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 watching it with large round eyes. Mr. Winnery had a fleeting impression that Pietro had winked at him, but he could not be certain, and he could not as a guest of Mrs. Weatherby endanger her prestige by acknowledging the wink.

"Now that we have settled it," said Mrs. Weatherby more calmly, "you must have some tea."

As they started toward the villa Mr. Winnery turned again to regard the statue in disgrace. It was a remarkably fine thing, he thought, and a pity to bury it again. Still, with this eccentric woman, arguments would arrive nowhere. She placed no value upon anything in the world but her own ego. It was a fine thing, the statue. At moments it seemed almost to have a life of its own. Just now in the heat of the afternoon it appeared lascivious and amused as if it were saying, "You may bury me and unbury me a thousand times but you can't be rid of me. I shall be with you always."

It was a pity, thought Mr. Winnery. It seemed to him that the statue had brought him luck. Everything had happened since Miss Annie Spragg had died and the statue was dug up from the cesspool.

"Shoo!" cried Mrs. Weatherby, making threatening gestures and pushing her way through the goats. "Shoo! Shoo!"

They had tea, the same bad tea out of rusty tins that tasted as if it were made of hay, and dried digestive biscuits very nearly as old, thought Mr.