He was still quite a young man, not more than thirty-two or three years
of age, though he lacked the ultra robust and rubicund appearance which
is typical of so many Englishmen of his class at this period of life. A
heavy bout of blackwater fever acquired on service in West Africa, which
would have killed anyone of weaker constitution, had robbed his face of
its bloom and left it much sallower, if more interesting than once it
had been. For in a way there was interest about the face; also a certain
charm. It was a good and honest face with a rather eager, rather puzzled
look, that of a man who has imagination and ideas and who searches for
the truth but fails to find it. As for the charm, it lay for the most
part in the pleasant, open smile and in the frank but rather round brown
eyes overhung by a somewhat massive forehead which projected a little,
or perhaps the severe illness already alluded to had caused the rest
of the face to sink. Though thin, the man was bigly built, with broad
shoulders and well-developed limbs, measuring a trifle under six feet in
height.

Such was the outward appearance of Alan Vernon. As for his mind, it was
able enough in certain fashions, for instance those of engineering,
and the soldier-like faculties to which it had been trained; frank
and kindly also, but in other respects not quick, perhaps from its
unsuspiciousness. Alan Vernon was a man slow to discover ill and slower
still to believe in it even when it seemed to be discovered, a weakness
that may have gone far to account for his presence in the office
of those eminent and brilliant financiers, Messrs. Aylward &
Champers-Haswell. Just now he looked a little worried, like a fish out
of water, or rather a fish which has begun to suspect the quality of the
water, something in its smell or taste.

"Jeffreys tells me that you want to see me, Sir Robert," he said in his