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VI
AND I FAIL TO PREVENT A BUMP-OFF.

Shirley was at her piano near a window facing the boulevard walk. As the night was cool and therefore the window was down, I could not hear what she played but her fingers moved over the keys and her red lips parted and closed and her red head tossed with animation as she sang her song.

She sang to no one; at least, no one but she was visible from the walk. Surely it was a light, happy song which she sang as she tossed her head and smiled. Her hair was bobbed and it flung like fine spun bronze about her pretty ears. I thought that if I could paint, I'd take a try at her just now with the soft pink light of her piano lamp upon her. I'd paint her as Youth—Youth and something else. Youth Enchained!

No; that wouldn't do. There should be something submissive, or at least something pathetic about a young person enchained; and there was nothing submissive about Shirley