“At home? Oh, he is never at home; he is all over the world. To-night he was as likely to have been in Paraguay, for instance, as here. He is what they call a cosmopolite. I don’t know whether you know that species; very modern, more and more frequent, and exceedingly tiresome. I prefer the Chinese! He had told me he had had a great deal of interesting talk with you. That was what made me say to him, ‘Oh, do ask him to come in and see me. A little interesting talk, that would be a change!’” “She is very complimentary to me!” said Madame Grandoni. “Ah, my dear, you and I, you know, we never talk: we understand each other without that!” Then the Princess pursued, addressing herself to Hyacinth, “Do you never admit women?” “Admit women?” “Into those _séances_—what do you call them?—those little meetings that Captain Sholto described to me. I should like so much to be present. Why not?” “I haven’t seen any ladies,” Hyacinth said. “I don’t know whether it’s a rule, but I have seen nothing but men;” and he added, smiling, though he thought the dereliction rather serious, and couldn’t understand the part Captain Sholto was playing, nor, considering the grand company he kept, how he had originally secured admittance into the subversive little circle in Bloomsbury, “You know I’m not sure Captain Sholto ought to go about reporting our proceedings.” “I see. Perhaps you think he’s a spy, or something of that sort.” “No,” said Hyacinth, after a moment. “I think a spy would be more careful—would disguise himself more. Besides, after all, he has heard very little.” And Hyacinth smiled again. “You mean he hasn’t really been behind the scenes?” the Princess asked, bending forward a little, and now covering the young man steadily with her deep, soft eyes, as if by this time he must have got used to her and wouldn’t flinch from such attention. “Of course he hasn’t, and he never will be; he knows that, and that it’s quite out of his power to tell any real secrets. What he repeated to me was interesting, but of course I could see that there was nothing the authorities, anywhere, could put their hand on. It was mainly the talk he had had with you which struck him so very much, and which struck me, as you see. Perhaps you didn’t know how he was drawing you out.” “I am afraid that’s rather easy,” said Hyacinth, with perfect candour, as it came over him that he _had_ chattered, with a vengeance, in Bloomsbury, and had thought it natural enough then that his sociable fellow-visitor should offer him cigars and attach importance to the views of a clever and original young artisan.