THE TOUCHSTONE
words resolved themselves into a smile and she waited.
He took another turn, with the thwarted step of the man whose nervous exasperation escapes through his muscles.
"And to think that in fifteen years I shall have a big practice!"
Her eyes triumphed for him. "In less!"
"The cursed irony of it! What do I care for the man I shall be then? It's slaving one's life away for a stranger!" He took her hands abruptly. "You'll go to Cannes, I suppose, or Monte Carlo? I heard Hollingsworth say to-day that he meant to take his yacht over to the Mediterranean—"
She released herself. "If you think that—"
"I don't. I almost wish I did. It would be easier, I mean." He broke off incoherently. "I believe your Aunt Virginia does, though. She somehow connotes Hollingsworth and the Mediterranean." He caught her hands again. "Alexa—if we could manage a little hole somewhere out of town?"
"Could we?" she sighed, half yielding.
"In one of those places where they make jokes
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