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BREAKFAST


She could never leave a phrase unmodified. He could have answered with facetious emphasis that he was almost inclined to believe he would rather have enjoyed that egg.

Dumbly, he took two rashers of the moist and mottled bacon.

"And then," Hilary Bevel was recounting, "it all changed, and we were moving very quickly through a kind of pinkish mist—running, it felt like, only all my legs and arms were somewhere else. That was the time when you came into it, Aunt Willoughby. You were winding up your sewing machine like a motor car, kneeling down, in a sort of bunching bathing dress. . . ." She dared indelicacy, reaching out for the marmalade with a little agitated rustle to break up the silence with which her night's amazing experiences had been received.

Miss Emily, always kindly, tittered into her cup. She kicked the leg of Rossiter's chair and apologised; and he watched her thin, sharp shoulders shining through her blouse.

Mrs. Russel's eye travelled slowly round the table; there slowed and ceased the

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