There was a certain type of awfully smart stockbroker--Lord Rye called them Jews and bounders, but she didn't care--whose extravagance, she more than once threw out, had really, if one had any conscience, to be forcibly restrained.

It was not perhaps a pure love of beauty: it was a matter of vanity and a sign of business; they wished to crush their rivals, and that was one of their weapons.

Mrs.Jordan's shrewdness was extreme; she knew in any case her customer--she dealt, as she said, with all sorts; and it was at the worst a race for her--a race even in the dull months--from one set of chambers to another.

And then, after all, there were also still the ladies; the ladies of stockbroking circles were perpetually up and down.

They were not quite perhaps Mrs.Bubb or Lady Ventnor; but you couldn't tell the difference unless you quarrelled with them, and then you knew it only by their making-up sooner.