politely. He was a
punctilious millionaire. He had risen by urbanity to his brother
directors, like a model guinea-pig. He bowed to us each separately as if
we had been duchesses.

As soon as he was gone, Elsie turned to me. 'Brownie, how on earth did
you guess it? They're so awfully different!'

'Not at all,' I answered. 'A few surface unlikenesses only just mask an
underlying identity. Their features are the same; but his are plump;
hers, shrunken. Lady Georgina's expression is sharp and worldly; Mr.
Ashurst's is smooth, and bland, and financial. And then their manner!
Both are fussy; but Lady Georgina's is honest, open, ill-tempered
fussiness; Mr. Ashurst's is concealed under an artificial mask of
obsequious politeness. One's cantankerous; the other's only pernicketty.
It's one tune, after all, in two different keys.'

From that day forth, the Urbane Old Gentleman was a daily visitor. He
took an hour at a time at first; but after a few days, the hour
lengthened out (apologetically) to an entire morning. He 'presumed to
ask' my Christian name the second day, and remembered my father--'a man
of excellent principles.' But he didn't care for Elsie to work for him.
Fortunately for her, other work dropped in, once we had found a client,
or else, poor girl, she would have felt sadly slighted. I was glad she
had something to do; the sense of dependence weighed heavily upon her.

The Urbane Old Gentleman did not confine himself entirely, after the
first few days, to Stock Exchange literature. He was engaged on a
Work--he spoke of it always with bated breath, and a capital letter was
implied in his intonation; the Work was one on the Interpretation of
Prophecy. Unlike Lady Georgina, who was tart and crisp, Mr. Marmaduke
Ashurst was devout and decorous; where she said 'pack of fools,' he
talked with unction of 'the mental deficiencies of our poorer brethren.'
But his religious opinions and his stockbroking had got strangely mixed
up at the wash somehow. He was convinced that the British nation
represented the Lost Ten Tribes of Israel--and in particular Ephraim--a
matter on which, as a mere lay-woman, I would not presume either to
agree with him or to differ from him. 'That being so, Miss Cayley, we
can easily understand that the existing commercial prosperity of England
depends upon the promises made to Abraham.'

I assented, without committing myself. 'It would seem to follow.'

Mr. Ashurst, encouraged by so much assent