But a loud crash as the portable altar collapsed beneath the weight of the Ambassadress aroused him unpleasantly from his thoughts. “Horrid dangerous thing!” she exclaimed as Lord Tiredstock’s third son assisted her to rise from her “Silent” prayer: “I had no idea it wasn’t solid! But Life is like that ...” she added somewhat wildly. “Pity oh my God! Deliver me!” the Hon. ‘Eddy’ breathed, but the hour of _deliverance_ it seemed was not just yet; for at that instant the Hon. Mrs Chilleywater, the “literary” wife of the first attaché, thrust her head in at the door. “How are you?” she asked. “I thought perhaps I might find _Harold_....” “He’s with Sir Somebody.” “Such mysteries!” Lady Something said. “This betrothal of Princess Elsie’s is simply wearing him out,” Mrs Chilleywater declared, sweeping the room with half-closed, expressionless eyes. “It’s a pity you can’t pull the strings for us,” Lady Something ventured: “I was saying so lately to Sir Somebody.” “I wish I could, dear Lady Something: I wouldn’t mind wagering I’d soon bring it off!” “Have you fixed up Grace Gillstow yet, Mrs Chilleywater?” Lord Tiredstock’s third son asked. “She shall marry Baldwin: but not before she has been seduced first by Barnaby....” “What are you talking about?” the Hon. ‘Eddy’ queried. “Of Mrs Chilleywater’s forthcoming book.” “Why should Barnaby get Grace--? Why not Tex!” But Mrs Chilleywater refused to enter into reasons. “She is looking for cowslips,” she said, “and oh I’ve such a wonderful description of a field of cowslips.... They make quite a darling setting for a powerful scene of lust.” “So Grace loses her virtue!..!” Lord Tiredstock’s third son exclaimed. “Even so she’s far too good for Baldwin: after the underhand shabby way he behaved to Charlotte, Kate, and Millicent!” “Life is like that, dear,” the Ambassadress blandly observed. “It ought not to be, Lady Something!” Mrs Chilleywater looked vindictive. _Née_ Victoria Gellybore Frinton, and the sole heir of Lord Seafairer of Sevenelms, Kent, Mrs Harold Chilleywater, since her marriage “for Love,” had developed a disconcerting taste for fiction--a taste that was regarded at the Foreign Office with disapproving forbearance.... So far her efforts (written under her maiden name in full with her husband’s as well appended) had been confined to lurid studies of low life (of which she knew nothing at all), but the Hon. Harold Chilleywater had been gently warned, that if he was not to remain at Kairoulla until the close of his career, the style of his wife must really grow less _virile_. “I agree with V.G.F.,” the Hon. Lionel Limpness murmured fondling meditatively his “Charlie Chaplin” moustache--“Life ought not to be.” “It’s a mistake to bother oneself over matters that can’t be remedied.”