"Haven't you been sleeping?"

"Not very well."

"That's why you're looking like your portrait. That man isn't such a silly ass as I thought he was."

"I wish," she said, "you'd contrive to forget him, and it, and everything."

"Everything?"

"You know what I mean. The horrid thing that's happened to me. My—my celebrity." She brought it out with a little shiver of revolt.

He laughed. "But when you remind me of it every minute? When it's everlastingly, if I may say so, on the carpet?"

Her eyes followed his. It was evident that she had bought a new one.

"It doesn't mean what you think it does. It isn't, it really isn't as bad as that——"

"I was afraid."