“Those figures from the Official Receiver,” Phipps remarked, as he filled his glass with wine and passed the bottle across the table, “are scarcely what we had a right to expect, eh, Stanley?”

“They are simply scandalous,” Rees declared gloomily.  “One does not speculate with one’s own money.  I should have thought that any one with the least knowledge of finance would understand that.  This man seems to think he has a lien upon our private fortunes.”

“Not only that,” Peter Phipps groaned, “but he’s attaching as much as he can get hold of.  And to think of that old devil, Skinflint Martin, scenting the trouble and getting off to Buenos Ayres!  The best part of half a million he got off with.  Pig!—­Stanley, this may be our last season at Monte Carlo.  We shall have to draw in.  Every year it gets more difficult to make money.”

“One month more of the British and Imperial,” Stanley Rees sighed, “and we should both have been millionaires.”

“And as it is,” his uncle groaned, “I am beginning to get a little nervous about our hotel bill.”

* * * * *

With a benedictory wave of his hand, an all-welcoming smile, and a backward progress which suggested distinction bordering upon royalty, the chief maitre d’hotel ushered his distinguished patrons to the table which had been reserved for them.  Josephine looked across the little sea of her favourite blue gentians and smiled at her husband.

“You remember always,” she murmured.

Wingate, who was standing up until his guests were seated, flashed an answering smile.  At his right hand was a French princess, who was Josephine’s godmother; at his left Sarah, lately glorified to married estate.  An English Cabinet Minister and an American diplomatist, with their wives, and Jimmy, completed the party.  No one noticed the two men at the little table near the wall.

“You are a magician,” the Princess whispered to Wingate.  “Never could I have believed that my dear Josephine would become young again.  They speak of her already as the most beautiful woman on the Riviera, and with reason.  I am proud of my godchild.  And they tell me that you,” she went on, “have done great things in the world of finance, as well as in the underworld of politics.  Those are worlds, alas!” she added with a little sigh, “of which I know nothing.”

“They are worlds,” Wingate replied, “which exist more on paper than anywhere else.”

“Is it true, Wingate,” the Cabinet Minister asked him curiously, “that it was you who broke the British and Imperial Granaries?”

“If there is such a thing,” Wingate answered with a smile, “as a world of underground politics—­the Princess herself coined the phrase—­then I think I may claim that what passed between me and the directors of that company is secret history.  As a matter of fact, though, I think I was to some extent responsible for smashing that horrible syndicate.”