"You behaved disgracefully," said Stanley, as they went in search of Mrs. Roberts, "and I shall have to spend most of this evening in trying to make my peace with Lady Isabelle." "Poor, proper Jimsy! Was he shocked? But I really couldn't help it, you know--she's such a funny old thing." The Secretary wisely changed the subject. When they discovered Mrs. Roberts she assured them that their proposed arrangement at table suited her exactly, but could not forbear whispering in her niece's ear: "I shouldn't think you'd have thought it necessary to ask. Of course, I'd arranged it that way." To which Miss Belle whispered in return: "Don't be stupid!" CHAPTER XI AFTER DINNER When the Secretary entered the drawing-room he received a distinct shock of surprise. The one person in the party unknown to him was Mr. Riddle. Yet those high cheek-bones, that prominent nose between the deep-set, restless eyes, peering out under their shaggy eyebrows, were strangely familiar. He had seen them once before when they and their owner occupied a cab together with his fair dinner partner. He was on the point of saying so to her, but restrained himself, he hardly knew why, in deference, perhaps, to his diplomatic training, which forbade him ever to say anything unnecessary. Fate placed him next to the Dowager Marchioness, who was manifestly displeased at his presence, and lost no time in making him feel thoroughly uncomfortable. "I had always supposed," she began, before he was fairly seated at the table, "that at this season of the year there was a great deal of activity in the diplomatic world." "There is," answered Stanley hastily, scenting danger, and anxious to turn the conversation from his own affairs. "Most countries have a little leisure, and, like Satan, expend the time in making and finding mischief." "That is, of course, a matter of which I am no judge, Mr. Stanley, but I should have supposed, under the circumstances, you would naturally be much occupied." "We are," he replied, a trifle flippantly. Flippancy, he had noticed, was the one thing that drove the Marchioness to the verge of desperation. "My Minister and my colleagues are working like draught-horses." "While you----" began her Ladyship. "I'm working also--hard," and he turned himself and the conversation to the fair Miss Fitzgerald, while the Dowager said things in a loud tone of voice about youthful diplomacy to Mr. Lambert, the local incumbent, who had taken her down to dinner.