The Profiteers/Part 1

by E. Phillips Oppenheim

 

I

THE Marchioness of Amesbury was giving a garden-party in the spacious grounds of her mansion in Kensington.

Perhaps because it was the first affair of its sort of the season, and perhaps, also, because Cecilia Amesbury had the knack of making friends in every walk of life, it was remarkably well attended.

Two stock-brokers, Roger Kendrick and his friend Maurice White, who had escaped from the City a little earlier than usual, congratulated themselves upon having found a quiet and shady seat where iced drinks were procurable and the crush was not so great.

“Anything doing in your market to-day?” Kendrick asked his younger associate.

White made a little grimace.

“B. & I., B. & I., all the time,” he grumbled. “I'm sick of the name. And, to tell you the truth, Ken, when a client asks for my advice about them, I don't know what to say.”

Kendrick contemplated the tips of his patent-leather boots. He was a good-looking, well-turned-out, and well-to-do representative of the occupation which he, his father, and grandfather had followed—ten years older, perhaps, than his companion, but remarkably well preserved. He had made money and kept it.

Illustration: It was only the surprised exclamation of the man who had entered which brought them back to a very sordid present

“They say there's big American capital at the back of them,” he remarked.

“They may say what they like, but who's to prove it?” his young companion argued. “They must have enormous backing, of course, but, until they declare it, I'm not pushing the business. Look at the board on their merits, Ken.”

Roger Kendrick nodded. Everyone on the Stock Exchange was interested in B. & I.'s, and he settled himself down comfortably to hear what his companion had to say on the matter.

“There's old Dreadnought Phipps,” White continued; “Peter Phipps, to give him his right name. Well, has ever a man who aspires to be considered a financial giant had such a career? He was broken on the New York Exchange, went to Montreal and made a million or so, back to New York, where he got in with the copper lot, and no doubt made real money. Then he went for that wheat corner in Chicago. He got out of that with another fortune, though they say he sold his fellow directors. Now he turns up here, chairman of the B. & I., which must have bought fifty million pounds' worth of wheat already this year. Well, unless he's considerably out of his depth, he must have some one else's money to play with besides his own.”

“Let me see; who are the other directors?” Kendrick inquired.

“Well, there's young Stanley Rees, Phipps' nephew, who came in for three hundred thousand pounds a few years ago,” Maurice White answered; “old Skinflint Martin, who may be worth half a million, but certainly not more, and Dredlinton. Dredlinton's a rabbit, of course. He hasn't got a bob. There's money enough among the rest for any ordinary business undertaking, if only one could understand what the mischief they were up to. They can't corner wheat in this country.”

“I wonder,” Kendrick murmured. “The harvests last year were bad all over the world, you know, and this year, except in the States and Canada, they will be worse. With another fifty million, it might be done.”

“But they're taking deliveries,” White pointed out. “They have granaries all over the kingdom, and subsidiary companies to do the dirty work of refusing to sell. Already they say that three-quarters of the wheat of the country is in their hands, and, mind you, they sell nothing. The price goes up and up, just the same as the price of their shares has risen. They buy, but they never sell. Some of the big banks must be helping, of course, but I know one or two—one in particular—which decline to handle any business from them at all.”

“I should say their greatest risk was government interference,” Kendrick observed. “Gambling in foodstuffs ought to be forbidden.”

“It would take our government a year to make up their minds what to do,” White scoffed, “and, by that time, these fellows would have sold out and be on to something else.”

“Well, it's too hot for shop,” Kendrick yawned. “I think I shall cut work on Friday and have a long week-end at Sandwich.”

“I have a good mind to do the same,” his companion declared. “And as to B. & I.'s, there's money to be made out of them one way or the other; but I shall advise my clients not to touch them. Hullo! We're discovered. Here's Sarah.”

The young lady in question, escorted by a pink-complexioned, somewhat bored-looking young man, who cheered up at the sight of the iced drinks, greeted the two friends with a smile. She was attired in the smartest of garden-party frocks; her brown eves were clear and attractive; her complexion was freckled but pleasant, her mouth humorous—a suggestion which was further carried out by her slightly retroussé nose.

“You shall advise your clients not to touch what?” she inquired. “Are there any tips going?”

Kendrick shook his head.

“You stick to the tips your clients slip into your hand, my dear young lady,” he advised, “and don't dabble in what you don't understand. The Stock Exchange is a den of thieves.”

Miss Sarah Baldwin made a little grimace.

“My clients are such a mean lot,” she complained. “Now that they have got over the novelty of being driven in a taxi-cab by a woman, they are positively stingy. What is it that you're going to advise your clients to leave alone, please, Mr. White?”

“British & Imperial Granaries.”

The young man—the Honourable James Wilshaw—sudden!y dropped his eye-glass and assumed an anxious expression.

“I say, what's wrong with them, White?” he demanded. “They're large holders of wheat, and wheat's going up all the time.

“Wheat's going up because they're buying,” was the dry comment. “Directly they leave off, it will drop, and when it begins to drop, look out for a slump in B. & I.'s.”

The young man relapsed into a seat by Sarah's side.

“But look here, Maurice, my boy: Why should they leave off buying, eh?” he inquired.

“Because,” the other explained, “there is a little more wheat in the world than the B. & I. have money for.”

“I can give you a further reason,” Kendrick intervened, “for leaving B. & I.'s severely alone. There is, at the present moment, on his way to this country, if he is not already here, one of the shrewdest and finest speculators in the world, who is coming over on purpose to fight the B. & I. tooth and nail.”

“Who's that, Ken?” Maurice White asked, with interest.

“Yes; his name?” Sarah demanded. “I love American millionaires who do things in Wall Street and fight with billions. If he's really nice, he may take me off your hands, Jimmy.”

“I'd like to see him try,” that young man growled, with unexpected fierceness.

“Well, his name is John Philip Wingate,” Kendrick told them. “He started life, I believe, as a journalist. Then he inherited a fortune and made another one on Wall Street, where I imagine he came across Dreadnought Phipps. What happened I don't exactly know,” he went on, “but, somehow or other, the two got at loggerheads. Wingate has sworn to break Phipps. There will be quite a commotion in the City when it gets about that Wingate is here or on his way over.”

“It's almost like a romance,” Sarah declared, as she took the ice which her cavalier had brought her. “Tell me more about Mr. Wingate, please.”

“John Wingate,” Kendrick said reflectively, “is a much younger man than Phipps—I shouldn't say that he was more than thirty-five—and much better-looking. I must say that, in a struggle, I shouldn't know which to back. Wingate has sentiment, and Phipps has none, conscience, of which Phipps hasn't a shred, and a sense of honor, with which Phipps was certainly never troubled. These points are all against him in a market duel, but, on the other hand, he has a bigger outlook than Phipps; he has nerves of steel and the grit of a hero. Did I tell you, by the bye, that he went into the war as a private and came out a brigadier?”

Illustration: “I fear,” the newcomer remarked, “that I am an intruder. Perhaps, Josephine, I may be favored with an introduction to this gentleman”

“Splendid!” Sarah murmured. “Now tell us where Peter Phipps comes in.”

“Well,” Kendrick continued, “Phipps attracts sympathy because of his lavish hospitality and apparent generosity, while Wingate is a man of many reserves, and has few friends, either on this side or the other. Then Phipps, I should say, is the wealthier man, and, in this present deal, at any rate, he has marvelous support. Then, too, I think he understands the tricks of the market better over here, and he has a very dangerous confederate in Skinflint Martin. If he's put his own money into B. & I., I should say that Phipps can't be broken. My advice to Wingate will be to stand by for a time.”

The sound of approaching voices warned them that their seclusion was on the point of being broken into. Their hostess. an elderly lady of great social gifts and immense volubility, appeared, having for her escort a tall, well-groomed man of youthful middle age, with the square jaw and humorous gleam in his gray eyes of the best American type. Lady Amesbury beamed upon them all.

“Just the people I was looking for!' she exclaimed. “I want you all to know my great friend, Mr. Wingate, from New York.”

II

Everyone was glad to meet Wingate, and Kendrick and he exchanged the greetings of old friends.

“Now you have found some one whom you can talk to, my dear John,” his hostess declared, “I shall consider you off my hands for the afternoon. Come and dine with me next Sunday night, and don't lose your heart to Sarah Baldwin. She's a capricious little minx, and, besides, she's engaged to Jimmy there, though heaven knows whether they'll ever get married— There! I knew it! My own particular bishop being lured into conversation with Hilda Sutton, who's just become a free thinker and can't talk of anything else. It will spoil the dear man's afternoon if she gets really started. Good-by, all of you. Take care of Mr. Wingate.”

She hurried off, and the newcomer seated himself between Kendrick and Sarah.

“We've just been hearing all about you, Mr. Wingate,” the latter began, “but I must say you're the last person we expected to see here. We imagined you dashing in a great motor-car from Liverpool to your office in the City, dictating letters, speaking into the telephone, and doing all sorts of violent things. I don't believe Mr. Kendrick told us the truth about you at all.”

Wingate smiled good-humoredly.

“Tell me what Kendrick has been saying.”

“Well, he has just given us a thrilling picture of you,” she went on, “coming over here, armed cap-a-pie, to do battle for the romance of money. Already we were picturing to ourselves poor Dreadnought Phipps, the first of your victims, seeking for an asylum in the Stock Exchange almshouses, and the other desperado—what was his name—Skinflint Martin—on his knees before you while you read him a moral lecture on the evils of speculation.”

Wingate's eyes twinkled.

“From all of which, I judge that you have been discussing the British & Imperial Granaries,” he remarked.

Kendrick nodded.

“Our dear young friend, Miss Baldwin,” he said, “has a vivid imagination and a wonderful gift of picturesque similies. Still, I have just been telling them that one reason why I wouldn't touch B. & I.'s is because they have an idea over here that you are going to have a shy at them.”

