He was looking through the open door of the smoking-room to where Sir Alfred was deep in the pages of a review.
"Are there many people dining there to-night ?" he asked.
"Sir Alfred has a guest at eight o'clock, sir," the man replied.
"There are several others, I think, but they have not ordered tables specially." "At a quarter past eight, if you please.

I shall be in the billiard-room, Charles," he added, turning to the hall-porter.
Sir Alfred wearied soon of the pages of his review and leaned back in his chair, his hands folded in front of him, gazing through the window at the opposite side of the way.

A good many people, passing backwards and forwards, glanced at him curiously.

For thirty years his had been something like a household name in the city.

He had been responsible, he and the great firm of which he was the head, for international finance conducted on the soundest principles, finance which scorned speculation, finance which rolled before it the great snowball of automatically accumulated wealth.