“I am temporary secretary to the Council of Defence only, Lord Blenavon,” I answered.  “I know nothing whatever of your father’s private affairs.  He has his own man of business.”

I am not sure whether he believed me.  He cracked some walnuts and commenced peeling them.

“My father will never listen to me,” he said, “but I feel sure that he makes a mistake in becoming a director of all these companies.  Politics should be quite sufficient to engross his time, and the money cannot be so much of an object to him.  I don’t suppose his holdings are large, but I am quite sure that one or two of those Australian gold mines are dicky, and you know he was an enormous holder of Chartereds, and wouldn’t sell, worse luck!  Of course I’m not afraid of his losing in the long run, but it isn’t exactly a dignified thing to be associated with these concerns that aren’t exactly A1.  His name might lead people into speculations who couldn’t altogether afford it.”

“I know nothing whatever of these matters,” I answered, “but from what I have seen of your father I should imagine that he is remarkably able to guard his own interests.”

Blenavon nodded.

“I suppose that is true,” he admitted.  “But when he is already a rich man, with very simple tastes, I am rather surprised that he should care to meddle with such things.”

“Playing at commerce,” I remarked, “has become rather a hobby with men of leisure lately.”

“And women, too,” Blenavon assented.  “Rather an ugly hobby, I call it.”

A servant entered and addressed Blenavon.  “The carriage is at the door, your Lordship,” he announced.

Blenavon glanced at his watch and rose.

“I shall have to ask you to excuse me, Ducaine,” he said.  “I was to have dined out to-night, and I must go and make my peace.  Another glass of wine?”

I rose at once.

“Nothing more, thank you,” I said.  “I will just say good-night to your sister.”

“She’s probably in the drawing-room,” he remarked.  “If not, I will make your excuses when I see her.”

Blenavon hurried out.  A few moments later I heard the wheels of his carriage pass the long front of the house and turn down the avenue.  I lingered for a moment where I was.  The small oak table at which we had dined seemed like an oasis of colour in the midst of an atmosphere of gloom.  The room was large and lofty, and the lighting was altogether inadequate.  From the walls there frowned through the shadows the warlike faces of generations of Rowchesters.  At the farther end of the apartment four armed giants stood grim and ghostlike in the twilight, which seemed to supply their empty frames with the presentment of actual warriors.  I looked down upon the table, all agleam with flowers, and fruit, and silver, over which shone the red glow of the shaded lamps.  Exactly opposite to me, in that chair now pushed carelessly back, she had sat, so close that my hand could have