Third impression: the secretary of the Spanish embassy would look exactly like a bull-fighter if he wore the national costume instead of civilized evening-dress--General Fellowes has aged since the War Office inquiry--a fine type--the big woman he has taken in to dinner would look like a cantaloup melon if you cut her in two--the pretty girl flirting with the young soldier (Guards?) must be her daughter. "Aren't you rather hard on our allies, Mrs. Cavendish?" chips in Hector Brunton. "I have no patience with d'Annunzio." "But at least you will admit that he is a patriot," protests Sir Simeon. "No bombastic person is really patriotic. Patriotism is a dumb virtue." "But is patriotism a virtue?" asks the K.C. "Almost the greatest." Julia's mental camera snaps again. Impression of Hector Brunton: a would-be cave-man--not as strong as he imagines himself--putty in the hands of a sexful woman--rather a difficult problem for a fastidious wife--obstinate--capable of cruelty. At which precise moment, the mother ousted the craftswoman from Julia's brain. She began to wonder if Ronnie were enjoying himself. If only he weren't so shy with women! Women made men's careers. He had taken down that charming Mrs. Brunton. She looked down the table and caught his eyes across the scarlet flowers. He smiled at her. He must be enjoying himself. She had done right, then, to make him accept the invitation. "I gather you prefer patriotism to the League of Nations," remarked her host. "Your League of Nations," answered Julia, "is merely the sentimental impulse translated into terms of international diplomacy. Every one wants it to work--every one realizes it unworkable." Answering, she thought that she had rarely seen Ronnie look so happy. But not even the mother in Julia Cavendish knew the cause of Ronnie's happiness; she was as blind to her son's infatuation as Hector Brunton to his wife's. She could not divine that the pair of them had passed beyond mere happiness into a little illusive world of their own making. For the moment, Aliette and Ronnie dwelt in a rose-bubble of enchantment. A frail bubble! Yet it cut them off, as surely as though it had been opaque crystal, from their fellow-guests. Physical passion found no place in that rose-bubble. Their bodies, the bodies which made pretense of eating and drinking, which uttered the most absurdly conventional sentiments, dwelt outside of its magic; while within, their minds, their natures, their very souls, held secret commune--as two friends so set in friendship that words have become unnecessary. Yet actually, magic apart, they were merely a man and a woman, each lonely, each too healthy for that loneliness which is the prerogative of the sick and the abnormal. They had been lonely; now they were no longer lonely. They had been obsessed with visions of each other; now they no longer saw visions. They saw each other; and their souls were satisfied.