curtains were drawn, and the sideboard
was a thing of intimation. Rollo, his man--St. George had easily
fallen in all the habits which he had longed to assume--was just
closing the little ice-box sunk behind a panel of the wall, and he
came forward with dignified deference.

"Everything is ready, Rollo?" St. George asked. "No one has
telephoned to beg off?"

"Yes, sir," answered Rollo, "and no, sir."

St. George had sometimes told himself that the man looked like an
oval grey stone with a face cut upon it.

"Is the claret warmed?" St. George demanded, handing his hat. "Did
the big glasses come for the liqueur--and the little ones will set
inside without tipping? Then take the cigars to the den--you'll have
to get some cigarettes for Mr. Provin. Keep up the fire. Light the
candles in ten minutes. I say, how jolly the table looks."

"Yes, sir," returned Rollo, "an' the candles 'll make a great
difference, sir. Candles do give out an air, sir."

One month of service had accustomed St. George to his valet's gift
of the Articulate Simplicity. Rollo's thoughts were doubtless
contrived in the cuticle and knew no deeper operance; but he always
uttered his impressions with, under his mask, an air of keen and
seasoned personal observation. In his first interview with St.
George, Rollo had said: "I always enjoy being kep' busy, sir. _To
me_, the busy man is a grand sight," and St. George had at once
appreciated his possibilities. Rollo was like the fine print in an
almanac.

When the candles were burning and the lights had been turned on in
the little ochre den where the billiard-table stood, St. George
emerged--a well-made figure, his buoyant, clear-cut face accurately
bespeaking both health and cleverness. Of a family represented by
the gentle old bishop and his own exquisite mother, himself
university-bred and fresh from two years' hard, hand-to-hand
fighting to earn an honourable livelihood, St. George, of sound body
and fine intelligence, had that temper of stability within vast
range which goes pleasantly into the mind that meets it. A symbol of
this was his prodigious popularity with those who had been his
fellow-workers--a test beside which old-world traditions of the
urban touchstones are of secondary advantage. It was deeply
significant that in spite of the gulf which Chance had digged the
day-staff of the _Sentinel_, all save two or three of which were not
of his estate, had with flattering alacrity obeyed his