After years and years Mr.Avery had learned to smile, but it was in a strange, exotic way.

Mostly he gazed steadily, folded his lower lip over his upper one, and expressed his almost unchangeable conclusions in slow Addisonian phrases.

In the present crisis it was Mr.Avery who had a suggestion to make.
"One thing that I think could be done," he said to Cowperwood one day in a very confidential conference, "would be to have a look into the--the--shall I say the heart affairs--of the Hon.

Chaffee Thayer Sluss." Mr.Avery's cat-like eyes gleamed sardonically.

"Unless I am greatly mistaken, judging the man by his personal presence merely, he is the sort of person who probably has had, or if not might readily be induced to have, some compromising affair with a woman which would require considerable sacrifice on his part to smooth over.