When Mrs. Mountjoy came down to the drawing-room there seemed to be quite “a party” collected to enjoy the hospitality of Sir Magnus, but there were not, in truth, many more than the usual number at the board.  There were Lady Mountjoy, and Miss Abbot, and Mr. Anderson, with Mr. Montgomery Arbuthnot, the two attaches.  Mr. Montgomery Arbuthnot was especially proud of his name, but was otherwise rather a humble young man as an attache, having as yet been only three months with Sir Magnus, and desirous of perfecting himself in Foreign Office manners under the tuition of Mr. Anderson.  Mr. Blow, Secretary of Legation, was not there.  He was a married man of austere manners, who, to tell the truth, looked down from a considerable height, as regarded Foreign Office knowledge, upon his chief.

It was Mr. Blow who did the “grinding” on behalf of the Belgian Legation, and who sometimes did not hesitate to let it be known that such was the fact.  Neither he nor Mrs. Blow was popular at the Embassy; or it may, perhaps, be said with more truth that the Embassy was not popular with Mr. and Mrs. Blow.  It may be stated, also, that there was a clerk attached to the establishment, Mr. Bunderdown, who had been there for some years, and who was good-naturedly regarded by the English inhabitants as a third attache.  Mr. Montgomery Arbuthnot did his best to let it be understood that this was a mistake.  In the small affairs of the legation, which no doubt did not go beyond the legation, Mr. Bunderdown generally sided with Mr. Blow.  Mr. Montgomery Arbuthnot was recognized as a second mounted attache, though his attendance on the boulevard was not as constant as that of Mr. Anderson, in consequence, probably, of the fact that he had not a horse of his own.  But there were others also present.  There were Sir Thomas Tresham, with his wife, who had been sent over to inquire into the iron trade of Belgium.  He was a learned free-trader who could not be got to agree with the old familiar views of Sir Magnus,—­who thought that the more iron that was produced in Belgium the less would be forthcoming from England.  But Sir Thomas knew better, and as Sir Magnus was quite unable to hold his own with the political economist, he gave him many dinners and was civil to his wife.  Sir Thomas, no doubt, felt that in doing so Sir Magnus did all that could be expected from him.  Lady Tresham was a quiet little woman, who could endure to be patronized by Lady Mountjoy without annoyance.  And there was M. Grascour, from the Belgian Foreign Office, who spoke English so much better than the other gentlemen present that a stranger might have supposed him to be a school-master whose mission it was to instruct the English Embassy in their own language.