Illustration: Josephine, Countess of Dredlinton

“My attitude toward the company in question is certainly an unfriendly one,” Wingate admitted. “I hate all speculations the basis of which is utterly selfish. Dealing in foodstuffs is one of them. But, Miss Baldwin,” he went on, turning toward her, “why do we talk finance on such a wonderful afternoon? I really came over from the States to get an occasional cocktail, order some new clothes, and see some plays. What theaters do you advise me to go to?”

“I can tell you plenty,” she answered, “which I should advise you to stay away from. It is quite easy to see, Mr. Wingate, that you have been away from London quite a long time. You are not in the least in touch with us. On the Stock Exchange they do little nowadays, I am told, but invent stories which the members can only tell to other men's wives, and up in the West we do little else except talk finance. The money we used to lose at auction bridge now all goes to our brokers. We worry the lives of our men friends by continually craving for tips.”

“Dear me!” Wingate remarked. “I had no idea things were as bad as that.”

“Now, what,” Sarah asked ingratiatingly, “is your honest opinion about British & Imperial Granaries?”

“If I gave it to you,” Wingate replied, “my opinion would be the only honest thing about it.”

“Then couldn't one do some good by selling a bear of them?”

“You would do yourself and everyone else more good by not dealing in them at all,” Wingate advised. “The whole thing is a terrible gamble.”

“When did you arrive?” Kendrick inquired.

“Only last night,” he replied. “I have spent the last two days in the north of England. I was rather interested in having a glance at conditions there.”

“Might one ask, without being impertinent,” Maurice White inquired, addressing Wingate for the first time, “what is your real opinion concerning the directors of the B. & I.?”

Wingate answered him deliberately.

“I am hardly a fair person to ask,” he said, “because Peter Phipps is a personal enemy of mine. However, since you have asked the question, I should say that Phipps is utterly unscrupulous and possesses every qualification of a blackguard. Rees, his nephew, is completely under his thumb. Skinflint Martin ought to have died in penal servitude years ago, and as for Dredlinton—” Wingate was quick to scent disaster. He broke off abruptly in his sentence just as a tall, pale, beautifully gowned woman came toward them.

“It is Lady Dredlinton,” Kendrick whispered in his ear.

Wingate nodded.

“Then I will only say,” he concluded, “that Lord Dredlinton's commercial record hardly entitles him to a seat on the board of any progressive company.”

Josephine Dredlinton, with a smile which gave to her face a singularly sweet expression, deprecated the disturbance which her coming had caused among the little company. The four men had risen to their feet. Kendrick was holding a chair for her. She apparently knew everyone intimately except Wingate. Sarah hastened to present him.

“Mr. Wingate—the Countess of Dredlinton,” she said. “Mr. Wingate has just arrived from New York, Josephine, and he wants to know which are the newest plays worth seeing, and the latest mode in men's ties.”

A somewhat curious few seconds followed upon Sarah's few words of introduction. Wingate's eyes searched the face of the woman, as though he were conjuring up to himself pictures of her in some former state and trying to reconcile them with her present appearance. She, on her side, seemed to be realizing some secret and indefinable pleasure. Her eyes—very large and wonderful eyes they were—seemed to hold some other vision than the vision of this tall, forceful-looking man. It was a moment which no one, perhaps, except those two themselves realized.

“It is a great pleasure to meet Lady Dredlinton,” Wingate said. “I hope that Miss Baldwin's remark will not prejudice me in your opinion. I am really not such a frivolous person.”

“Even if you were,” she rejoined, sinking into the chair which had been brought for her, “a little frivolity from men nowadays is rather in order, isn't it?”

“It's all very well for those who can afford to indulge in it,” Kendrick grumbled. “We can't earn our bread and butter now on the Stock Exchange.”

“You men are so elusive about your prospects,” Sarah declared. “I believe that Jimmy could afford to marry me to-morrow if he'd only make up his mind to it.”

“I'm ready to try, anyhow,” the young man assured her promptly. “Girls nowadays talk so much rot about giving up their liberty.”

Illustration: Josephine held out her hand. “It was very kind of you to call, Mr. Phipps. I will think over all that you have said, and discuss it—with my husband”

“Once a taxi-cab driver, always a taxi-cab driver,” Sarah propounded. “Did you know that that was my profession, Mr. Wingate? If you do need anything in the shape of a comfortable conveyance while you are in town, will you remember me? I'll send you a card if you like.”

“Don't, for heaven's sake, listen to that young woman,” Kendrick begged.

“Her cab's on its last legs,” the Honourable Jimmy warned him.

“It isn't as though she could drive,' Maurice White put in. “There isn't an insurance company in London will take her on as a risk.”

Sarah glanced from one to the other in well-assumed viciousness.

“Don't I hate you all!” she exclaimed bitterly. “I can understand Jimmy, because he likes me to drive him all the time, but you others, who aren't regular clients at all, why you should butt in and try to spoil my chances, I can't think. Mr. Wingate is just my conception of the ideal fare—generous, affable, and with transatlantic notions about tips. I shall send you my card all the same, Mr. Wingate.”

“Any chance of your taking me back to the Milan?” Wingate inquired.

Sarah shook her head regretfully, glancing down at her muslin gown.

“Can't you see I'm in my party clothes?” she said. “I did bring the old 'bus down here, but I had a boy meet me and take it away. I'll send you my card and telephone-number, Mr. Wingate. You can rely upon my punctuality and despatch. Even my aunt here would give me a reference if pressed,” she added, as their hostess paused for a moment to whisper something in Josephine's ear.

“Your driving's like your life, dear, much too fast for my liking,” Lady Amesbury declared. “I hope things are better in your country, Mr. Wingate, but our young people go on anyhow now. Here's my niece drives a taxi-cab and is proud of it; my own daughter designs under-clothes and sells them at a shop in Sloane Street to anyone who comes along, and my boy, who ought to go into the Guards, prefers to go into Roger Kendrick's office. What are you going to start him at, Roger?”

“A pound a week and his lunch-money, probably,” Kendrick replied.

“I don't think he'll earn it,” his fond mother said sadly. “However. that's your business. Don't forget you're dining with me Sunday night, John. I'll ask Josephine, too, if you succeed in making friends with her. She's a little difficult, but well worth knowing. Dear me, I wish people would begin to go! I wonder whether they realize that it is nearly-six o'clock.”

“I shan't stir a yard,” Sarah declared, “until I have had another ice. Jimmy, run and fetch me one.”

“My family would be the last to help me out,” Lady Amesbury grumbled. “I'm ashamed of the whole crowd of you round here. Roger, you and Mr. White are disgraceful, sitting drinking whiskies and sodas and enjoying yourselves, when you ought to have been walking round the gardens being properly bored.”

“I came to enjoy myself, and I have,” Kendrick assured her. “To add to my satisfaction, I have met my biggest client—at least, he is my biggest client when he feels like doing things.”

“Of course,” Lady Amesbury complained, “if you are going to introduce a commercial element into my party—well, why don't you and Maurice, Roger, go and dance about opposite one another, and tear up bits of paper, and pretend to be selling one another things? Hooray! I can see some people beginning to move. I'll go and speed them off the premises.”

She hurried away. Sarah drew a sigh of relief.

“Somehow or other,” she confessed, “'I always feel a sense of tranquillity when my aunt has just departed.”

Josephine rose to her feet.

“I think I shall go,” she decided, “while the stock of taxi-cabs remains unexhausted.”

“If you will allow me,” Wingate said, “I will find you one.”

Their farewells were a little casual. They were all, in a way, intimates. Kendrick touched Wingate on the shoulder.

“Shall I see you in the City to-morrow?” he asked.

Illustration: All that they remembered was a most amazing spectacle—the spectacle of Wingate walking quietly to the door with Dredlinton in his arms, kicking and shouting smothered profanities, but absolutely powerless to free himself

Wingate nodded.

“About eleven o'clock,” he said. “There are a few things I want to talk to you about.”

“Where shall I send my card?” Sarah called out after him.

“The Milan Hotel,” he replied; “with terms, please.”

She made a little grimace.

“Terms!” she repeated scornfully. “An American generally pays what he is asked.”

“On the contrary,” Wingate retorted, “he pays for what he gets.”

III

“Your address?” Wingate asked, as he handed Josephine into a taxi-cab.

“Dredlinton House, Grosvenor Square,” she answered. “You mustn't let me take you out of your way, though.”

“Will you humor me?” he asked. “There is something I want to say to you, and I don't want to say it here. May we drive to Albert Gate and walk in the park a little way?”

“I should like that very much,” she answered.

They spoke hardly at all during their brief drive, or during the first part of their walk in the park. Then he pointed to two chairs under a tree.

“May we sit here?” he begged, leading the way.

She followed. They sat side by side.

“So one of the dreams of my life has been realized,” he said quietly. “I have met Sister Josephine again.”

She was for a moment transformed. A delicate pink flush stole through the pallor of her cheeks. She smiled at him.

“I was wondering,” she murmured. “You really hadn't forgotten, then?”

“I remember,” he told her, “as though it were yesterday, the first time I ever saw you. I was brought into Étaples. It wasn't much of a wound, but it was painful. I remember seeing you in that white-stone hall, in your cool Sister's dress. After the dust and horror of battle, there seemed to be nothing in that wonderful hospital of yours but sunlight and white walls and soft voices. I watched your face as you listened to the details about my case—and I forgot the pain. In the morning, you came to see how I was, and most mornings afterward.”

“I am glad that you remember,” she murmured.

“I have forgotten nothing,” he went on. “I think that those ten days of convalescence out in the gardens of your villa and down by the sea were the most wonderful days I ever spent.”

“I love to hear you say so,” she confessed.

“Out there,” he continued, “the whole show was hideous from beginning to end, a ghastly, terrible drama, played out among all the accompaniments which make hell out of earth. And yet the thing gripped. The tragedy of Ypres came, and I escaped from the hospital.”

“You were not fit to go. They all said that.”

