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158 any more about it. Oh, Edgar, I thought Charlie Lindsay was delightful! What nice relations you have got. He is so quick, too, so intelligent. He gives a staccato note."

Edgar stiffened slightly. Charlie had been a little flippant in the hall on the subject of the widening effect of foreign travel. He had told him that his mind must be as broad as it was long after all that voyaging. Also he had an allusion to make to Lucia's last speech.

"One moment," he said, "and then we will talk about Charlie. I think you said, 'As if I should not do as I choose.' Do you imply that you would not be guided by me and my experience in such matters?"

Lucia felt a sudden exasperation at this. But she checked it admirably.

"My dear, my own experience of women smoking is necessarily greater than yours, owing to my sex. The whole matter is infinitesimal, though; it is not worth discussing. Besides, I neatly and immediately covered that up by saying that you made yourself out a Bluebeard. I crossed the other out—erased it."

Edgar paused with his finger up, a trick he had in discussion, showing he had something to say.

"Ah, I put my finger on a weak spot in your argument. You say that, owing to your sex, you have a greater experience of women smoking. A quibble, my darling, a palpable quibble. We are talking of the impression produced on the world by women smoking in public, not on the inhalation of tobacco-smoke."

"My dear, you shall have it just your own way," said Lucia, "especially since the prohibition is relaxed. I repeat that I thought Charlie Lindsay delightful. We shall, I hope, see a good deal of him. That will naturally be so, will it not, as he marries my greatest friend?"

Edgar contemplated the very shiny toes of his evening shoes for a moment in silence.

"Perfect frankness is the foundation of success and happiness and harmony, is it not?" he observed. "So I will be perfectly frank."

"That means you have some objection to make, I suppose," said Lucia.

"Why do you anticipate that?" he asked.

"Simply because nobody calls attention to the advisability of frankness when his views coincide with another person's."