"Simplicity and a passion for Chinese art don't go together--at least, not what is usually called simplicity," said Mr. Manley dryly. "A friend of mine, who knows all about him, told me that he had had more really serious love affairs than any other man in London. He seems to be one of those men who fall in love hard every time they fall in love. He said that it was one of the mysteries of the polite world how he had kept out of the Divorce Court." "Sounds an odd type," said Mr. Flexen, storing up the information, and marking how little it agreed with his own observation of Colonel Grey. "And you say that Lady Loudwater is interesting too?" "Oh, come! Are you pumping me or merely pulling my leg?" said Mr. Manley. "Surely you can see that Lady Loudwater is pure Italian Renaissance. She is one of those subtle, mysterious creatures that Leonardo and Luini were always painting, compact of emotion." "It's so long since I was at Balliol, and then I was doing Indian Civil work--the languages, you know. I've forgotten all I knew about the Renaissance in Italy, and I don't look at many pictures. All the same, I think you're wrong--your dramatic imagination, you know. My own idea is that Lady Loudwater, at any rate, is a quite simple creature." "It isn't mine," said Mr. Manley firmly. "She's a great deal too intelligent to be simple, and she comes of far too intelligent a family." "What family?" said Mr. Flexen. "She's a Quainton, with Italian blood in her veins." "The deuce she is!" cried Mr. Flexen, and half a dozen stories of the Quaintons rose in his mind. He must amend his impressions of Lady Loudwater. "And she has a keener sense of humour than any woman I ever came across," said Mr. Manley, driving his contention home. "Has she?" said Mr. Flexen. There was a pause. Then Mr. Manley said in a musing tone: "Do you suppose that Colonel Grey finds her simple?" "What? You don't think that there is really anything serious between them?" said Mr. Flexen quickly. "No, not really serious--at any rate, on Colonel Grey's part. You can hardly expect a man, recovering very slowly from three bad wounds and still crocked up, to fall in love, can you? Especially a man who, when he does fall in love, falls in love with the violence with which Grey is charged," said Mr. Manley. "There is that," said Mr. Flexen. "But that wouldn't prevent Lady Loudwater from falling in love with Colonel Grey. And after the way her husband treated her, she must have needed something in the way of affection--badly."