“I couldn't help it,” he answered. “The guns were there calling, and one forgot—I've been back to England three times since then, and each time one thought was foremost in my mind: 'Shall I meet Sister Josephine?'”

“But you never even made inquiries,” she reminded him. “At my hospital, I made it a strict rule that our names in civil life were never to be mentioned or divulged, but afterward you could have found out.”

He touched her left hand very lightly, lingered for a moment on her fourth finger.

“It was the ring,” he said. “I knew that you were married, and, somehow, knowing that, I desired to know no more.”

“And now you probably know a good deal about me,” she remarked, with a with a rather sad smile. “I have been married nine years. I gather that you know my husband by name and repute.”

“Your husband is associated with a man whom I have always considered my enemy,” he said.

“My husband's friends are not my friends,” she rejoined, a little bitterly, “nor does he take me into his confidence as regards his business exploits.”

“Then what does it matter?” he asked. “You will let me come and see you?”

She laughed softly.

“I shall be very unhappy if you do not. Come to-morrow afternoon to tea at five o'clock. We can talk of those times on the beach at Étaples. You were rather a pessimist in those days.”

“It seems ages ago,” he replied. “To-day, at any rate, I feel differently. I knew, when I glanced at Lady Amesbury's card this morning, that something was going to happen. I went to that stupid garden-party all agog for adventure.”

“Am I the adventure?” she asked lightly.

He would have answered her question lightly, but he found it impossible. A great part of his success in life had been due to his inspiration. He knew perfectly well that she was to be the adventure of his life.

“It is so restful here,” she said presently, “and I can't tell you how much I have enjoyed our meeting, but, alas,” she added, glancing at her watch, “you see the time—and I am dining out. We will walk to Hyde Park Corner and you must find me a cab.”

He rose to his feet at once, and they strolled slowly along on the unfrequented footpath.

“I hope so much,” she went on, “that my husband's connection with the man you dislike will not make any difference. You will not like him, and he will not understand you, but you need not see much of him. Our ways, unfortunately, have lain apart for some time.”

“You have your troubles,” he said quietly. “I knew it when you first began to talk to me at Étaples.”

“I have my troubles,” she admitted. “You will understand them when you know me better. Sometimes I think they are more than I can bear. To-night, I feel inclined to make light of them. It is a great thing to have friends. I have so few.”

“I am a little ambitious,” he ventured. “I do not wish to take my place among the rank and file. I want to be something different to you in life—more than anyone else. If affection and devotion count, I shall earn my place.”

Her eyes were filled with tears as she gave him her hand.

“Indeed,” she assured him, “you are there already. You have been there in my thoughts for so long. If you wish to keep your place, you will find very little competition. I am rather a dull woman these days, and I have so little to give.”

He smiled confidently as he stopped a taxi-cab and handed her in.

“May I not be the judge of that?” he begged. “Giving depends upon the recipient, you know. You have given me more happiness within this last half-hour than I have had since we parted in France.”

“You are very easily satisfied,” she murmured.

Though he opened his lips to speak, the words remained unsaid. Something warned him that here was a woman passing through something like a crisis in her life. that a single false step on his part might be fatal. He stood hat in hand and watched the taxi-cab turn up Park Lane.

IV

There was a little flutter of excitement in the offices of Messrs. Kendrick, Stone, Morgan, & Co. when, a few minutes after eleven the following morning, Wingate pushed open the swing doors of the large general office and inquired for Mr. Kendrick. Without a moment's delay, he was shown into Roger Kendrick's private room, but the little thrill caused by his entrance did not at once pass away. Action of some sort seemed to be in the air.

Even Roger Kendrick, as he shook hands with his client, was conscious of a little thrill of expectation. Wingate was a man who brought with him almost a conscious sense of power. He would have appeared a formidable adversary in any game in which he chose to take a hand. Whatever his present intentions were, however, he seemed in no hurry to declare himself. The two men spoke for a few minutes on outside subjects. Wingate referred to the garden-party of the afternoon before, led the conversation with some skill round to the subject of Josephine Dredlinton, and listened to what the other man had to say.

“Everyone is sorry for Lady Dredlinton,” Kendrick pronounced. “Why she married Dredlinton is one of the mysteries of the world. He is rotten to the core. He's such a wrong 'un, to tell you the truth, that I'm surprised Phipps put him on the board. His name is long past doing anyone any good.”

“Lady Dredlinton did not strike me as having altogether the air of an unhappy woman,” Wingate observed tentatively.

Kendrick shrugged his shoulders.

“No fundamentally good woman is ever unhappy,” he said or, rather, never shows it. But the people who know her best never cease to feel sorry for her.”

“You have those figures I sent you a wireless for?” Wingate asked, a little abruptly.

“I have them here,” Kendrick replied, producing a little roll of papers from a drawer. “In some respects, these fellows seem to have had the most amazing luck. Unless we come to an understanding with Russia within the next month, of which there doesn't seem to me to be the slightest prospect, we shall get no wheat from there for at least another year.”

“And the harvests all over eastern Europe were shocking,” Wingate said, half to himself.

“It doesn't seem to me,” Kendrick pointed out, “that more than driblets can be expected from anywhere, except, of course, the greatest source of all, Canada and the United States.”

“You've no indication of the government's attitude?”

“I don't suppose they have one,” Kendrick answered, “upon that or any other subject. Of course, if all the wheat that's being stored in the country under the auspices of the B. & I. stood in their own name, the matter would appear in a different light, but they've been infernally clever with a!l these subsidiary companies. They own a majority of shares in each, without a doubt, but they conduct their transactions as though they were absolutely independent concerns.”

Wingate studied the figures in the document he was holding for some minutes in thoughtful silence. The telephone-bell rang at Kendrick's elbow. He picked up the receiver and listened.

“That Kendrick?” a voice inquired.

“Speaking,” Kendrick answered.

“This is Peter Phipps. Say, I am told that John Wingate, of New York, is a client of yours.”

Kendrick passed across a spare receiver to Wingate and paused for a moment while the latter held it to his ear.

“He is,” Kendrick admitted.

“Well, I am given to understand that he is coming into the City to do business,” Phipps continued. “If he is in any way disposed to be a seller, we are buyers of wheat for autumn delivery at market price, perhaps even a shade over.”

“Any quantity?” Kendrick inquired.

“A hundred thousand—anything up to a million bushels, if Mr. Wingate feels like coming in big. Anyway, we're ready to talk business. Will you put it up to your client?”

“I will.”

“Shall you be seeing him soon?”

“This morning, probably.”

“Thought you might,” the voice at the other end of the telephone observed. “Give him my compliments, and say I hope we may make a deal together.”

“Certainly,” Kendrick promised. “Good-morning.”

The two men laid down their receivers. Kendrick's eyes twinkled.

“Well, that fellow's a sport, anyway,” he declared.

“I suppose, in one sense of the word, he is,” Wingate admitted. “So he wants me to sell him wheat, eh? It looks a good thing at these prices, Kendrick, doesn't it?”

“That's for you to say,” was the cautious reply. “These big deals in commodities which have to be delivered on a certain date always seem to me a little out of the sphere of legitimate gambling.”

“At the same time,” Wingate remarked, “the price of wheat to-day is scandalous. If the B. & I. forced it up any higher, I should think that the government must intervene.”

“It would be devilish difficult,” Kendrick pointed out, “to trace the whole thing to the B. & I.”

Wingate took a cigarette from the open box upon the office table, lighted it, and smoked for a moment thoughtfully.

“Kendrick,” he said, “I am a good friend and a good enemy. Peter Phipps is my enemy. Each of us in his heart desires nothing so much in the world as the ruin of the other.”

“What was the start of this feeling?” Kendrick asked.

“A woman,” Wingate replied shortly, “and that's all there is to be said about it, Kendrick. I shall hate Peter Phipps as long as I live for the sake of the girl he ruined, and he will hate me because of the thrashing I gave him. Ever noticed the scar on his right cheek, Kendrick?”

“Often,” the stockbroker replied. “He told me that it was done in a saloon fight out in the Far West.”

“I did it in the Far East,” Wingate declared grimly, “as far east, at least, as the drawing-room of his Fifth Avenue house. He'll never lose that scar. He'll never lose his hatred of the man who gave it to him. So he wants me to sell him wheat!”

“It's a pretty dangerous thing to introduce feelings of this sort into business,” Kendrick remarked.

“You're right,” Wingate admitted. “It makes one careful. I'm not selling any wheat to-day, Kendrick.”

“It will be a disappointment to the office,” the other remarked. “Personally, I'm glad.”

“Oh, I'll keep your office busy,” Wingate promised. “I'm not coming into the City for nothing, I can assure you. “There are five commissions for you,” he went on, drawing a sheet of paper from the rack and writing on it rapidly. “That will keep your office busy for a time. I'll give you a check for fifty thousand pounds. Don't ring me up unless you want more margin.”

The stockbroker's eves glistened as he looked through the list.

“You're a good judge, Wingate,” he said. “You'll make money on most of these.”

“I expect I shall,” Wingate acknowledged. “Anyhow, it will keep you people busy and serve as a sort of visiting-card here for me until——”

“Until what?” Kendrick asked, breaking a short pause.

“Until I can make up my mind how to deal with those fellows. On paper, it still looks a good thing to sell them wheat, you know. Peter Phipps has something up his sleeve for me, though. I've got to try and find out what it is.”

“You'll excuse me for a moment?” Kendrick begged. “I'm only a human being, and I can't hold a couple of million pounds' worth of business in my hand and not set it going. I'll be back directly.”

“Don't hurry on my account,” Wingate replied. “I'm going to use your telephone, if I may.”

“Of course! You have a private line there. The others will be all buzzing away in a minute. What about lunch?”

“To-morrow, one o'clock, at the Milan,” Wingate appointed. “I'm busy to-day.”

