"I think, sir," added James, with respectful suggestiveness, "he wants
to talk. At least, sir, he asked me if you would likely come downstairs
before your company arrived."

"Ah! Well, tell the others I'm dining on BUSINESS, and set dinner for
two in the blue room."

"Yes, sir."

Meanwhile, Mr. Leyton--a man of Rushbrook's age, but not so fresh and
vigorous-looking--had thrown himself in a chair beside the study fire,
after a glance around the handsome and familiar room. For the house had
belonged to a brother millionaire; it had changed hands with certain
shares of "Water Front,"--as some of Rushbrook's dealings had the true
barbaric absence of money detail,--and was elegantly and tastefully
furnished. The cuckoo had, however, already laid a few characteristic
eggs in this adopted nest, and a white marble statue of a nude and
ill-fed Virtue, sent over by Rushbrook's Paris agent, and unpacked
that morning, stood in one corner, and materially brought down the
temperature. A Japanese praying-throne of pure ivory, and, above it, a
few yards of improper, colored exposure by an old master, equalized each
other.

"And what is all this affair about the dinner?" suddenly asked a
tartly-pitched female voice with a foreign accent.

Mr. Leyton turned quickly, and was just conscious of a faint shriek, the
rustle of a skirt, and the swift vanishing of a woman's figure from the
doorway. Mr. Leyton turned red. Rushbrook lived en garcon, with feminine