, I'd know you the next time from your hand."

Aloud, he spoke an ordinary commonplace.

She did not. "I've met Miss Sothron; I've just been with her, Mr. Herrick. She's lovely," Miss Netley said, drawing her hand from his.

"Yes," agreed Dave. "Of course I think so."

"Alice'll be out in a couple of minutes, Dave," said Nell Gould. "She stayed to speak with Myra."

"Thanks," said Dave.

Miss Netley nodded to him and he gazed at her