y dull place with Alan Massey
suddenly removed from it. When they danced together she was dangerously
near being what he had claimed she was or would be--all his. She knew
this, was afraid of it, yet she kept on dancing with him night after
night. It seemed as if she had to, as if she would have danced with him
even if she knew the next moment would send them both hurtling through
space, like Lucifer, down to damnation.
It was not until Dick Carson came down for a week end, some time later,
that Tony discovered the resemblance in Alan to some one she knew of
which Carlotta had spoken. Incredibly and inexplicably Dick and Alan
possessed a shadowy sort of similarity. In most respects they were as
different in appearance as they were in personality. Dick's hair was
brown and straight; Alan's, black and wavy. Dick's eyes were steady
gray-blue; Alan's, shifty gray-green. Yet the resemblance was there,
elusive, though it was. Perhaps it lay in the curve of the sensitive
nostrils, perhaps in the firm contour of chin, perhaps in the arch of the
brow. Perhaps it was nothing so tangible, just a fleeting trick of
expression. Tony did not know, but she caught the thing just as Carlotta
had and it puzzled and interested her.
She spoke of it to Alan the next morning after Dick's arrival, as they
idled together, stretched out on the sand, waiting for the others to come
out of the surf.
To her surprise he was instantly highly annoyed and resentful.
"For Heaven's sake, Tony, don't get the resemblance mania. It's a
disgusting habit. I knew a woman once who was always chasing likenesses
in people and prattling about them--got her in trouble once and served
her right. She told a young lieutenant that he looked extraordinarily
like a certain famous general of her acquaintance. It proved later that
the young man had been born at the post where the general was stationed
while the presumptive father was absent on a year's cruise. It had been
quite a prominent scandal at the time."
"That isn't a nice story, Alan. Moreover it is entirely irrelevant. But
you and Dick do look alike. I am not the only or the first person who saw
it, either."
Alan started and frowned.
"Good Lord! Who else?" he demanded.
"Carlotta!"
"The devil she did!" Alan's eyes were vindictive. Then he laughed.
"Commend me to a girl's imagination! This Dick chap seems to be head over
heels in love with you," he added.
"What nonsense!" denied Tony crisply, f
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