with Hilda Sutton, who's just become a freethinker 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," Sarah 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-humouredly.
"Tell me what Kendrick has been saying, and I will let you know whether it is the truth or not," he promised.
"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 and
Imperial Granaries," he remarked.
"Our dear young friend, Miss Baldwin," Kendrick 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."
"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 towards her, "why do we talk finance on such a wonderful afternoon, and so far away from the City? I really came over from the States to get an occasional cocktail, order some new clothes and see some plays. What theatres 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 tell only 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 out 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 and 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?" she enquired sagely.
"You would do yourself and every one else more good by not dealing in them at all," Wingate advised. "The whole thing is a terrible gamble."
"When did you arrive?" Kendrick enquired. "Have you been in the
City yet?"
Wingate shook his head.
"I have spent the last two days in the north of England," he replied. "I was rather interested in having a glance at conditions there. I only arrived in London last night."
"But this morning?" Sarah asked him. "You don't mean to tell me that you had strength of mind enough to keep away from the City?"
"I certainly do. I did not even telephone to my brokers. Kendrick here knows that, for he is one of the firm."
"Then what did you do?" Sarah persisted, "I can't imagine you spending your first morning in idleness."
"You might have called it idleness; I didn't," he answered, smiling. "I had my hair cut and my nails manicured; I was measured for four new suits of clothes, a certain number of shirts, and I bought some other indispensable trifles."
"Dear me," Sarah murmured, "you aren't at all the sort of man I thought you were!"
"Why not?"
"You don't seem energetic. I should have thought, even if you weren't supposed to buy or sell, that you would have been all round the markets, enquiring about B. & I.'s this morning."
"I read the papers instead," he replied. "One can learn a good deal from the papers."
"You will find rather a partial Press where B. & I.'s are concerned,"
Kendrick observed.
"I have already noticed it," was the brief reply. "Still, even the Press must live, I suppose."
"Cynic!" Sarah murmured.
"Might one ask, without being impertinent," Maurice White enquired, addressing Wingate for the first time, "what is your real opinion concerning the directors of the B. & I.?"
Wingate answered him deliberately.
"I am scarcely 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, occupying just the position he might be supposed to hold. 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 who had detached herself from a group close at hand turned towards them.
"It is Lady Dredlinton," Kendrick whispered in his ear.
"Then I will only say," Wingate concluded, "that Lord Dredlinton's commercial record scarcely entitles him to a seat on the Board of any progressive company."
CHAPTER II
Josephine Dredlinton, with a smile which gave to her face a singularly sweet expression, deprecated the disturbance which her coming had caused amongst the little company. The four men had risen to their feet. Kendrick was holding a chair for her. She apparently knew every one intimately except Wingate, and 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 stood drawn to his fullest height, having the air of a man who, on the point of making his little conventional movement and speech, has felt the influence of some emotion in itself almost paralysing. His eyes searched the face of the woman before whom he stood, almost eagerly,
