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 c