"The cleverest man of the
party?"--it pulled me up a little. "Hardly that, perhaps--for don't you
see the proofs I'm myself giving you? But say he _is_"--I
considered--"the cleverest but one." The next moment I had seen what she
meant. "In that case the thing we're looking for ought logically to be
the person, of the opposite sex, giving us the maximum sense of
depletion for his benefit? The biggest fool, you suggest, _must_,
consistently, be the right one? Yes again; it would so seem. But that's
not really, you see, the short cut it sounds. The biggest fool is what
we want, but the question is to discover who _is_ the biggest."

"I'm glad then _I_ feel so safe!" Mrs. Brissenden laughed.

"Oh, you're not the biggest!" I handsomely conceded. "Besides, as I say,
there must be the other evidence--the evidence of relations."

We had gone on, with this, a few steps, but my companion again checked
me, while her nod toward a window gave my attention a lead. "Won't
_that_, as it happens, then do?" We could just see, from where we stood,
a corner of one of the rooms. It was occupied by a seated couple, a lady
whose face was in sight and a gentleman whose identity was attested by
his back, a back somehow replete for us, at the moment, with a guilty
significance. There _was_ the evidence of relations. That we had
suddenly caught Long in the act of presenting his receptacle at the
sacred fount seemed announced by the tone in which Mrs. Brissenden named
the other party--"Mme. de Dreuil!" We looked at each other, I was
aware, with some elation; but our triumph was brief. The Comtesse de
Dreuil, we quickly felt--an American married to a Frenchman--wasn't at
all the thing. She was almost as much "all there" as Lady John. She was
only another screen, and we perceived, for that matter, the next minute,
that Lady John was also present. Another step had placed us within range
of her; the picture revealed in the rich dusk of the room was a group of
three. From that moment, unanimously, we gave up Lady John, and as we
continued our stroll my friend brought out her despair. "Then he has
nothing _but_ screens? The need for so many does suggest a fire!" And in
spite of discouragement she sounded, interrogatively, one after the
other, the names of those ladies the perfection of whose presence of
mind might, when considered, pass as questionable. We soon, however,
felt our process to be, practically, a trifle invidious. Not one of the
persons