tened to master her.

Thus did Cleopatra meditate over her lot as she examined her fine,
strong, disengaged hand, as she sat in the study on that afternoon in
June; and Jane Austen's _Sense and Sensibility_ had little to offer her
either in comfort or enlightenment.

It was a fine hand she looked at. The fingers were well-shaped, long and
even, without any of those thicknesses at the joints which so often mar
the beauty of hands even in men. The finger-nails were not too long, and
there was a sort of "well-upholstered" fulness of the fingers and palm
which spoke of health and latent efficiency. It was not a small hand, or
in any case, not too small a hand, and on the inside it possessed those
soft corrugations that denote artistic sensibilities.

CHAPTER III

The central offices of Bullion and Bullion Ltd. were in Lombard Street.
They occupied a large building constructed of ferroconcrete, on each
floor of which, except the first, there was accommodation for hundreds
of clerks.

The room occupied by Sir Joseph Bullion, on the first floor, was one of
those apartments with very tall mantelpieces and enormous windows, which
seem to have been designed for a race of giants. Certainly Sir Joseph
himself, unless he had climbed on a chair, could never have rested his
elbow against the mantelpiece, nor could he have deposited his cigar
thereon without an unusually strenuous effort. The remaining
appointments of the room, except for two or three exquisite Stuart
cabinets and some priceless old masters on the walls, were designed on
the same scale. Sir Joseph's own table, for instance, though of normal
height, looked as if it might have been purchased by the acre, while the
carpet, a huge Turkey, presented an enormously long pile, as soft as
moss, to the feet. Even the chair on which the head of the firm sat was
exceptionally large, and seemed to offer its occupant the constant
alternative of definitely selecting either one or the other side of the
extensive surface which lay between its arms.

Opposite him at a smaller table sat his chief private secretary, Denis
Malster, a pale, clean-shaven, intelligent-looking young man, with
mouse-coloured hair, grey eyes, and somewhat thin lips. Certainly Mrs.
Delarayne must have been right about his sense of humour, for a pleasant
twinkle played about his eyes, even while he was at work, which gave him
the air of one amused by what he was doing.

Sir Joseph did not pretend t