V

Wingate made his way from the City to Shaftesbury Avenue, where he entered a block of offices, studied the direction-board on the wall for a few minutes, and finally took the lift to the fourth floor. Exactly opposite to him, across the uncarpeted corridor, was a door from which half the varnish had peeled off, on which was painted, in white letters:

MR. ANDREW SLATE

A knock on the panel resulted in an immediate invitation to enter. Wingate turned the handle, entered, and closed the door behind him. The man who was the solitary occupant of the room half rose from behind his desk.

“What can I do for you?” he asked.

Wingate was in no hurry to reply. He took rapid stock of his surroundings and of the man who confronted him. The room was small, none too clean, and badly furnished. It reeked with the smell of tobacco, and, notwithstanding the warmth of the June day, all the windows were tightly closed. Its occupant, a lank man with a smooth but wizened face, straight white hair, and dark, piercing eyes, was in accord with his surroundings, shabby, unkempt.

“Hm,” Wingate remarked. “Seems to me you're not taking care of yourself, Andrew. Do you mind if I open a window or two?”

“My God, it's Wingate!” the tenant of the room exclaimed.

Wingate, who had succeeded in opening the windows, came over and shook hands.

“How are you, Andrew?” he said. “What on earth's got you that you choose to live in an atmosphere like this?”

Slate, who had recovered from his surprise, slipped dejectedly back into his place. Wingate had established himself upon the only remaining chair.

“I've had lung-trouble over here,” Slate explained. “This heavy atmosphere plays the devil with one's breathing. I guess you're right about the windows, though. How did you find me out?”

“Telephone directory, aided by my natural intelligence,” Wingate replied. “What are you doing?”

“Trying to run straight, and finding it filthily difficult,” the other answered.

“What do you call yourself, anyway?” Wingate asked. “There's nothing except your name on the board down-stairs.”

Slate nodded.

“I'm the only one in the building,” he said, “who isn't either a theatrical agent or a bookmaker. I've got just a small connection among the riffraff as a man who can be trusted to collect the necessary evidence in a divorce case, especially if there's a little collusion, or find a few false witnesses to help a thief with an alibi. Once or twice, I have even gone so far as to introduce a receiver to a thief.”

“Hm,” Wingate observed. “You see all sorts of life.”

“I do, indeed,” Slate admitted. “What do you want with me?”

Wingate looked thoughtfully at the man whom he had come to visit. Then he leaned across and laid a hand upon his shoulder.

“Andrew,” he said, “you and I have looked out at life once or twice and seen the big things. I guess there's no false shame between us. I can say what I want, can't I?”

“I should say so,” was the hearty reply. “Get right on with it, John.”

“It's like this,” Wingate explained: “I've got a job for you. You can't do it like that. Walk to the door, will you?”

“I know you're going to look at my boots,” Slate declared, as he rose unwillingly and obeyed.

“You've got it in one,” Wingate acquiesced. “You're a smart fellow still, Slate, I see. Now, listen: You can't do my job like that. Here's twenty pounds on account. I'm going to stroll round to the Milan grill-room. I shall expect you there in half an hour for luncheon.”

Slate took the money and reached for his hat.

“Come along, then. You take the lift down. I'll go by the stairs. I sha'n't be late, unless you'd like me to stop and have a shave and my hair trimmed.”

“Great idea!” Wingate assented. “I'll make it three-quarters.”

 

The metamorphosis in Andrew Slate was complete. With his closely trimmed white hair, the dark growth gone from his chin, in a well-cut morning coat and trousers, a gray tie and fashionable collar, his appearance was entirely irreproachable. Wingate nodded his satisfaction as he came up to the table.

“Jolly well done! Andrew,” he declared. “Now, drink that cocktail up, and we'll talk business.”

Andrew Slate's altered deportment would have delighted the author of “Sartor Resartus.” With his modish and correct clothes, his self-respect seemed to have returned. He studied the menu which Wingate passed him through a well-polished eye-glass, and one could well have believed that he was a distinguished and frequent patron of the place.

“Well, what is it, Wingate?” he asked, at last, when the business of ordering luncheon was concluded. “I only hope it's something I can tackle.”

“You can tackle it all right,” his companion assured him encouragingly. “For a week or ten days, you've nothing more to do than a little ordinary detective business. If I decide to carry out a scheme which is forming in my mind, it will be a more serious affair. Time enough for that, though. I should just like to ask you this: Can you find a few bullies of the Tom Brogan class, if necessary?”

“Half a hundred, if you want them,” Slate replied confidently. “There's nothing I could get done in New York or Chicago which I can't get done here, and at a great deal less cost and trouble. I could find you half a dozen murderers if necessary.”

Wingate nodded.

“We aren't going quite so far as that,” he said. “Have you anything on at all at the present moment?”

“Not a thing.”

“I want you altogether free,” Wingate went on. “I'm talking business now, because it's necessary. You're going to earn money with me, Andrew, and, incidentally, you are going to help me break the man whom I think that you hate almost as much as I do.”

“You don't mean Phipps—Dreadnought Phipps?” Slate exclaimed.

“I do,” Wingate answered. “We are up against one another once more, and, believe me, Slate, this is going to be the last time.”

There was a smoldering fire in Slate's fine eyes. Yet he seemed disturbed.

“You're up against a big thing, Wingate,” he said. “They say Phipps is coining money in this new company of his.”

“I'm after his blood, all the same,” Wingate replied. “We've had several tussles since—” Wingate hesitated.

“Since you nearly beat the breath out of his body?” Slate interrupted.

“Yes; we've had several tussles since then,” Wingate repeated, “and we haven't hurt one another much. This time, I think, one of us is going under. Phipps wants to join issue with me in the City. I'm out to break him properly this time, and I am not going to rush in until I know the ropes.”

Slate emptied a glass of wine.

“John,” he said, relapsing once more into the familiarity of their early college-days, “you couldn't have set me a job more to my heart than to have me help in brewing mischief for Peter Phipps. I'm your man, body and soul—you know that. But you've been a good friend to me—almost the only one I ever had—and I've got to put this up to you: Peter Phipps is as clever as the devil. So I only want to say this: Go warily. Always remember that he has something up his sleeve.”

Wingate nodded.

“That's all right, Slate,” he said. “I promise you I'll think out every move on the board. I shall risk nothing until I can see my way clear ahead. Meanwhile, you can work on this.”

He wrote a few sentences on a sheet of paper, which he folded up and passed across the table.

“Don't open it now,” he said. “Think it over, and don't mind putting suggestions up to me if anything occurs to you. Call here to see me every morning at ten o'clock. I have a suite in the Court, number eighty-nine. You're done with business—you understand?”

“Sure!” Slate answered. “Let's talk about that last game you and I were in against Princeton.”

VI

Josephine received her altogether unexpected visitor that afternoon with a certain amount of trepidation, mingled with considerable distaste. Mr. Peter Phipps' manner, however, went far toward disarming resentment. He was suave, restrained, and exceedingly apologetic.

“If I have taken a liberty in coming to see you, Lady Dredlinton, without a direct invitation, I am going to apologize right away,” he said. “I don't get much of an opportunity for a chat with you while the others are all around, and I felt, this afternoon, like taking my chance of finding you at home.”

“I am always glad to see my husband's friends,” Josephine replied, a little stiffly. “As a matter of fact, however, I was surprised to see you, because I left word that I was at home only to one caller.”

“Fortunate person!” Mr. Phipps declared, with a sign. “May I sit down?”

“Certainly,” was the somewhat cold assent. “If you really have anything to say to me, perhaps you had better let me know what it is at once.”

Peter Phipps was a man whose life had been spent in facing and overcoming difficulties, but, as he took the chair to which Josephine had somewhat ungraciously pointed, he was compelled to admit to himself that he was confronted with a task which might well tax his astuteness to the utmost. To begin with, he made use of one of his favorite weapons—silence. He sat quite still, studying the situation, and, in those few moments, Josephine found herself studying him. He was tall, over six feet, with burly shoulders, a thick-set body, and legs rather short for his height. He was clean-shaven; his hair was a sandy gray, his complexion florid, his eyes blue and piercing. He was dressed with care, almost with distinction. But for his pronounced American accent, he would probably have been taken for a Scandinavian.

“Did you come here to improve your acquaintance with the interior of my sitting-room?” Josephine asked, a little irritated at last by his silence.

“I should say not! I came, Lady Dredlinton, to talk to you about your husband.”

“Then, if you will allow me to say so,” Josephine replied, “you have come upon a very purposeless errand.”

Peter Phipps leaned forward in his chair.

“See here, Lady Dredlinton,” he began: “You don't like me. That's my misfortune, but it doesn't affect the matter as it stands at present between us. I have a kindly feeling for your husband, and I have—a feeling for you which I won't, at present, presume to refer to.”

“Perhaps,” Josephine said calmly, “you had better not.”

“That feeling,” Phipps went on, “has brought me here this afternoon. Your husband is not playing the game with us any more than he is with you.”

“What do you know?”

“Let's cut that out, shall we? “Let's talk like a sensible man and woman. Do you want us to drop your husband out of the B. & I. Board?”

“Nothing would give me greater pleasure,” Josephine assured him. “I cannot imagine why you ever put him on.”

Peter Phipps was a little staggered.

“Perhaps you don't know,” he said, “that your husband's salary for doing nothing is four thousand pounds a year.”

“I suppose you think him worth that,” Josephine answered coldly, “or you would not pay it.”

“He is worth nothing at all,” Phipps declared bluntly. “I put him on the board and I am paying him four thousand a year for a reason at which I am surprised you have never guessed.”

“How on earth should I?” Josephine demanded. “On the face of it, I should say you were mad.”

“We will leave the reason for Lord Dredlinton's appointment alone for the moment,” Phipps continued. “I imagined that it would be gratifying to you. I imagined that the four thousand a year would be of some account in your housekeeping.”

“You were entirely wrong, then,” Josephine replied. “Whatever Lord Dredlinton may draw from your company, he has kept. Not one penny of it has come to me, directly or indirectly.”

Phipps was staggered.

