"And the man who really did the trick has forgotten all about it, and is talking to every one in their own language about the affairs of their own countries," as Vaga the Spaniard remarked. He had a peculiar distaste for Charles. Grattan came up grinning to Henry. "Hallo, Beechtree. You seem to have provided one of the sensations of the day. I didn't know you had it in you. I'm sorry your sporting effort to upset our friend Wilbraham failed." "So am I," Henry gloomily returned. "He deserves to be upset. And I'm not even now sure he hadn't a hand in it all.... But of course it's no use saying so. No one will ever believe it of him now that I've mucked it so. They'll believe nothing I say.... Did you hear what he said about me at the committee meeting? I suppose every one has." "Well, I imagine it's got about more or less. Is it true, by the way?" "On the contrary, a complete and idiotic lie." The expressionless detachment of Henry's voice and face moved Grattan to mirth. "That's all right, then; I'll put it about. You keep on smiling, old bean. No one's going to worry, even if it wasn't a lie, you know." "Wilbraham will worry. He will, no doubt, take steps to have me excluded from the Press Gallery as a disreputable character. I don't particularly mind. What I do mind is that it isn't Wilbraham who's going to get run in for this business, but poor old Franchi. I _like_ Franchi. He's delightful, however many delegates he's kidnapped." "Oh, the more the better. A jolly old sportsman. My word, what a brain! Talk of master criminals, ... and to think that I once thought the Assembly scarcely worth coming for. Live and learn. I shall never miss another." He called to Garth, who was passing. "I say, Garth, Beechtree says he's not a lady and that Wilbraham's a liar. Spread it about, there's a good chap." Garth nodded. He, like Grattan, believed Wilbraham on this point and not Henry, but it was more comfortable to take Henry at his own valuation. After all, if the chap _was_ a woman, whose concern was it but his own? Rather a caddish trick on Wilbraham's part to have publicly accused him. Though, to be sure, he had just been by him publicly accused, so perhaps they were quits. But, poor girl (if she was a girl), she must be feeling up a tree now. She seemed a nice enough person, too; a bit of a fool, of course, but then any one who'd write for the _British Bolshevist_, that pestilential rag, would need to be either a fool or a knave, or both. So, on the whole, Henry was not acutely uncomfortable among his colleagues of the press. Once Wilbraham passed close to him talking to the second British delegate, and fixed him with a glassy stare. Henry, refusing to be embarrassed, put up his monocle and stared back, as if surprised at the ill-breeding of this person. So they came to the Monet pier, as the village church clock chimed seven. 47