Flexible lady in the Orient starts to incur charges (7)

I believe the answer is:

elastic

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'flexible' is the definition.
(I know that flexible can be written as elastic)

'lady in the orient starts to incur charges' is the wordplay.
'lady' becomes 'las' (I can't explain this - if you can you should believe this answer much more).
'in' indicates putting letters inside.
'the orient' becomes 'e'.
'starts' says to take the initial letters.
The first letters of 'to incur charges' is 'tic'.
'e'+'tic'='etic'
'las' inserted into 'etic' is 'ELASTIC'.

Can you help me to learn more?

(Other definitions for elastic that I've seen before include "Stretcher" , "Stretchable material" , "Resilient" , "capable of adapting to change?" , "Like a small band" .)

I've seen this clue in The Daily Express.

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