“Say, this is the worst thing ever!” he declared. “Why, what do you suppose your husband does with the money?”

“I have no idea, nor have I any interest.”

“Come, come,” Phipps murmured; “that's bad. Of course,” he went on, “I knew that Lord Dredlinton had other interests in life besides his domestic ones, but I had no idea that he carried things to such a length.”

Josephine glanced at the clock.

“Will you forgive my saying that, up to the present, you have not offered me any sufficient explanation of your visit?”

“I was coming to it,” he assured her. “To tell you the truth, you've rather cut the ground away from under my feet. I was coming to tell you that Lord Dredlinton had drawn money from the company to which he was not entitled, besides having overdrawn his salary to a considerable extent. I came to you to know what I was to do.”

“I cannot conceive a person less able to advise you,” she answered. “I have said before that my husband's connection with your company is one which I dislike extremely, and I should be delighted to hear that it was ended.”

“If it were ended at the present moment,” Phipps said slowly, “it would, I fear, be under somewhat painful circumstances.”

“What do you mean?”

“What I very much hate to put into plain words. Your husband has used money of the company's to which he has no right. I have been paying him four thousand a year, hoping that, indirectly, I was benefiting you. He has deceived me. I see no reason why I should spare him. The last money he drew from the company—his action in drawing it amounts to a criminal misdemeanor.”

“Do you mean that you will prosecute him?”

“Why not?”

Josephine, for the first time, showed signs of disturbance.

“Is this what you came to tell me?”

“In a sense, yes.”

“What is the amount?”

“The specific amount in question is a thousand pounds.”

“And do you want me to find it to save my husband from prison?”

Mr. Phipps was shocked.

“My dear lady,” he protested, “you have entirely misunderstood me if you imagine for a moment that I came here to ask you to make up the amount of your husband's defalcations.”

“What did you come for, then?”

“I came,” Peter Phipps declared, “entirely out of consideration for you. I came to ask what you wished done, and to do it. I came to assure you of my sympathy, if you will accept it, my friendship, and, if you will further honor me by accepting it, my help.”

“Just how do you propose to help me?” Josephine inquired.

“Just in the way,” he answered, “that a man to whom money is of no account may sometimes help a woman for whom he has a most profound, a most sincere, a most respectful admiration.”

“You came, in fact,” Josephine said, “to place your bank-account at my disposal?”

“I would never have ventured,” he protested, “to have put the matter so crudely. I came to express my admiration for you and my desire to help you.”

“And in return?”

“I do not bargain, Lady Dredlinton,” Phipps said slowly. “I must confess that, if you could regard me with a little more toleration, if you would endeavor—may I say?—to adopt a more sympathetic attitude with regard to me, it would give me the deepest pleasure.”

Josephine shook her head.

“Mr. Phipps,” she said, “you have the name of being a very hard-headed and shrewd business man. You come here offering my husband's honor and your bank-account. I could not possibly accept these things from a person to whom I can make no return. If you will let me know the amount of my husband's defalcation, I will try to pay it.”

“You cannot believe,” he exclaimed, almost angrily, “that I came here to take your money?”

“Did you come here believing that I was going to take yours?” she asked.

Peter Phipps, who knew men through and through, and had also a profound acquaintance with women of a certain class, was face to face, for once, with a type of which he knew little. The woman who could refuse his millions, offered in such a manner, could have no real existence for him. Somewhere or other, he must have blundered, he told himself. Or, perhaps, she was clever—she was leading him on to more definite things.

“I came here, Lady Dredlinton,” he said, “prepared to offer, if you would accept it, everything I possess in the world in return for a little kindness.”

Phipps had not heard the knock at the door, though he saw the change in Josephine's face. She rose to her feet with a transfiguring smile.

“How lucky I am,” she exclaimed, “to have a witness to such a wonderful offer!”

VII

Wingate paused for a moment in his passage across the room. His outstretched hand fell to his side. The expression of eagerness with which he had approached Josephine disappeared from his face. He confronted Phipps, who had also risen to his feet, as a right-living man should confront his enemy. There was a second or two of tense silence, broken by Phipps, who was the first to recover himself.

“Welcome to London, Mr. Wingate,” he said. “I was hoping to see you this morning in the City. This is, perhaps, a more fortunate meeting.”

“You two know each other?” Josephine murmured.

“We are old acquaintances,” Wingate replied.

“And business rivals,” Phipps put in cheerfully. “A certain wholesome rivalry, Lady Dredlinton, is good for us all.”

Josephine, who had been standing up for the last few moments, touched the bell.

“You will keep your rivalry for the City, I trust,” she said.

It was just then that Phipps surprised a little glance flashed from Josephine to Wingate. He seemed suddenly to increase in size, to become more menacing, portentous. There was thunder upon his forehead. At that moment, the butler opened the door and Josephine held out her hand.

“It was very kind of you to call, Mr. Phipps. I will think over all that you have said, and discuss it—with my husband.”

Phipps had regained command of himself. He bowed low over her hand, but could not keep the malice from his tone.

“You could not have a better counselor,” he declared.

Neither Josephine nor Wingate spoke a word until the door had finally closed upon the unwelcome caller. Then she sank back upon the couch and motioned him to sit by her side.

“I suppose I am an idiot,” she acknowledged, “but that man terrifies me.”

“In what way?”

“He is my husband's associate in business,” Josephine said, “and apparently desires to take advantage of that fact. My husband is not a reliable person where money is concerned. He seems to have been behaving rather badly.”

“I am very sorry,” Wingate murmured.

She looked at him curiously.

“Has anything happened?” she asked. “You seem distressed.”

Wingate shook his head.

“Forgive me,” he begged. “The fact of it is, the last person I expected to find here was Peter Phipps. I forgot that your husband was connected with his company.”

“You two are not friends?”

“We are bitter enemies,” Wingate confessed, “and shall be till one of us goes down. In more primitive days we should have gone for one another's throats. One would have lived and the other died.”

Josephine shivered.

“Don't,” she implored. “You sound too much in earnest.”

“I am in earnest about that man,” he replied gravely. “I beg you, Lady Dredlinton, as I hope to call myself your friend, not to trust him.”

“And I,” she answered, holding out her hand, “as I hope and mean to be—as I am your friend—promise that I will have no more to do with him than the barest courtesy demands. To tell you the truth, your coming this afternoon was a little inopportune. If you had been a single minute later, I honestly believe that he would have said unforgivable things.”

Wingate's eyes flashed.

“If I could have heard him!”

“But, dear friend, you could have said nothing or done anything,” she reminded him soothingly. “Remember that, although we are a little older friends than many people know of, we still have some distance to go in understanding.”

“I want to be your friend, and I want to be your friend quickly,” he said doggedly.

“No one in the world needs friends as I do,” Josephine answered, “because I do not think that anyone is more lonely.”

“And I, too,” he declared, “I need your friendship. I have come over here with rather a desperate purpose. I think I can say that I have never known fear, and yet sometimes I flinch when I think of the next few months. I want a real friend, Lady Dredlinton.”

She gave him her hand.

“Josephine,” if you please,” she said, “and all the friendship you care to claim. There—see how rapidly we have progressed!”

They began to talk of their first meeting, of the doctors and friends whom they had known together. The time slipped away. It was nearly seven o'clock when he rose to leave. She seemed loath to let him go.

“What are you doing this evening?” she inquired.

“Nothing,” he answered promptly.

“Come back and dine here,” she begged. “I warn you, no one is coming, but I think you had better meet Henry, and, to proceed to the more selfish part of it all, I rather dread a tête-à-tête dinner this evening. Will you be very good-natured and come?”

He held her hands and looked into her eyes.

“Josephine,” he asked, “do you think it needs any good nature on my part?”

She met his gaze frankly enough at first, smiling gratefully at his ready acceptance. And then a curious change came. She felt her heart begin to beat faster, the strange intrusion of a new element into her life and thoughts and being. It was shining out of his eyes—something which made her a little afraid yet ridiculously light-hearted. Suddenly, she felt the color burning in her cheeks. She withdrew her hands, lost her presence of mind, and found it again at the sound of the servant's approaching footsteps.

“About eight o'clock, then,” she said. “A dinner coat will do unless you are going on anywhere. Henry will be so glad to meet you.”

“It will give me great pleasure to meet Lord Dredlinton,” Wingate murmured, as he made his farewell bow.

VIII

Dredlinton House, before which Wingate presented himself punctually at eight o'clock that evening, had a somber, almost a deserted appearance. He followed the butler into a small anteroom, from which, however, he was rescued a few minutes later by Josephine's maid.

“Her ladyship will be glad if you will come to the boudoir,” she invited. “Dinner is to be served there.”

Wingate passed up the famous staircase, round which was a little semicircle of closed doors, and was ushered into a small apartment on the first floor, through the sun-blind-shielded windows of which was a glimpse of green trees. The room was like a little fairy chamber, decorated in white and the faintest shade of mauve. In the center, a white-and-gold round table was prepared for the service of dinner, some wonderful cut glass and a little bunch of mauve sweet peas its only decoration.

“Her ladyship will be down in a moment,” the maid announced, as she lowered the blind a little more to keep out the last gleam of sunlight. “If monsieur will be seated——”

Wingate ignored the silent invitation of the voluptuous little settee with its pile of cushions. He stood, instead, upon the hearth-rug, gazing round him. The room, in its way, was a revelation. Josephine, ever since their first meeting at Étaples, had always seemed to him to carry with her a faint suggestion of sadness, which everything in this little apartment seemed to contradict. The silver-point sketches on the wall were delicate but daring, exquisite in workmanship and design, the last word in the expression of modern life and love. A study of Psyche, in white marble, fascinated him with its wonderful outline and sense of arrested motion. The atmosphere appeared to him intensely feminine and yet strange. He realized suddenly that the room contained no knick-knacks—nothing but books and flowers. Perhaps his greatest surprise, however, came at the opening of the door. It seemed, at first, that he was confronted by a stranger. The woman who entered in a perfectly white gown of some clinging material, with a single row of pearls round her neck, with ringless fingers and plainly coiled hair, seemed like the ghost of her own girlhood. It was only when she smiled that he found himself able to readjust his tangled impressions. Then he realized that she was no longer a girl, that she was indeed a woman, beautiful, graceful, serious, with all the charm of her greater physical and spiritual maturity.

