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Rh at the ability with which he did it; now and again he felt as if, personally, he were performing feats on the loose wire, but that, thanks to Mr. Manley, he was not going to fall off. They talked of the usual subjects on which people who have not a large circle of common acquaintances fall back. They all three abused the politicians with perfect sympathy; they abused the British drama with perfect sympathy; with no less perfect sympathy they abused the Cubists and the Vorticists and the New Poets. Mr. Flexen had an odd feeling that they were behaving with entire naturalness and propriety; that their real interest was in the politicians, the British drama, the Cubists, the Vorticists and the New Poets, and not at all in the fate of the murderer of the late Lord Loudwater. After a while he found himself vying earnestly with Mr. Manley in an effort to display himself as a man of at least equal insight and intelligence.

Olivia did not talk much herself. She never did. But she displayed a quickness of understanding and soundness of judgment which stimulated them. All the while she was watching and weighing Mr. Flexen. He never once perceived it. Plainly enough, the talk did her good. She had come to dinner looking, Mr. Flexen thought, rather under the water. Before long she was looking, as she had resolved to look, her usual self. When, at a few minutes to nine, she left them, she was looking the most charm-