ut of the man and left him soulless. His clothes had the
impress of the ready-made, although he wore them with a distinction
which was obviously inherent; and notwithstanding the fact that he
seemed to have been writing, he wore gloves.

"I am much obliged to you, Rocke," he said. "Let me repeat your
question. What is there that you can do for me?"

Mr. Rocke was apparently a little nonplussed. The absolute
imperturbability of the man who had once been his friend was
disconcerting.

"Well," he said, "the governor sent me instead of coming himself,
because he thought that I might be more useful to you. London changes so
quickly--you would hardly know your way about now. I should like you to
come and dine with me tonight, and I'll take you round anywhere you care
to go; and then if you don't want to go back to your old tradespeople, I
could take you to my tailor and bookmaker."

"Is that all?" Wingrave asked calmly.

Rocke was again taken aback.

"Certainly not," he answered. "There must be many ways in which I could
be useful to you, but I can't think of them all at once. I am here to
serve you professionally or as a friend, to the best of my ability. Can
you suggest anything yourself? What do you want?"

"That is the question," Wingrave said, "which I have been asking myself.
Unfortunately, up to now, I have not been able to answer it. Regarding
myself, however, from the point of view of a third party, I should
say that the thing I was most in need of was the society of my fellow
creatures."

"Exactly," Rocke declared. "That is what I thought you would say! It
won't take us long to arrange something of the sort for you."

"Can you put me up," Wingrave asked, "at your club, and introduce me to
your friends there?"

Rocke flinched before the steady gaze of those cold enquiring eyes, in
which he fancied, too, that a gleam of malice shone. The color mounted
to his cheeks. It was a most embarrassing situation.

"I can introduce you to some decent fellows, of course, and to some very
charming ladies," he said hesitatingly, "but as to the club--I--well,
don't you think yourself that it would scarcely be wise to--"

"Exactly," Wingrave interrupted. "And these ladies that you spoke of--"

"Oh! There's no difficulty about that," Rocke declared with an air of
relief. "I can make up a little dinner party for tonight, if you like.
There's an awfully smart American woman over here, with the Fanciful Fan
Company--I'm s