she felt that she had accomplished a social triumph. Mrs. Hill-Smith had chaperoned the dinner; and the diplomats invited had refrained from laughing in the face of their hostess, although they had chuckled with amusement when in the dressing-room. Mrs. Baldwin, who stood in the background, wore more than her usual expression of icy pride, which meant that she was more than usually frightened. Eleanor’s lovely face relaxed into a smile as she turned to the British Ambassador, who was a widower. He was a tall, handsome, high-bred-looking, elderly man, with a clean-shaven face, and a thin-lipped mouth, which had contorted itself into a grin on his first arrival in Washington, and the grin had become fixed and perpetual. He had no fortune beyond his salary and pension, he had rheumatism, liver complaint, nervous dyspepsia, chronic bronchitis, and a family of six unmarried daughters and four sons, ranging from thirty-six to sixteen years of age--yet Eleanor Baldwin would have jumped down his throat, and Mrs. Hill-Smith was going for him with the stealthy energy of a cat after the cream-jug. Eleanor, putting on a roguish expression of countenance, said to the Ambassador: “Ah, Mrs. Hill-Smith and I are becoming factors in diplomacy! At our dinner to-night, every man present was a diplomat, and you may imagine what state secrets were disclosed!” “The results may be serious,” replied the Ambassador, laughing a little. “We shall have to keep our eyes upon the American diplomats who were present so as to find out how our secrets were betrayed.” “There weren’t any Americans present,” answered Eleanor, gaily. “Eh?” said the Ambassador, pretending to be deaf. Eleanor repeated her words a little louder. There was Constance Maitland near enough to hear, and like Mrs. Hill-Smith, Eleanor was a little afraid of Constance Maitland, and also of Mr. Thorndyke, who had an uncomfortable way of laughing at very serious matters; and just at her elbow was that queer Castlestuart-Stuart, who blurted out things, such as not liking books, which other people kept to themselves; and it was this British bull which now proceeded to play havoc in the china-shop. “Yes,” he said, with an air of infantine innocence, and addressing his chief boldly. “It’s positively true. Not a blessed American man there. Never saw such a thing anywhere in my life before. Fancy giving a dinner in London to foreign diplomats and not having an Englishman there--haw! haw!” Both Eleanor and Mrs. Hill-Smith turned pale. Constance Maitland laughed outright; the Ambassador and Sir Mark le Poer looked gravely into each other’s eyes, and telegraphed, without winking, their amusement. Castlestuart-Stuart kept on.