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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Glimpses of the Moon by Edith Wharton: and surpassing him in the art of personal attraction. Nick
Lansing, the Hickses found, already knew most of the Princess
Mother's rich and aristocratic friends. Many of them hailed him
with enthusiastic "Old Nicks", and he was almost as familiar as
His Highness's own aide-de-camp with all those secret
ramifications of love and hate that made dinner-giving so much
more of a science in Rome than at Apex City.
Mrs. Hicks, at first, had hopelessly lost her way in this
labyrinth of subterranean scandals, rivalries and jealousies;
and finding Lansing's hand within reach she clung to it with
pathetic tenacity. But if the young man's value had risen in
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