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306 “Capital good soup,” remarked Mr Quantock. “Can’t get soup like this at home.”

There was dead silence. Why was there never a silence when Olga was there, wondered Georgie. It wasn’t because she talked, she somehow caused other people to talk.

“Tommy Luton hasn’t got measles,” said Mrs Weston. “I always said he hadn’t, though there are measles about. He came to walk as usual this morning, and is going to sing in the carols tonight.”

She suddenly stopped.

Georgie gave an imploring glance at Foljambe, and looked at the champagne glasses. She took no notice. Lucia turned to Georgie, with an elbow on the table between her and Mr Quantock.

“And what news, Georgie?” she said. “Peppino and I have been so busy that we haven’t seen a soul all day. What have you been doing? Any planchette?”

She looked brightly at Mrs Quantock.

“Yes, dear Daisy, I needn’t ask you what you’ve been doing. Table-turning, I expect. I know how interested you are in psychical matters. I should be, too, if only I could be certain that I was not dealing with fraudulent people.”

Georgie felt inclined to give a hollow groan and sink under the table when this awful polemical rhetoric began. To his unbounded surprise Mrs Quantock answered most cordially.

“You are quite right, dear Lucia,” she said. “Would it not be terrible to find that a medium, some dear friend perhaps, whom one implicitly trusted, was exposed as fraudulent? One sees