nge is greatest in me. You always aimed at
success in a respectable career."

Otway looked puzzled, a little disconcerted.

"Really, is that how I always struck you? To me it's new light on my
own character."

"How did you think of yourself, then?" she asked, looking at him from
beneath drooping lids.

"I hardly know; I have thought less on that subject than on most."

Again there came a silence, long enough to be embarrassing. Then Olga
took up a sketch that was lying on the table, and held it to her
visitor.

"Don't you think that good? It's one of Miss Bonnicastle's. Let us talk
about her; she'll be here directly. We don't seem to get on, talking
about ourselves."

The sketch showed an elephant sitting upright, imbibing with gusto from
a bottle of some much-advertised tonic. Piers broke into a laugh. Other
sketches were exhibited, and thus they passed the time until Miss
Bonnicastle and Kite arrived together.

CHAPTER XVIII

Strangers with whom Piers Otway had business at this time saw in him a
young man of considerable energy, though rather nervous and impulsive,
capable in all that concerned his special interests, not over-sanguine,
inclined to brevity of speech, and scrupulously courteous in a cold
way. He seldom smiled; his clean-cut, intelligent features expressed
tension of the whole man, ceaseless strain and effort without that joy
of combat which compensates physical expenditure. He looked in fair,
not robust, health; a shadowed pallor of complexion was natural to him,
and made noticeable the very fine texture of his skin, which quickly
betrayed in delicate flushes any strong feeling. He shook hands with a
short, firm grip which argued more muscle than one might have supposed
in him. His walk was rapid; his bearing upright; his glance direct,
with something of apprehensive pride. The observant surmised a force
more or less at odds with the facts of life. Shrewd men of commerce at
once perceived his qualities, but reserved their judgment as to his
chances; he was not, in any case, altogether of their world, however
well he might have studied its principles and inured himself to its
practice.

He took rooms in Guildford Street. Indifferent to locality, asking
nothing more than decency in his immediate surroundings, he fell by
accident on the better kind of lodging-house, and was at once what is
called comfortable; his landlady behaved to him with a peculiar
respectfulness, often noticeable i