But Toby understood. He had just finished his ice, and with his spoon he made a comprehensive circle in the air. "This sort of thing, do you mean?" he asked. "All these fine people?"
"Yes, just that. All these fine people."
"It seems to me perfectly idiotic," he replied.
"Then why do you come?"
"Why? Oh, because there are a lot of people I really do like—real friends of mine, you understand, whom I see in this way. And they come for the same reason, I suppose."
Lily looked at him a moment out of her big dark eyes, and then nodded gravely.
"Yes, that makes all the difference," she said. "If you have a lot of friends here, there is a reason for coming. But——" and she stopped loyally.
Toby guessed what was on the end of her tongue, and with a certain instinct of delicacy changed the subject, or rather led it away from what he imagined was in her mind.
"I know what you mean," he said, "and everyone finds it a bore at times. One goes to a party hoping to see a particular person, and the particular person is not there. Really, I often wish I was never in London at all. But, you see, I am private secretary to my cousin Pangbourne, and while they are in office and the House is sitting I have to be in town. What would happen to the British Constitution if I wasn't, I don't dare to think."