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 try to do it again! It's like Hamlet trying to smile in the scene with his mother. You poor thing, does it upset you as much as that whenever your fascinating lady dines somewhere else?"

"I've told you before that she isn't 'my' fascinating lady."

"Well, she's certainly fascinating," Olivia, explained; "and as you're travelling with her"

He interrupted her. "Do you mind not putting it just that way? I happen to be motoring with her and her son."

Olivia assented cheerfully. "Yes, indeed! I forgot that she's so much older than she looks. You're really not much more than the age of her son, of course, while Madame Momoro is—well, almost a contemporary of my father's, for instance."

He frowned. "I don't know that I'd"

"Will you make a bet?" she asked gayly. "My end of it is that she's at least five years nearer Papa's age than she is yours." Then without waiting for him to respond she went on: "That makes it all the more conventional for you to be motoring with them, of course. She's really a sort of motherly chaperone for you and her son."

"You're very kind to be so interested," he said