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 repertory of glances, any one of which was calculated to puzzle and disquiet Laura for several hours after she had received it.

As Consuelo, with a great show of courtesy, closed the door carefully behind her, Laura demanded, Did you hear that?

George was laughing. Of course, I heard it, Laura. By Jove, the kid's a wonder. I never thought I'd live to be jacked up by my own child about the tone of my conversation.

Laura was thoughtful. It isn't, she mused audibly, as if she were impolite. I don't think she is ever really that. Her governess reports that she is an angel so far as her deportment goes, but she has such a disconcerting habit of saying what she thinks, and she thinks so much!

Well, Laura, George suggested, I suppose the best thing to do, since she hasn't yet joined the Bolshevists or tried to set fire to the house, is to let her go right on thinking, even if she thinks out loud. That's the English system regarding free speech. In London they give radicals the opportunity to say anything they please publicly or privately, even to write it. This serves to let off a lot of steam and probably preserves the empire. People who talk seldom act. The Russian Tsars never learned that lesson and look where they are now. So long as Consuelo behaves herself to any reasonable degree, let her think or say what she wants to.