Chauxville."

Etta had taken up the magazine again. She was pretending to read it.

"Yes; but he knows too much--about every-body," she said.




CHAPTER VI


THE TALLEYRAND CLUB

It has been said of the Talleyrand Club that the only qualifications
required for admittance to its membership are a frock-coat and a glib
tongue. To explain the whereabouts of the Talleyrand Club were only a
work of supererogation. Many hansom cabmen know it. Hansom cabmen know
more than they are credited with.

The Talleyrand, as its name implies, is a diplomatic club, but
ambassadors and ministers enter not its portals. They send their
juniors. Some of these latter are in the habit of stating that London is
the hub of Europe and the Talleyrand smoking-room its grease-box.
Certain is it that such men as Claude de Chauxville, as Karl Steinmetz,
and a hundred others who are or have been political scene-shifters, are
to be found in the Talleyrand rooms.

It is a quiet club, with many members and sparse accommodation. Its
rooms are never crowded, because half of its members are afraid of