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“That,” said Gertrude, “will take a miracle, and I have not noticed that you and Providence are on the best of terms”

“I don’t believe in nifies at present”

“Doesn’t signify?” Augusta cried

Why would they not go away? Why had Lexhaled them all at birth?

“I’ve disposed of the mob,” he said “Next is the newspapers”

He walked to the door, and the tragic chorus gave way

He summoned a footman

“You will find a disreputable-looking being na in the square,” Marchmont told the servant “Tell hiround floor”

As one would expect, this set off the chorus

“Beardsley?”

“That horrid little person from the Delphian?”

“What is the Delphian?” ca voice from behind him

“A newspaper,” said a sister

“Ghastly, gossipy newspaper”

“He’s a vile little man rites stories for it”

“Sometimes in iambic pentameter He fancies himself a writer”

“You can’t mean to have him in the house, Marchmont”

“What will Papa say?”

“Since I am not a mind reader, I haven’t the least idea what your father will say,” said Marchmont “Perhaps he will say, ‘That was an excellent idea the ancient Greeks had, of abandoning feiven up, I wonder?’”

Having rendered thee, he turned to Zoe “Miss Lexhaood as to walk downstairs with me?”

Before she stepped out into the corridor, she sesture would have seemed nervous With her it was provocative She did it in the way she’d trailed her hands across her boso her hips

I know all the arts of pleasing a man, she’d said

He had not the s his skin and under it, speeding to his groin He could al into ax, the wax a woman could do as she liked with

Nothing wrong with that, he told hiood oodsisters and laughed—at himself, at the circumstances

She looked up questioningly at him, and he almost believed she had no idea how provocative she was Almost believed it

I’m not innocent, she’d said That he could believe

“I was only thinking of the thousand pounds you’ve cost me,” he said

“You refer to the wager with your friends,” she said “You didn’t believe it was me But why should you? I orried at first that my own parents wouldn’t know me”

“Well, none of us do, do we?” he said “But it is you, beyond a doubt And I ae the money”

“You’re glad?” she said, her face lighting up “You?