“Don't, please, think,” she begged, as she sank into the settee by which he was standing, “that I have inveigled you here under false pretenses. Henry took the trouble to ring me up from the City this morning to say that he should be dining at home, such an unusual event that I took it for granted it meant a tête-à-tête. I don't quite know why I treat you with such an extraordinary amount of confidence,” she went on, “but I feel that I must, and it helps me so much. A tête-à-tête dinner with my husband would have been insupportable.”

“You don't imagine,” he asked, smiling, “that I am disappointed at your husband's absence?”

“I hope not,” she answered.

“Let me imitate your adorable frankness,” he begged. “I hope your husband's absence this evening is not because he objects to meeting me.”

“Of course not,” she replied wonderingly. “Why on earth should he object to meeting you?”

“You probably don't know,” Wingate replied, “that I am, in a sort of way, the declared enemy of the British & Imperial Granaries—Phipps' latest escapade—of which your husband is a director.”

“I am sure that would not have made the slightest difference,” she replied. “As a matter of fact, he had no idea that you were coming this evening—I had no opportunity of telling him. A servant rang up from the club, half an hour ago, to say that he would not be home. Come; here is dinner. Will you sit there?” she invited, indicating the chair which a trim parlor-maid was holding.

Wingate took his place, and the conversation merged into those indefinite channels necessitated by the presence of servants. The dinner, simple though it was, was perfect—iced consommé, a lobster mayonnaise. cold cutlets, and asparagus. Presently, the little movable sideboard, with its dainty collection of cold dishes and salads, was wheeled outside by the solitary maid who waited upon them, and nothing was left upon the table but a delicately-shaped Venetian decanter of Château Yquem. liqueurs in tiny bottles, the coffee, served in a jug of beaten copper, and an ivory box of cigarettes. With the closing of the door, a different atmosphere seemed immediately created. They smiled into one another's eyes in mutual appreciation.

“I was dying to send Laura away,” she confessed. “Why do servants get on one's nerves so when one wants to talk? I don't think I ever noticed it before so much.”

“Nor I,” he admitted. “Now that we are alone, there is a sort of luxury in thinking that one may open any one of those subjects I want so much to discuss with you, and perhaps a greater luxury still is the feeling that, unless one chooses, one need say nothing and yet be understood.”

“Sympathetic person!” She sighed. “Tell me: Did you notice an air of desertion in the lower part of the house?”

“There seemed to be echoes,” he admitted.

“The whole of the rooms down-stairs were fitted up as a small hospital during the last year of the war,” she explained. “It was after I had a slight breakdown and was sent back from Étaples. Some of our patients stayed on for months afterward, and we have never had the place put to rights. One or two rooms are quite sufficient for us in these days.”

“It seems to be a wing by itself that remains empty,” Wingate ruminated.

She nodded.

“The house might have been built for the purpose we put it to,” she said. “The rooms we turned into a hospital are quite cut off from the rest of the place. If ever you murder Peter Phipps and want a hiding-place, I shall be able to provide you with one.”

He was looking unusually thoughtful. It was evident that he was pursuing some train of reflection suggested by her words. At the mention of Phipps' name, however, he came back to earth.

“I think I should rather like to murder Phipps,” he confessed.

“Queer how I share your hatred of that person,” she murmured.

“Was he trying to make love to you this afternoon?” Wingate asked bluntly.

“He was too clever,” she replied, “to put it into plain words. His instinct told him what the result would have been; so he decided to wait a little longer, although, just toward the end, he nearly gave himself away. As a matter of fact,” she went on, “he was rather tediously melodramatic. My husband, it seems, is in disgrace with the company—has overdrawn or helped himself to money or something of the sort. I am a very hard-hearted woman, I suppose, but I don't believe I should lift up my little finger to save Henry from prison. Besides, I hate the British & Imperial Granaries.”

“Why?” he asked.

“I hate the principle of gambling in commodities that are necessary for the poor,” she answered,

“Tell me,” he asked, a little abruptly, “if I started a crusade against the British & Imperial outside the Stock Exchange altogether, if I embarked in a crude and illegal scheme to break it up, would you help me?”

“To the fullest extent of my power,” she answered eagerly. 'Tell me about it at once, please!”

“Not for a few days,” he replied.

“Promise me that I shall help?” she insisted.

“I promise that you shall have the opportunity.”

She rose from her chair and settled down in a corner of the settee. With a little half-unconscious gesture, she invited him to take the place by her side.

“Do you know,” she said, “that you are making life much more endurable for me?”

“You should never believe it unendurable,” he told her firmly. 'Whatever one has suffered, and however dreary the present, there is always the future.

“I wonder,” she murmured. “In this life or the next?”

“In this one,” he answered.

“Perhaps we should try to believe like La Fontaine,” she observed, “that sorrow and unhappiness are akin to disease, a mental instead of a physical scourge—that they must pass just as inevitably?”

“It is a comfortable philosophy,” he confessed. “Could you adopt it?”

“In my blackest moments, I should have scoffed at the idea,' she replied. “One thing, I know quite well, though, is unchanging,” she continued, her face losing its gentle softness. “That is my hatred of everything and everybody connected with my present life.”

“Everybody?” he murmured.

She stretched out her hand impulsively. He held it in his with a tender, caressing clasp. There seemed to be no need of words. The moment was, in its way, so wonderful that neither of them heard the opening of the door. It was only the surprised exclamation of the man who had entered which brought them back to a very sordid present.

IX

“I fear,” the newcomer remarked, as he softly closed the door behind him, “that I am an intruder. Perhaps, Josephine, I may be favored with an introduction to this gentleman. He is a stranger to me, so far as I remember. An old friend of yours, I presume.”

He advanced a step or two further into the room, a slim, effeminate-looking person of barely medium height, dressed with the utmost care, of apparently no more than middle age, but with crow's-feet about his eyes and sagging pockets of flesh underneath them. His closly trimmed sandy mustache was streaked with gray; his eyes were a little bloodshot; he had the shrinking manner of one who suffers from habitual nervousness. Josephine, after her first start of surprise, watched him with coldly questioning eyes.

“I hope you have dined, Henry,” she said. “A waiter rang up from somewhere to say you would not be home.”

“A message which I do not doubt left you inconsolable,” he observed, with a little curl of his lips. “Do not distress yourself, I pray. I have dined at the club, and I have only come home to change. I am on my way to a party. I would not have intruded if your maid had shown her usual discretion.”

Josephine ignored the insolent innuendo.

“You do not know my husband, I think, Mr. Wingate,” she said. “Mr. John Wingate—Lord Dredlinton.”

The newcomer's manner underwent a sudden change.

“What? John Wingate, from New York!” he exclaimed.

Wingate assented briefly. Lord Dredlinton advanced at once with outstretched hand.

“My dear sir,” he said, “I am delighted to meet you. I have just been dining with our mutual friend, Peter Phipps, and your name was the last mentioned. I, in fact, accepted a commission to find you out and convey a message from Phipps. There is a little matter in which you are both indirectly interested which he wants to discuss.”

Wingate had risen to his feet.

“To be quite frank with you, Lord Dredlinton,” he said, as he returned the newcomer's greeting without enthusiasm, “I cannot imagine any subject in which I could share an interest with Mr. Phipps.”

Lord Dredlinton was politely surprised.

“Is that so? Peter Phipps is an awfully good fellow.”

“Mr. Phipps is a director of the British & Imperial Granaries, Limited.”

“So am I,” Lord Dredlinton announced, with a bland smile.

“I am aware of it,” was the curt reply.

“You don't approve of our company?”

“I do not.”

Lord Dredlinton shrugged his shoulders. He lighted a cigarette.

“Well, well,” he continued amiably; “there is no need for us to quarrel, I hope. We all look at things differently in this world, and, fortunately, the matter which he wants to discuss with you lies right outside the operations of the B. & I. When can you give him a few moments of your time, Mr. Wingate? Will you call round at our offices, next Tuesday morning, at, say, eleven-thirty?”

Wingate was a little perplexed.

“I don't want to waste your time, Lord Dredlinton,” he said. “Can't you give me some idea of this business?”

“To tell you the truth, I can't,” the other confided. “It's Phipps' affair. I'll promise, though, that we won't keep you for longer than ten minutes.”

“I will come, then,” Wingate acquiesced, a little doubtfully. “I must warn you, however, that between Phipps and myself there is a quarrel of ancient standing. And one of my objects in coming to this side is to consider whether I can find any reasonable means of attacking the very disgraceful trust with which you and he are associated.”

Lord Dredlinton remained entirely unruffled. He shrugged his shoulders.

“You are a little severe, Mr. Wingate,” he said, “but I promise you that Phipps will keep his temper. I am very pleased to see you here. My wife's friends are always mine. If you will excuse me, I will go and change my clothes now. I have been inveigled into a theatrical supper-party.”

He turned away, with an enigmatic smile at his wife and a ceremonious bow to Wingate. He closed the door behind him carefully. Wingate resumed his seat by Josephine's side.

“Do you mind?” he asked.

“Not a scrap,” she replied. “Besides, it has given Henry such immense pleasure. I am quite sure that he never believed it possible that I should be found holding another man's hand. Or,” she went on, with a little grimace, “that any other man would want to hold it.”

“It is possible,” Wingate said deliberately, “that your husband may have further surprises in store for him of that nature.”

“Is that a threat?” She laughed.

“If you like to regard it as such. You will find out before long that I am a terribly persistent person.”

“I wonder,” she remarked, “what made him so agreeable to you.”

