ised to receive the information; then,
considering the terms on which Olivia had been with her husband, he found
her action natural enough. After all, she was not a woman of the middle
class, bound to make a pretence of grieving for a wholly unamiable bully.
Also, he was pleased: to dine with so charming a creature as Olivia would
be pleasant and stimulating. In the course of the evening his wits might
rise to the solution of his problem. Moreover, it would be odd if he did
not gain a further, valuable insight into her character.

He was yet more surprised to find James Hutchings, still rather pale and
haggard, but quite cool and master of himself, superintending the
waiting of Wilkins and Holloway at dinner. Also, he liked the way in
which he spoke to Olivia and looked at her. To Mr. Flexen, James
Hutchings had the air of the authentic faithful dog. He was inclined to
a better opinion of him.

Plainly, too, Olivia had learned that tongues were wagging against him,
and had taken this way of checking them. It was a generous act. At the
same time, he could very well believe that Olivia might, unconsciously of
course, be on the side of the murderer of such a husband.

Thanks to Mr. Manley's invaluable sense of what was fitting, there was no
constraint about the dinner. He had decided that they were three people
of the world dining together, and the fact that there had been a murder
in the house three days before and a funeral in the morning should not be
allowed to impair their proper nonchalance. At the same time, decorum
must be preserved; there must be no laughter.

Accordingly he took the conversation in hand, and kept it in hand. Mr.
Flexen was somewhat astonished at the ability with which he did it; now
and again he felt as if, personally, he were performing feats on the
loose wire, but that, thanks to Mr. Manley, he was not going to fall off.
They talked of the usual subjects on which people who have not a large
circle of common acquaintances fall back. They all three abused the
politicians with perfect sympathy; they abused the British drama with
perfect sympathy; with no less perfect sympathy they abused the Cubists
and the Vorticists and the New Poets. Mr. Flexen had an odd feeling that
they were behaving with entire naturalness and propriety; that their real
interest was in the politicians, the British drama, the Cubists, the
Vorticists and the New Poets, and not at all in the fate of the murderer
of the late