Lord Loudwater. After a while he found himself vying
earnestly with Mr. Manley in an effort to display himself as a man of at
least equal insight and intelligence.

Olivia did not talk much herself. She never did. But she displayed a
quickness of understanding and soundness of judgment which stimulated
them. All the while she was watching and weighing Mr. Flexen. He never
once perceived it. Plainly enough, the talk did her good. She had come
to dinner looking, Mr. Flexen thought, rather under the water. Before
long she was looking, as she had resolved to look, her usual self. When,
at a few minutes to nine, she left them, she was looking the most
charming and sympathetic creature in the world, and, what was more, a
creature without a care.

When the door closed behind her, she seemed to have taken with her a good
deal of the brightness of the room. Mr. Flexen dropped back into his
chair and frowned. In the silence which fell he wondered. Plainly she was
free enough from care now.

"But when the feast is finished and the lamps expire--"

Then Mr. Manley said, in a tone almost insolent: "If you think she
murdered that red-eyed bull in a china shop, you're wrong. She didn't."

Mr. Flexen did not resent his tone. Indeed, before he could speak, it
flashed on him that if she had done so, and Justice was depending on him
himself to bring her to it, it was depending on a somewhat frail reed. He
liked Mr. Manley for his readiness to fight for her cause.

He laughed gently and said: "I wasn't thinking so. I was only wondering."
Then his eyes on Mr. Manley's face turned very keen, and he said: "I
believe you know a good deal more about the affair than I do, if you
liked to speak."

It seemed to him that for a moment Mr. Manley's desire to make himself
valued struggled with his desire to be accurate.

Then the young man shook his head and said in a tone of surprise: "But
what nonsense! You know so much more about it than I do. Why, you must
have all the threads in your hands by now. I never even dreamt of the
_Daily Wire's_ mysterious woman."

"Not quite all--yet. But they're coming all right," said Mr. Flexen, with
a confidence he was far from feeling.

James Hutchings, coming into the room to fetch cigarettes for Olivia,
interrupted them.

"I'm glad to see you back again, Hutchings," said Mr. Manley in a tone of
hearty congratulation. "Your going away for a trifle after all the years
you've been here was a silly bus