“You are a little severe, Mr. Wingate,” he said, “but I promise you that Phipps shall keep his temper and that I will not be drawn into a quarrel.  I am very pleased to see you here.  My wife’s friends are always mine.—­If you will excuse me, I will go and change my clothes now.  I have been inveigled into the last word of our present-day frivolities—­a theatrical supper party.”

He turned away, with an enigmatic smile at his wife and a ceremonious bow to Wingate, and closed the door behind him carefully.  They heard his retreating footsteps on the stairs; then Wingate resumed his seat by Josephine’s side.

“Do you mind?” he asked.

“Not a scrap,” she replied.  “Besides, it has given Henry such immense pleasure.  I am quite sure that he never believed it possible that I should be found holding another man’s hand.  Or,” she went on, with a little grimace, “that any other man would want to hold it.”

“It is possible,” Wingate said deliberately, “that your husband may have further surprises of that nature in store for him.”

She laughed.  “Is that a threat?”

“If you like to regard it as such.  You will find out before long that I am a terribly persistent person.”

“I wonder,” she remarked thoughtfully, “what could have made him so extraordinarily agreeable to you.”

“To tell you the truth, I was surprised,” Wingate replied.  “And Peter Phipps, too!  What can they want with me down at Throgmorton Street?  They can’t imagine that they can hustle me into the market?”

“Henry was very much in earnest,” she told him.

Wingate’s face darkened for a moment.

“They couldn’t suspect—­No, that wouldn’t be possible!”

“Suspect what?”

“That my enmity to the B. & I.,” he went on, in a low tone, “is beginning to take definite shape.”

“Just what do you mean by that?” she asked.

“I have just the glimmerings of a scheme,” he told her.  “It will be something entirely unexpected, and it will mean a certain amount of risk.”

“Don’t forget that you have promised to let me help,” she reminded him.

“If I strike,” he said, “it will be at the directors.  Your husband will suffer with the rest.”

“That would not affect my attitude in the least,” she assured him.  “As I think you must have gathered, there is no manner of sympathy between my husband and myself.”

“I am glad to hear you say so,” he declared bluntly.  “If there had been, I should have felt it my duty to advise you to use all your influence to get him to resign from the Board.”

“As bad as that?”

“As bad as that,” he answered.

“You can’t tell me anything about your scheme yet?”

“Not yet.”

“How is it,” she asked, “that they have been allowed to operate in wheat to this enormous extent?”

“Well, for one thing,” he told her, “the company has been planned and worked out with simply diabolical cleverness.  They are inside the law all the time, and they manage to keep there.  Their agents are so camouflaged that you can’t tell for whom they are buying.  Then they command an immense capital.”