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