grown up together."




CHAPTER TWO


That same afternoon the banker passed through the polished steel
grille of his new home by means of a flat key attached to a plain gold
chain.

The house, like its owner, had a certain personality of its own,
although it lacked his simplicity; its square mass being so richly
carved that it seemed as if the faintest stroke of the architect's
soft pencil had made a dollar mark. So vast, too, was its baronial
hall and sweeping stairway in pale rose marble, that its owner might
have entered it unnoticed, had not Blakeman, the butler, busying
himself with the final touches to a dinner table of twenty covers,
heard his master's alert step in the hall and hurried to relieve him
of his coat and hat. Before, however, the man could reach him, Thayor
had thrown both aside, and had stepped to a carved oak table on which
were carefully arranged ten miniature envelopes. He bent over them for
a moment and then turning to the butler asked in an impatient tone:

"How many people are coming to dinner, Blakeman?"

"Twenty, sir," answered Blakeman, his face preserving its habitual
Sphinx-like immobility.