supposed to buy or sell, that you would have been all round the markets,
enquiring about B. & I.'s this morning."

"I read the papers instead," he replied. "One can learn a good deal from
the papers."

"You will find rather a partial Press where B. & I.'s are concerned,"
Kendrick observed.

"I have already noticed it," was the brief reply. "Still, even the Press
must live, I suppose."

"Cynic!" Sarah murmured.

"Might one ask, without being impertinent," Maurice White enquired,
addressing Wingate for the first time, "what is your real opinion
concerning the directors of the B. & I.?"

Wingate answered him deliberately.

"I am scarcely a fair person to ask," he said, "because Peter Phipps is a
personal enemy of mine. However, since you have asked the question, I
should say that Phipps is utterly unscrupulous and possesses every
qualification of a blackguard. Rees, his nephew, is completely under his
thumb, occupying just the position he might be supposed to hold.
Skinflint Martin ought to have died in penal servitude years ago, and as
for Dredlinton--"

Wingate was quick to scent disaster. He broke off abruptly in his
sentence just as a tall, pale, beautifully gowned woman who had detached