In its own way it was a remarkable face, as he appeared then in his fourth and fortieth year; very pale but with a natural pallor, very well cut and on the whole impressive.  His eyes were dark, matching his black hair and pointed beard, and his nose was straight and rather prominent.  Perhaps the mouth was his weakest feature, for there was a certain shiftiness about it, also the lips were thick and slightly sensuous.  Sir Robert knew this, and therefore he grew a moustache to veil them somewhat.  To a careful observer the general impression given by this face was such as is left by the sudden sight of a waxen mask.  “How strong!  How lifelike!” he would have said, “but of course it isn’t real.  There may be a man behind, or there may be wood, but that’s only a mask.”  Many people of perception had felt like this about Sir Robert Aylward, namely, that under the mask of his pale countenance dwelt a different being whom they did not know or appreciate.

If these had seen him at this moment of the opening of our story, they might have held that Wisdom was justified of her children.  For now in the solitude of his splendid office, of a sudden Sir Robert’s mask seemed to fall from him.  His face broke up like ice beneath a thaw.  He rose from his table and began to walk up and down the room.  He talked to himself aloud.

“Great Heavens!” he muttered, “what a game to have played, and it will go through.  I believe that it will go through.”

He stopped at the table, switched on an electric light and made a rapid calculation on the back of a letter with a blue pencil.

“Yes,” he said, “that’s my share, a million and seventeen thousand pounds in cash, and two million in ordinary shares which can be worked off at a discount—­let us say another seven hundred and fifty thousand, plus what I have got already—­put that at only two hundred and fifty thousand net.  Two millions in all, which of course may or may not be added to, probably not, unless the ordinaries boom, for I don’t mean to speculate any more.  That’s the end of twenty years’ work, Robert Aylward.  And to think of it, eighteen months ago, although I seemed so rich, I was on the verge of bankruptcy—­the very verge, not worth five thousand pounds.  Now what did the trick?  I wonder what did the trick?”

He walked down the room and stopped opposite the ancient marble, staring at it—­

“Not Venus, I think,” he said, with a laugh, “Venus never made any man rich.”  He turned and retraced his steps to the other end of the room, which was veiled in shadow.  Here upon a second marble pedestal stood an object that gleamed dimly through the gloom.  It was about ten inches or a foot high, but in that place nothing more could be seen of it, except that it was yellow and had the general appearance of a toad.  For some reason it seemed to attract Sir Robert Aylward, for he halted to stare at it, then stretched out his hand and switched on another lamp, in the hard brilliance of which the