She settled herself at the desk, and Mrs. Trenor accepted her resumption of the morning’s task with a sigh which implied that, after all, she had proved herself unfit for higher uses. The luncheon-table showed a depleted circle. All the men but Jack Stepney and Dorset had returned to town (it seemed to Lily a last touch of irony that Selden and Percy Gryce should have gone in the same train), and Lady Cressida and the attendant Wetheralls had been despatched by motor to lunch at a distant country-house. At such moments of diminished interest it was usual for Mrs. Dorset to keep her room till the afternoon; but on this occasion she drifted in when luncheon was half over, hollowed-eyed and drooping, but with an edge of malice under her indifference. She raised her eyebrows as she looked about the table. “How few of us are left! I do so enjoy the quiet—don’t you, Lily? I wish the men would always stop away—it’s really much nicer without them. Oh, you don’t count, George: one doesn’t have to talk to one’s husband. But I thought Mr. Gryce was to stay for the rest of the week?” she added enquiringly. “Didn’t he intend to, Judy? He’s such a nice boy—I wonder what drove him away? He is rather shy, and I’m afraid we may have shocked him: he has been brought up in such an old-fashioned way. Do you know, Lily, he told me he had never seen a girl play cards for money till he saw you doing it the other night? And he lives on the interest of his income, and always has a lot left over to invest!” Mrs. Fisher leaned forward eagerly. “I do believe it is some one’s duty to educate that young man. It is shocking that he has never been made to realize his duties as a citizen. Every wealthy man should be compelled to study the laws of his country.” Mrs. Dorset glanced at her quietly. “I think he HAS studied the divorce laws. He told me he had promised the Bishop to sign some kind of a petition against divorce.” Mrs. Fisher reddened under her powder, and Stepney said with a laughing glance at Miss Bart: “I suppose he is thinking of marriage, and wants to tinker up the old ship before he goes aboard.” His betrothed looked shocked at the metaphor, and George Dorset exclaimed with a sardonic growl: “Poor devil! It isn’t the ship that will do for him, it’s the crew.” “Or the stowaways,” said Miss Corby brightly. “If I contemplated a voyage with him I should try to start with a friend in the hold.” Miss Van Osburgh’s vague feeling of pique was struggling for appropriate expression. “I’m sure I don’t see why you laugh at him; I think he’s very nice,” she exclaimed; “and, at any rate, a girl who married him would always have enough to be comfortable.” She looked puzzled at the redoubled laughter which hailed her words, but it might have consoled her to know how deeply they had sunk into the breast of one of her hearers.