Again Ruth laughed.  Neither of them had touched the button which had rung up her sympathy and admiration.

“Of course he is a gentleman.  He couldn’t be anything else.  He is from Maryland, you know.”

CHAPTER X

Reference has been made in these pages to a dinner to be given in the house of Breen to various important people, and to which Mr. Peter Grayson, the honored friend of the distinguished President of the Clearing House, was to be invited.  The Scribe is unable to say whether the distinguished Mr. Grayson received an invitation or not.  Breen may have thought better of it, or Jack may have discouraged it after closer acquaintance with the man who had delighted his soul as no other man except his father had ever done—­but certain it is that he was not present, and equally certain is it that the distinguished Mr. Portman was, and so were many of the directors of the Mukton Lode, not to mention various others—­capitalists whose presence would lend dignity to the occasion and whose names and influence would be of inestimable value to the future of the corporation.

As fate would have it the day for assuaging the appetites of these financial magnates was the same that Miss Felicia had selected for her tea to Ruth, and the time at which they were to draw up their chairs but two hours subsequent to that in which Jack, crushed sad humiliated by his uncle’s knavery, had crept downstairs and into the street.

In this frame of mind the poor boy had stopped at the Magnolia in the hope of finding Garry, who must, he thought, have left Corinne at home, and then retraced his steps to the club.  He must explode somewhere and with someone, and the young architect was the very man he wanted.  Garry had ridiculed his old-fashioned ideas and had advised him to let himself go.  Was the wiping out of Gilbert’s fortune part of the System? he asked himself.

As he hunted through the rooms, almost deserted at this hour, his eyes searching for his friend, a new thought popped into his head, and with such force that it bowled him over into a chair, where he sat staring straight in front of him.  Tonight, he suddenly remembered, was the night of the dinner his uncle was to give to some business friends—­“A Gold-Mine Dinner,” his aunt had called it.  His cheeks flamed again when he thought that these very men had helped in the Mukton swindle.  To interrupt them, though, at their feast—­or even to mention the subject to his uncle while the dinner was in progress—­was, of course, out of the question.  He would stay where he was; dine alone, unless Garry came in, and then when the last man had left his uncle’s house he would have it out with him.

Biffton was the only man who disturbed his solitude.  Biffy was in full evening dress—­an enormous white carnation in his button-hole and a crush hat under his arm.  He was booked for a “Stag,” he said with a yawn, or he would stay and keep him company.  Jack didn’t want any company—­certainly not Biffy—­most assuredly not any of the young fellows who had asked him about Gilbert’s failure.  What he wanted was to be left alone until eleven o’clock, during which time he would get something to eat.