“To tell you the truth, I was surprised,” Wingate replied. “And Peter Phipps, too. What can they want with me down in Throgmorton Street? They can't imagine that they can hustle me into the market. They couldn't suspect—no; that wouldn't be possible!”

“Suspect what?”

“That my enmity to the B. & I.,” he went on, in a low tone, “is beginning to take definite shape.”

“Just what do you mean by that?”

“I have just the glimmerings of a scheme,” he told her.

“Don't forget that you have promised to let me help,” she reminded him.

“If I strike,” he said, “it will be at the directors. Your husband will suffer with the rest.”

“That would not affect my attitude in the least,” she assured him. “There is no manner of sympathy between my husband and myself.”

“I am glad to hear you say so,” he declared bluntly. “If there had been, I should have felt it my duty to advise you to use all your influence to get him to resign from the board.”

“As bad as that?”

“As bad as that,” he answered.

“You can't tell me anything about your scheme yet?”

“Not yet.”

“How is it,” she asked, “that they have been allowed to operate in wheat to this enormous extent?”

“Well, for one thing,” he told her, “the company has been planned and worked out with simply diabolical cleverness. They are inside the law all the time, and they manage to keep there. Their agents are so camouflaged that you can't tell for whom they are buying. Then, they command an immense capital.”

“The others must have found it, then,” she observed. “My husband is almost without means.”

“Phipps has supporters,” Wingate said thoughtfully. “They'll carry on this combine until the last moment, until a government commission or something of the sort looks like intervening. Then they'll probably let a dozen of their subsidiary companies go smash, and Peter Phipps, Skinflint Martin, and Rees will be multimillionaires. Incidentally, the whole of their enormous profits will have come from the working classes.”

“However visionary it is, I want to know about your scheme,” she persisted. “Could I help? You know in your heart that you could not make me afraid.”

“I shall take you into my confidence, at any rate,” he promised, “and you shall decide afterward. I warn you—you will think that I have drunk deep of the Bowery melodrama.”

She laughed.

“I shall mind nothing,” she assured him. “When do we begin?”

He was thoughtful for a moment or two. They both heard the opening of a heavy door down below, the hailing of a taxi by the butler, and Dredlinton's voice.

“Is that your husband going?” he inquired.

She nodded.

“Then I am going to make a most singular request,” he said. “I am going to ask you whether you would show me over the portion of the house which you used as a hospital.”

X

Wingate returned to his rooms at the Milan about eleven o'clock that evening, to find Roger Kendrick, Maurice White, and the Honourable Jimmy Wilshaw stretched out in his most comfortable chairs, drinking whiskies and sodas and smoking cigarettes.

“Welcome!” he exclaimed, smiling upon them from the threshold. “Are you all here? Is there anyone I forgot to invite?”

“The man's tone is inhospitable,” the Honourable Jimmy murmured, showing no inclination to rise.

“I decline to apologize,” Kendrick said. “The fact of it is, we're here for your good, Wingate. We are here to see that you do not die of ennui and loneliness in this stony-hearted city.”

“In other words,” Maurice White chimed in, “we are here to take you to a great supper-party.”

“Well, I'm glad to hear about it,” Wingate declared, giving his coat and hat to the valet who had followed him in. “Why don't you fellows sit down and have a drink?”

“My dear fellow,” Kendrick sighed, “sarcasm does not become you. We are all drinking—your whisky. Also, I believe, smoking your cigarettes. Your servant—admirable fellow, that—absolutely forced them upon us—wouldn't take 'no.' And, indeed, why should we refuse? We have come to offer you rivers of champagne, cigars of abnormal length, and the lips of the fairest houris in London. In other words, Sir Frederick Houstley, steel magnate of Sheffield, is giving a supper-party to the world, and our instructions are to convey you there by force or persuasion, drunk or sober.”

“I accept your cordial invitation,” Wingate said, mixing himself a whisky and soda. “At what time does the fight begin?”

“Forthwith,” Kendrick announced. “We sally forth from here to the Arcadian Rooms, situated in this building. Afterward, we make merry. John, my boy,” he went on, “you have the air of a man who has drunk deep already to-night of the waters of happiness. Exactly where did you dine?”

“In Utopia,” Wingate answered. “According to you, I am to sup in fairy-land.”

“But breakfast,” the Honourable Jimmy put in. “A man ought to be dashed careful where he breakfasts. A man is known by his breakfast companions—what?”

“Young fellow,” Wingate asked, “where is Sarah?”

“Have no fear,” was the blissful reply. “Sarah is coming to the supper. She's filling her old 'bus up with peaches from the Gaiety. Not being allowed to sit inside with any of them, I was sent on ahead.”

“You dog!” Maurice White exclaimed.

“Dog yourself!” was the prompt retort. “Opportunity is a fine thing. Sometimes I have a gruesome fear that Sarah does not altogether trust me.”

Kendrick, who had been straightening his tie before the glass, now swung round.

“This way to the lift, boys,” he said. “Time we put in an appearance.”

The reception-room of the Arcadian suite was already fairly well crowded. Wingate shook hands with his host, a cheery, theatrical-loving soul, and was presented to many other people. Where he was not introduced, he found a pleasing absence of formality, which facilitated conversation and rapidly widened his circle of acquaintances. Kendrick came over and slapped him on the back.

“Wingate, my lad,” he exclaimed, “you're going some! You're the bright boy of the party. Whom are you taking in to supper?”

“Me!” said a rather shrill but not unmusical voice from Wingate's side. “Introduce us, please, Mr. Kendrick. We have been making furtive conversation for the last five minutes.”

“It is a great occasion,” Kendrick declared. “I present Mr. John Wingate, America's greatest financier, most successful soldier, and absolutely inevitable president, to Miss Flossie Lane, England's greatest musical-comedy artist.”

Miss Lane grabbed Wingate's arm.

“Let's go in to supper,” she suggested. “All the best places will be taken if we don't hurry.”

“One word,” Kendrick begged. “Dredlinton is here, rather drunk and very quarrelsome. I heard him telling some one about having found you dining alone with his wife to-night. Phipps was listening. Keep your head if Dredlinton gets troublesome.”

Wingate nodded, and was promptly led away. They found places about half-way down the great horseshoe table, laden with flowers and every sort of cold delicacy. There were champagne bottles at every other place, a small crowd of waiters, eager to justify their existence—a rollicking, bohemian crowd, the jeunesse dorée of London, and all the talent and beauty of the musical-comedy stage. It was a side of life with which Wingate was somewhat unfamiliar. Nevertheless, his feet, that night, were resting upon the clouds. Any form of life was sweet to him. The new joy in his heart warmed his pulses. He was disposed to talk with everybody. The young lady by his side, however, had other views.

“Do you like our show, Mr. Wingate?” she asked. “Or perhaps you don't go to musical comedies. I am in 'Lady Diana,' you know.”

“One of the very first things I am going to see,” Wingate replied. “I only arrived from America a few days ago. I hear that you are a great success.”

“I am not vain,” the young lady replied, with engaging frankness, “but, on the other hand, I am not foolish, and I know quite well that many people—a great part of the audience, in fact—come because they see my name upon the boards, and I have numberless complaints because I am only on for such a short time in what should be the most important act of the play. I tell them it's nothing to do with me, but as long as my name is displayed outside the theater and I know how they feel about it, I feel a certain responsibility. What do you think about it?”

“I think that you are quite right,” he declared, with satisfactory emphasis.

“You don't know Mr. Maken, our manager, I suppose?” she inquired.

Wingate shook his head.

“As a matter of fact,” he confessed, “I know very few theatrical people.”

“What a pity you're not fond of the stage!” she sighed. “You might have a theater of your own, and a leading lady, and all the rest of it.”

“It sounds rather fascinating,” he admitted, “under certain circumstances. All the same, I don't think I should like to make a business of what is such a great pleasure.”

“I thought, with American men,” she said archly, “that their business was their pleasure.”

“To a certain extent, I suppose,” he admitted, “but, then, you see, I am half English. My mother was English.”

“How did you manage about serving?” she inquired.

“I gave both a turn,” he explained. “I turned out for England first, and then for America.”

“How splendid of you!” she murmured raising her fine eyes admiringly and then dropping them in a most effective manner. “But wasn't it a shocking waste of time and lives? Do you think they will be able to stop wars in the future?”

“I don't know,” he confessed. “I suppose international differences must be settled somehow or another. Personally, I think a wrestling-match, or something of that sort——”

“Now you're making fun of me,” she interrupted reproachfully. “I see you don't want to talk about serious things. Do you admire Miss Orford?” she asked, indicating another musical-comedy lady who was seated opposite.

Wingate took his cue from his questioner's tone.

“A little too thin,” he hazarded.

“Molly is almost painfully thin,” his companion conceded, with apparent reluctance, “and I think she makes up far more than she needs.”

“Bad for the complexion in time, I suppose,” he observed.

“I don't know. Molly's been doing it for a great many years. She understudies me, you know, at the theater. Would you like me to send you word if ever I'm unable to play?”

“Quite unnecessary,” he replied, with the proper amount of warmth. “I should be far too broken-hearted to attend if you were not there. Besides, is Miss Orford clever?”

“Don't ask me,” her friend sighed. “She doesn't even do me the compliment of imitating me. Tell me: Don't you love supping here?”

“Under present circumstances,” he agreed.

“I Jove it. too,” she murmured, with an answering flash of the eyes. “I am not sure,” she went on, “that I care about these large parties, although I always like to cone when Sir Frederick asks me. I am so fond of really interesting conversation, I love to have a man who really amounts to something tell me about his life and work.”

“Mr. Peter Phipps, for instance?” he suggested. “Didn't I see you lunching here with him the other day?”

She looked across the table, toward where Phipps was sitting hand in hand with a young lady in blue, and apparently being very entertaining. Miss Flossie caught a glimpse of Wingate's expression.

“You don't think I ought to lunch with Mr. Phipps?” she asked.

“I shouldn't if I were a young lady like you, whose choice must be unlimited,” Wingate replied.

