Her piquant prettiness and her charm of manner dazzled him.

She played her part well, not merely because she had agreed to do so, but because it was one that strongly appealed to her nature.
On the second evening of Singleton's visit, he was talking to Sylvia rather confidentially in the drawing-room, where Mrs.Lansing had left them, while Herbert was seated at a table in his library with a cigar in his hand and a litter of papers in front of him.

He was thinking hard, and rubber occupied the foremost place in his mind.

He was a director of a company, formed to exploit a strip of rubber-bearing territory in the tropics, which had hitherto been successful; but he felt that it was time to retire from the position and realize the profit on his shares.

There was another company he and some associates had arranged to launch, but he was now very doubtful whether this would be wise.