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104 Art if it's got to be mixed up with indecency. What's your opinion, Teresa?"

"You are perfectly right. I shall put proper clothes on all the figures on that punch-bowl I'm making for you."

"Oh, I say! You know I don't mean that sort of thing! I'm not a prig. But—well, you wait till you hear him."

Teresa thought that the poet must certainly have heard some of these remarks, but he seemed absorbed in explaining to Alice and to Mr. Kerr, a gentleman of uncertain age and inexpressive countenance, something which required a great many gestures of unmanicured hands. She saw that Basil was having a good time with Mary Addams; he was laughing a good deal, drinking a good deal of excellent Burgundy; his eyes had the attentive and warm look called out by any woman he liked. There was more life and vigour in his handsome head than in all the others combined. Beside him Horace Blackley looked fat and commonplace, Page looked conventional, Mr. Kerr pallid and used, the poet greasy and theatrical, and the Englishman looked like a grave phantom—a phantom of distinction. Teresa could hardly believe that he was not an Eastern—she could imagine him with the white burnoose, the hood over his head, a typical Arab. She said as much to Page.

"Ah, you're right—I believe there is a drop