Discretion / The Confidence
The Confidence
Every member of the Circle accepts the same understanding on the evening they are first seated: what is heard at the table stays at the table.
This is not a document anyone signs. It is not enforced by penalty, because it does not need to be. The table selects for people who already keep this kind of confidence as a matter of character, in their own businesses and their own lives, long before they are asked to keep it here. What the Circle adds is simply a room where that instinct is shared by everyone present, and can therefore be relied upon absolutely.
It extends to three things in particular: what is said, who said it, and who was in the room at all. A member may mention, in general terms, that they belong to the Circle. A member does not confirm who else belongs, what was discussed at a given dinner, or where a Salon was held. The room is porous only to those already inside it.
What this buys, in return, is candour. People speak differently in a room they trust than in a room they do not. The confidence is the price of that difference, and every member we have asked in has judged it a small one.
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