And meanwhile the representatives of the Court of St James were enjoying the revivifying country air and outdoor-life of the Villa Clement. It was almost exquisite how rapidly the casual mode of existence adopted during the summer villeggiatura by their Excellencies, drew themselves and their personnel together, until soon they were as united and as _sans gêne_ as the proverbial family party. No mother, in the “acclimatization” period, could have dosed her offspring more assiduously than did her Excellency the attachés in her charge; flavouring her little inventions frequently with rum or gin until they resembled cocktails. But it was Sir Somebody himself if anyone that required a tonic. Lady Something’s pending litigation, involving as it did the crown, was fretting the Ambassador more than he cared to admit, and the Hon. Mrs Chilleywater, ever alert, told “Harold” that the injudicious chatter of the Ambassadress (who even now notwithstanding her writ, would say to every other visitor that came to the villa: “Have you heard about the Ritz?? The other night we were dining at the Palace, and I heard the King,” _etc._) was wearing their old Chief out. And so through the agreeable vacation life there twitched the grim vein of tension. One day disturbed by her daughter’s persistent trilling of the latest coster song _When I sees ’im I topple giddy_, Lady Something gathered up her morning letters and stepped out upon the lawn. Oh so formal, oh so slender towered the Cypress-trees against the rose-farded hills and diamantine waters of the lake. The first hint of Autumn was in the air; and over the gravel paths, and in the basins of the fountains, a few shed leaves lay hectically strewn already. Besides an under-stamped missive, with a foreign postmark, from her Majesty the Queen of the Land of Dates beginning “My dear Gazel,” there was a line from the eloquent, and moderately-victorious, young barrister, engaged in the approaching suit with the Ritz: He had spared himself no pains he assured his client in preparing the defence, which was he said to be _the respectability of Claridge’s_. “Why bring in Claridge’s? ...?” the Ambassadress murmured, prodding with the tip of her shoe a decaying tortoiseshell leaf; “but anyway,” she reflected, “I’m glad the proceedings fall in winter, as I always look well in furs.” And mentally she was wrapped in leopard skins and gazing round the crowded court saluting with a bunch of violets an acquaintance here and there, as her eyes fell on Mrs Chilleywater seated in the act of composition beneath a cedar-tree. Mrs Chilleywater extended a painful smile of welcome which revealed her pointed teeth and pale-hued gums, repressing, simultaneously, an almost irresistible inclination to murder. “What!... Another writ?” she suavely asked. “No, dear; but these legal men _will_ write....” “I love your defender. He has an air of d’Alembert sympathetic soul.” “He proposes pleading Claridge’s.” “Claridge’s?”