When the women had gone away and the men were sitting at their ease, with the silent William Bailey for host, a maze of acute interest surrounded the merchant; he could hear the Duke of Battersea, a little grumpy in the absence of the hostess, praising Lord Steyning to his face for the arrangement of his garden, and turning his back on Mr. Bailey, which gentleman, speaking for almost the first time that evening, shoved up close to Mr. Clutterbuck and maintained his character for oddity by asking how he liked the Peabody Yid. Mr. Clutterbuck, uncertain whether this were a novel, a play, or a new game, but unwilling to betray his ignorance, said that it depended upon taste. "It does," said Mr. Bailey, with emphasis; "it's a jolly house, isn't it?" Mr. Clutterbuck affirmed the grandeur and admirable appointment of the house, but he could not help wondering whether William Bailey would have been more pleased if he had found something to criticise. Then, as Charlie Fitzgerald turned to talk to Mr. Clutterbuck, William Bailey relapsed again into his silence, an attitude of mind which he diversified in no way save by pulling out a pencil and sketching, with some exaggeration of the ears, nape, and curled ringlets, the back view presented to him by the venerable Duke of Battersea. Upstairs, Mary Smith, squatting familiarly beside Mrs. Clutterbuck, giggled into her private ear with that delightful familiarity which had ever put her guests into her intimate confidence, and swept away every vestige of _gêne_ and of disparity in status. This charm of manner it was for which those whom she still honoured chiefly loved her, and which those whom she had seen fit to drop most poignantly regretted. Upon Mrs. Clutterbuck, as she reclined on a Tutu Louis XVII., in an attitude full of charm and of repose yet instinct with self-control, the spell of Mary Smith was powerful indeed. Her talk was of the great--and of their secretaries. She remembered stories of ambassadors, and of their secretaries as well; and in what she had to say concerning Secretaries of State, yet other secretaries of these secretaries appeared--unpaid secretaries and under-secretaries, parliamentary secretaries, and common negligible secretaries who did secretarial work. The functions, position, and weight of a secretary had never seemed so clear to Mrs. Clutterbuck before; nay, until that moment she had given but little heed to the secretary's trade. She saw it now.