He had not been lucky at Monte Carlo. I do not only mean in the favourite amusement of that place, which he had indulged in for no more than the first day of his visit, for his means were restricted, but also in the weather and the company he found. For the anniversary of the Birth of Christ had drawn from the Riviera to their respective homes many in that cultured cosmopolitan world which held the most intimate of his friends. He returned, therefore, to The Plâs not in ill humour--that he could never show--but a little sobered and now and then a little sad. When Mr. Clutterbuck exposed to him in full the action he had seen fit to take, no one could have been more sympathetic than he. "It was a large thing to do, Clutterbuck," he said as they strolled round the garden arm in arm, "but I think it was a wise one." The afternoon was mild, it had not rained for several hours, and the paths were dry. Charlie Fitzgerald, thinking of what to say next, threw a pebble or two into the lake, and then went on: "Abroad, of course, they don't understand this Fishmonger business; but they do understand that there's a change in English politics ... we've come to a sort of turning-point," he said thoughtfully, somewhat in the same tone as men talked of the Labour Party years before. "The old party divisions have changed; I don't know whether you like it or whether you don't; I've never made up my mind; but you're on the crest of the wave of the change, and you can't help it." Mr. Clutterbuck surveyed the breadth of the English dale, the woods of Surrey and his own great house; he felt the responsibility and the burden of the high function which England had thrust upon him. "I shall try to do my duty," he said humbly. And the two types--the Anglo-Saxon and the Celt--were constrained to a common silence for some moments. Then Mr. Clutterbuck said again: "I shall try to do my duty." Charlie Fitzgerald was really moved. "You couldn't have done better," he said. "In politics it is absolutely necessary to be hall-marked in some way; and men like you, who can't stoop to eccentricity, are much better when they are hall-marked by a simple honour. _I_ know, and I dare say you know, that they'd have given it to you long ago, but you never wanted it, you never asked for it--and I don't mind telling you they think the better of you." Mr. Clutterbuck was deeply touched; men of his sort do not always understand how much they gain or lose by their simplicity, and it is pleasant to know that such a quality in one's soul has made one beloved. "They'd have given it you on the King's birthday last year," said Fitzgerald with quiet emphasis, "and they'd have given it just before I came here: Bozzy talked of it openly. Since I've been here they haven't said anything." "They haven't had occasion to, Mr. Fitzgerald," said Mr. Clutterbuck. "No," answered Fitzgerald, "and it doesn't do to rush things. Besides which, the obvious thing is the New Year."