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152 my leg?" said Mr. Manley. "Surely you can see that Lady Loudwater is pure Italian Renaissance. She is one of those subtle, mysterious creatures that Leonardo and Luini were always painting, compact of emotion."

"It's so long since I was at Balliol, and then I was doing Indian Civil work—the languages, you know. I've forgotten all I knew about the Renaissance in Italy, and I don't look at many pictures. All the same, I think you're wrong—your dramatic imagination, you know. My own idea is that Lady Loudwater, at any rate, is a quite simple creature."

"It isn't mine," said Mr. Manley firmly. "She's a great deal too intelligent to be simple, and she comes of far too intelligent a family."

"What family?" said Mr. Flexen.

"She's a Quainton, with Italian blood in her veins."

"The deuce she is!" cried Mr. Flexen, and half a dozen stories of the Quaintons rose in his mind.

He must amend his impressions of Lady Loudwater.

"And she has a keener sense of humour than any woman I ever came across," said Mr. Manley, driving his contention home.

"Has she?" said Mr. Flexen.

There was a pause. Then Mr. Manley said in a musing tone: "Do you suppose that Colonel Grey finds her simple?"