"I gather from you--I've gathered indeed from Mr.
Vanderbank--that you're a little sort of a set that hang very much together." "Oh yes; not a formal association nor a secret society--still less a 'dangerous gang' or an organisation for any definite end.

We're simply a collection of natural affinities," Mitchy explained; "meeting perhaps principally in Mrs.Brook's drawing-room--though sometimes also in old Van's, as you see, sometimes even in mine--and governed at any rate everywhere by Mrs.Brook, in our mysterious ebbs and flows, very much as the tides are governed by the moon.

As I say," Mitchy pursued, "you must join.

But if Van has got hold of you," he added, "or you've got hold of him, you HAVE joined.

We're not quite so numerous as I could wish, and we want variety; we want just what I'm sure you'll bring us--a fresh eye, an outside mind." Mr.Longdon wore for a minute the air of a man knowing but too well what it was to be asked to put down his name.