“Now stop,” I said, severely.  “I would rather hear your views on morality and religion than the rubbish you are now talking.”

“I have never been more snubbed in my life.  Even Miss Corrisande K. Trumpet did not flatten me out as you do,” he said, with feigned resentment.

“You told me in the beginning I looked unlike the Englishwomen.  Well, I am unlike them.  I am a person of bad nature.  I refuse to be bored.”

“And I bore you?”

“Only when you talk silly sentiment.”

“Then it is a bargain.  If I don’t bore you, you will be friends with me?”

“And if you do—­bon soir, monsieur,” and I rose, laughing, and joined my hostess.

The party this time was much nicer than the former one I came to.  It was composed of clever, interesting people.  The conversation was often brilliant and elevating.  No one talked like Babykins or Lady Grenellen.  In fact, it appeared another society altogether.  It seemed impossible among these people to realize that perhaps, in reality, they are like the rest.  There was not a word or a look which would suggest that they held any but the highest views.

Lady Tilchester shone among them.  She seemed to be in a suitable setting.  They were mostly of very high rank, and the rest politicians and diplomats.  They did not clip their sentences and use pet words, and they did not smoke cigarettes all the time.

The women, although not nearly so well dressed or attractive to look at, were much more agreeable to one another, and one was a perfectly wonderful musician.  Her playing delighted us all.  She played the things of Greig that I played to Antony on the evening at Dane Mount.  I sat by myself and listened.  I seemed to see his face and hear his voice, but the good resolutions I had made while sitting in grandmamma’s chair helped me to put these thoughts away.

I felt more at rest, at peace, here.  Every one’s life seemed full of interest—­interest in something great.  I would like this society best if I had to choose which I would frequent, but I can realize that people as good as these, but duller and less brilliant, would make one look at the clock.

Perhaps Lady Tilchester’s plan of having every sort at her house is the best, after all.  Then she can have variety and never be bored.

I wonder if it is the occupation of their minds with great things, in this set, which balances with the “lives of compulsion” led by the middle classes, and so prevents them also from “getting back to nature,” as the Duke said.

It is an interesting problem.

Mr. Budge sat down and talked to me.  He has a very strong character, I am sure, and I was flattered that he should think me worth speaking to.

“I admire your perfect stillness,” he said at last, after there had been a pause of a moment or two.  “I have never seen a woman sit so still.  It is a great quality.”