"And what a brilliant party you have got together, Mrs. Maxwell!" she said. "Positively, there is every one here one has ever heard of, and absolutely nobody that one hasn't heard of. That is so clever of you! It is easy enough to get people, but the difficulty is to not have the wrong ones. I'm sure you must find it so." Mrs. Maxwell sighed. "It's as much as Anthony and me can do in a week's work to go through the calling-book," she said. "Talk of weeding, you never saw such a deal of it as we have to do. People seem to think they can all come for the calling. But one must be careful, and I try never to ask any one whom a single one of my guests would be sorry to have in their own houses." Mrs. Brereton smiled a congratulatory smile. "We should most of us be very glad to see them in ours," she said. Mrs. Maxwell's mood grew more sublime. "And the pushing and the shoving that some people do to get asked to other people's houses," she said, "why, it fair passes belief. Now, Maxwell has no spirit. 'Let 'em all come,' he says, like that horrid vulgar song; but I said, 'No, Maxwell--if they all come, half of them will keep away, and them's the very half you want, and where shall we be then?' There's Guardina going to sing again, with Pagani this time. She's got to sing two solos and two duos. How wonderfully their voices suit! you would say they was made for each other. Excuse me, there's the Duchess of Perth just come, and I must say a word to her." Arthur Naseby sank into the unoccupied seat. "Anything more divine I never wish to hear," he said in a shrill whisper. "And the diamonds have caught an added lustre for their brilliant surroundings. To-night Mrs. Maxwell is one coruscation, with a collation to follow." "How true, too, what she said about Pagani and Guardina," murmured Mrs. Brereton. "It takes that sort of person to say that sort of thing. I am not nervous personally, but"--and her eye caught sight of Maud and Anthony again--"but she is an excellent good kind woman," she added with a very distinct change of tone. "And what of the new man, Jim Spencer?" asked Naseby. "Are there developments? I always look on you as a sort of barometer. You can tell what is going to happen before it does happen." Mildred looked round. "A little cloud like a man's hand," she said. "Rising out of South Africa. You mean his head will follow?" "Hush! That's the worst of having these great people to sing. One cannot talk." "So unsociable," said Arthur Naseby.