She blushed at her own inane words when she heard them, but Grace Arbuthnot as she moved on, gave a little hard laugh. 'Never, my dear! So long as there are men and women in the world, it will be as Stephen Hargraves said, "all a muddle."' She broke off abruptly to look round; for, through the closed doors of the secretary's room came the imperative ring of an electric bell, making more than one keen face follow her example. But at the open door where the private secretary was holding up the _portière_ on one side, while Nevill Lloyd as A.D.C. held up the other, the former shrugged his shoulders. 'Bother that bell!' he said to little Mrs. Carruthers who was passing. 'There's my evening gone! They might spare us Sunday--especially when _you_ are dining here. I've a great mind to keep them ringing till you've gone.' 'Don't,' she laughed. 'Supposing it were a mutiny!' She made the suggestion out of pure wickedness, because her rival, who owned to never sleeping a wink if the bazaar near her house was noisy and let off fireworks, was within hearing. 'Surely you don't think'--began the timorous lady. 'Certainly not,' consoled the secretary. 'And if it was, Mrs. Carruthers, that's no reason for breaking the Sabbath.' 'They don't,' retorted the gay little lady. 'Sunday is over with them ages ago. They are six hours before----' 'Behind, you mean! The West is absolutely, hopelessly behind.' Mrs. Carruthers nodded airily. 'How do you know? you never can be certain, can you? which is before and which is behind in a circle! It all depends on where _you_ are.' With which piece of wisdom, the last Paris frock but one trailed off into the drawing-room, and deposited itself comfortably and becomingly by the side of a dowdy black one, for the sake of contrast and monopoly, by-and-by, when the men should return to their allegiance. They lingered over their wine, however, that evening. So long that Grace Arbuthnot grew pale over the strain of waiting to know what that electric bell had meant. She was given to worrying herself quite needlessly. Lesley under similar conditions would have taken the situation in more manly fashion, but then she was far more assured of her position, curiously enough, than Grace Arbuthnot was of hers. For the simple reason that the latter had won it, in her generation, by her personal and exceptional capability, while Lesley took hers by right of the ordinary woman's new claim to be heard as well as seen.