The longer I live the more convinced I am that each tiny act has a wider reaching result. For instance, I wrote _Iceland_ for fun. Ten years afterwards that girlish diary was selling on the bookstalls at a time when I badly wanted the money it brought in. Once I wrote a thing I hated. I wavered, but finally published it, and that wretched article has turned up again and again to annoy me and jeer at me. We make a friend of good social standing, perhaps a little way above us intellectually and socially, that friendship leads to others of a similar kind. By chance we become acquainted with someone below our own sphere and usual standard. He is right enough in his way; but his friends fasten upon us. Without being positively rude various undesirable people are foisted upon us. We do a kind act. Years afterwards that kindness is unexpectedly returned with interest. We do a cruel deed and that deed haunts us along life’s path by its consequences. Everything counts in the game of life, and yet nothing counts but an easy conscience. A thick veil, therefore, covers many most striking episodes and events. Diplomats have met at my house to discuss important world-wide questions. Politicians have talked over knotty points in my drawing-room hidden away from the eyes of the reporter. My little home has witnessed striking interviews, and the walls have heard wondrous tales of world-wide repute unfolded and discussed. I have often been of use in this way, and am proud of the strange confidences that have been placed in me, but such trust cannot be betrayed, and although I could tell many wondrous facts, my readers must not be disappointed that they should be withheld. Discretion is not a vice. Silence is often golden. Hence I may disappoint the many in these pages; but I hope to earn the gratitude of the few, by respecting their important confidences. FOOTNOTES: [7] Lord Inchcape. CHAPTER XXIV FROM GAY TO GRAVE A truce to work. Even adversity has its sweets. After tasks should come whatever pleases best, the toiler has earned a play-hour. A lover of pageant, I will now describe what to me is one of the interesting sights in London, namely a reception at the Foreign Office. The invitations are issued “by His Majesty and His Ministers,” for ten-thirty, but before ten o’clock a line of carriages is slowly wending its way to Whitehall, through Downing Street, into the courtyard of the Foreign Office. It is the King’s Birthday, Parliament has risen, all the men of note in the country are dining at official dinners. They have all donned their best uniforms, Court dress, decorations, and ribbons, and presently are making their way up the gaily decorated staircase.