“How do you know that it is unlimited?” she demanded. “Perhaps just the people whom I would like to lunch with don't ask me.”

“They need encouragement,” he suggested.

She laughed into his eyes.

“Do you know anything about the men who need encouragement?” she asked demurely.

He avoided the point, and made some casual remark about the changes in London during the last few years. She sighed sorrowfully.

“It has changed for no one so much as me,” she murmured. “The war——”

“You lost friends, I suppose?”

She closed her eyes.

“Don't!” she whispered. “I never speak of it,” she went on, twisting a ring round her fingers nervously. “I don't like it mentioned, but I was really engaged to young Lord Fanleighton.”

He murmured a little word of sympathy, and their conversation was momentarily interrupted as she leaned forward to answer an inquiry from her host. Wingate turned to Sarah, who was seated at his other side.

“How dare you neglect me so shamefully?” she asked.

“Let me make amends,” he pleaded.

“I am glad you feel penitent, at any rate. I expect Miss Flossie Lane has asked you what you think of her friend, Miss Orford, and told you that she was engaged to Lord Fanleighton.”

“What a hearing!” he murmured.

“Don't be silly,” she replied. “I couldn't hear a word, but I know her stock in trade.”

There was a little stir at the further end of the table. Lord Dredlinton had left his place and was standing behind Phipps, with his hands upon his shoulders. He seemed to be shouting something in his ear. At that moment, he recognized Wingate. He staggered up the further side of the table toward him, butting into a waiter on the way, and pausing, for a moment, to curse him. Flossie jogged Wingate's elbow.

“What fun!” she whispered. “Here's Lord Dredlinton, absolutely blotto!”

XI

Wingate, from the first, had a prescience of disagreeable things. There was malice in Dredlinton's pallid face. He paused opposite them, and, leaning his hands on the back of the nearest chair, spoke across the table.

“Hullo, Flossie!” he exclaimed. “How are you, old dear? How are you, Wingate?”

Wingate replied with cold civility, Flossie with a careless nod.

“I say,” Dredlinton went on, “what are you doing here, Wingate? I didn't know this sort of thing was in your line.”

Wingate raised his eyebrows but made no response. Dredlinton shook his head reproachfully at Miss Lane.

“Flossie,” he continued, “you ought to know better. Besides, you will waste your time. Mr. Wingate's taste in women is of a very—superior order. Doesn't care about your sort at all. He likes saints. That's right, isn't it, Wingate?”

“You seem to know,” was the cool reply.

“Not 't tall sure.” Dredlinton went on, balancing himself with difficulty, “that your new conquest would altogether approve of this, you know, Wingate. Let me tell you that Flossie is a very dangerous young lady—not your sort at all, Wingate. We know your sort, don't we, eh?”

Wingate remained contemptuously silent. Kendrick rose from his place and laid his hand on Dredlinton's shoulder.

“Come and sit down, Dredlinton,” he said shortly.

“Go to blazes!” the other replied truculently. “Who are you? Just that man's broker; that's all. “Want to sell wheat, Wingate, or buy it, eh?”

Wingate looked at him steadily.

“You're drunk,” he said. “I should advise you to get a friend to take you home.”

“Drunk, am I?” Dredlinton shouted. “What if lam? I'm a better man drunk than you are sober—although she may not think so, eh?”

Wingate looked at him from underneath level brows.

“I should advise you not to mention any names here,” he said.

“I like that!” the other scoffed. “Not to mention any names, eh? He'll forbid me, next, to talk about my own wife.”

“You'd be a cur if you did,” Wingate told him.

A little spot of color burned in Dredlinton's cheeks. For a moment, he showed his teeth. But for Kendrick's restraining arm, he seemed as though he would have thrown himself across the table. Then, with a great effort, he regained command of himself.

“So you won't sell wheat and you won't buy wheat, Mr. American!” he jeered. “I know what you would like to buy, though—and there's old Dreadnought Phipps, down there—he's a bidder, too—ain't you, Phipps, old boy? What you see in her, either of you, I don't know. She's no use to me.”

Phipps stood up in his place. Sir Frederick Houstley left his chair and came round to Dredlinton.

“Lord Dredlinton,” he said, “I think you had better leave.”

“I'll leave when I damn well please!” was the quick reply. “Don't you lose your wool, old Freddy. This is going to be a joke. You listen. I tell you what I'll do: I'm a poor man—devilish poor—and it takes a lot of money to enjoy oneself nowadays. You're all in this. Sit tight and listen. We'll have an auction.”

Wingate rose slowly to his feet, pushed his chair back, and stood behind it. Flossie gripped him by the wrist.

“Don't take any notice of him, please, Mr. Wingate,” she implored, in an agonized whisper. “For my sake, don't! He's dangerous when he's like this. I couldn't bear it if anything happened to you.”

“Look here, Dredlinton,” Sir Frederick expostulated: “You are spoiling my party. You don't want to quarrel with me, do you?”

“Quarrel with you, Freddy?” Dredlinton replied, patting him on the back affectionately. “Not I! I'm too fond of you, old dear. You give too nice parties. Always the right sort of people—except for that bounder over there,” he went on, nodding his head toward Wingate.

“Then sit down and don't make an ass of yourself,” his host begged. “You're spoiling everyone's enjoyment, making a disturbance like this.”

“Spoiling their enjoyment be hanged!” Dredlinton scoffed. “Tell you what—I'm going to make the party go. I'm going to have a bit of fun. What about an auction, eh? An auction with two bidders only—both millionaires—one's a pal and the other isn't. Both want the same thing— happens to be mine. I never thought it was worth anything, but here goes! What'll you bid, Phipps?”

Phipps apprized the situation and decided upon his role. He had a very correct intuition as to what was likely to happen.

“Sit down and don't be an ass, Dredlinton,” he laughed. “Don't take the fellow seriously,” he went on, speaking generally. “He's all right as long as you let him alone. You're all right; aren't you, Dredlinton?”

“Right as rain,” was the confident reply. “But let's hear your bid.”

“Bid! You've got nothing to sell,” Phipps declared good-humoredly. “What are you getting rid of, eh? Your household goods?”

“Come on, Phipps,” Dredlinton persisted; “you're not going to fade away like that. You've given me the straight tip. You were the only man in the running. Clear course. No jealousy. Up to you to step in and win. You've got a rival, I tell you. You'll have to bid, or lose her. Open your mouth wide, man! Start it with ten thou?”

“Sit down, you blithering jackass!” Phipps roared. “Give him a drink, some one, and keep him quiet.”

“Don't want a drink,” Dredlinton replied, shaking himself free from Kendrick's grasp. “Want to keep my head clear. Big deal, this! May reestablish the fortunes of a fallen family. Gad, it's a night for all you outsiders to remember, this!” he went on, glancing insolently round the table. “Don't often have the chance of seeing a nobleman selling his household treasures. Come on, Wingate; Phipps is shy about starting. Let's have your bid. What about ten thou, eh?”

Wingate came slowly round the table. Dredlinton watched him drawing nearer and nearer.

“What! Do you want to whisper your bid?” he jeered. “Out with it like a man! This is a unique opportunity. Heaven knows when you may get the chance again. Shall we say twenty thou, Wingate?”

“What on earth is he trying to sell?” Flossie demanded.

Dredlinton turned with an evil grin. He took no account of Wingate towering over him.

“Don't you know?” he cried out. “Doesn't everyone understand?”

“Stop!” Wingate ordered.

“And why should I stop for you?” Dredlinton shouted. “If Flossie wants to know, here's the truth. It's the least cherished of all my household goods. It's my wife!”

Of what happened during the next few seconds, or rather of the manner of its happenings, few people were able to render a coherent account. All that they remembered was a most amazing spectacle—the spectacle of Wingate walking quietly to the door with Dredlinton in his arms, kicking and shouting smothered profanities, but absolutely powerless to free himself. The door was opened by a waiter, and Wingate passed into the corridor. A maître d'hôtel with presence of mind hurried up to him.

“Have you an empty room with a key?” Wingate asked.

The man led the way, pushed open the door of a small apartment used on busy occasions for a service-room. Wingate thrust in his struggling burden and locked the door.

“Strong panels?” he inquired, pausing for a moment to listen to the blows directed upon them.

The head waiter smiled.

“They're more than one man can break through sir,” he assured him.

Wingate made his way back to the supper-party. He met Sir Frederick near the door.

“Sorry, Sir Frederick, if I am in any way responsible for this little disturbance.” he said, as he made his way toward his place. “I think, if I were you, I should give this key to one of the commissionaires a little later on. Lord Dredlinton is quite safe for the present.”

Sir Frederick patted him on the shoulder.

“Most unprovoked attack,” he declared. “Delighted to have made your acquaintance, Mr. Wingate. You treated him him exactly as he deserved.”

Wingate resumed his place and held out his glass to the waiter. Then he raised it to his lips. The glass was full to the brim, but his fingers were perfectly steady. He looked down the table toward Phipps, whose expression was non-committal, and gently disemburdened himself of Flossie's arm, which had stolen through his.

“I think you are the most wonderful man I ever met,” she confided.

“You're a brick!” Sarah whispered in his ear. “Come and see me off the premises—there's a dear! Jimmy won't be ready for hours yet, and I want to get home.”

Wingate rose at once, made his adieus, and accompanied Sarah to the door, followed by a reproachful glance from Flossie. The former took his arm and held it tightly

“I think that you are the dearest man I ever knew, Mr. Wingate,” she said, “just as I think that Josephine is the dearest woman, and I hope more than anything in the world—well, you know what I hope.”

“I think I do,” Wingate replied. “Thank you.”

No living author tells a story in better and more lively fashion than does Mr. Oppenheim. In The Profiteers, he has written a great romance of love and the world of daring affairs. The reader of the above chapters will not need to be told that some big and mighty interesting situations develop in the next instalment, which appears in January Cosmopolitan, Do not fail to read it.