CHAPTER III.
DIPLOMATIC "All that there is of the most brilliant and least truthful in Europe," M.Claude de Chauxville had said to a lady earlier in the evening, apropos of the great gathering at the French Embassy, and the mot had gone the round of the room.
In society a little mot will go a long way.

M.le Baron de Chauxville was, moreover, a manufacturer of mots.

By calling he was attache to the French Embassy in London; by profession he was an epigrammatist.

That is to say, he was a sort of social revolver.

He went off if one touched him conversationally, and like others among us, he frequently missed fire.
Of course, he had but little real respect for the truth.