“Splendid!” Sarah murmured.  “Now tell us where Peter Phipps comes in?”

“Well,” Kendrick continued, “Phipps attracts sympathy because of his lavish hospitality and apparent generosity, whilst Wingate is a man of many reserves and has few friends, either on this side or the other.  Then Phipps, I should say, is the wealthier man, and in this present deal, at any rate, he has marvellous support, so that financially he must tower over Wingate.  Then, too, I think he understands the tricks of the market better over here, and he has a very dangerous confederate in Skinflint Martin.  What that old blackguard doesn’t know of chicanery and crooked dealing, the devil himself couldn’t make use of.  If he’s put his own money into B. & I., I should say that Phipps can’t be broken.  My advice to Wingate, at any rate, when we meet, will be to stand by for a time.”

The sound of approaching voices warned them that their seclusion was on the point of being broken into.  Their hostess, an elderly lady of great social gifts and immense volubility, appeared, having for her escort a tall, well-groomed man of youthful middle-age, with the square jaw and humorous gleam in his grey eyes of the best trans-Atlantic type.  Lady Amesbury beamed upon them all.

“Just the people I was looking for!” she exclaimed.  “I want you all to know my great friend, Mr. Wingate from New York.”

Every one was glad to meet Wingate, and Kendrick and he exchanged the greetings of old friends.

“Now you have found some one whom you can talk to, my dear John,” his hostess declared.  “I shall consider you off my hands for the afternoon.  Come and dine with me next Sunday night, and don’t lose your heart to Sarah Baldwin.  She’s a capricious little minx, and, besides, she’s engaged to Jimmy there, though heaven knows whether they’ll ever get married.—­There!  I knew it!  My own particular Bishop being lured into conversation with Hilda Sutton, who’s just become a freethinker and can’t talk of anything else.  It will spoil the dear man’s afternoon if she gets really started.—­Good-by, all of you.  Take care of Mr. Wingate.”

She hurried off, and the newcomer seated himself between Kendrick and Sarah.

“We’ve just been hearing all about you, Mr. Wingate,” Sarah began, “but I must say you’re the last person we expected to see here.  We imagined you dashing in a great motor-car from Liverpool to your office in the City, dictating letters, speaking into the telephone, and doing all sorts of violent things.  I don’t believe Mr. Kendrick told us the truth about you at all.”

Wingate smiled good-humouredly.

“Tell me what Kendrick has been saying, and I will let you know whether it is the truth or not,” he promised.

“Well, he has just given us a thrilling picture of you,” she went on, “coming over here armed cap-a-pie to do battle for the romance of money.  Already we were picturing to ourselves poor Dreadnought Phipps, the first of your victims, seeking for an asylum in the Stock Exchange Almshouses; and the other desperado—­what was his name?  Skinflint Martin?—­on his knees before you while you read him a moral lecture on the evils of speculation.”