of teeth were behind that gentle, yet
firm mouth. "Perhaps you will take a seat," she added.

This time the clergyman smiled, and Gladys Norman knew that she too
liked him. Sir John looked about him aggressively, blew out his
cheeks several times, then flopped into a chair. His companion also
seated himself, and appeared to become lost in a fit of abstraction.

William Johnson returned to his table and became engrossed,
ostensibly in the exploits of an indestructible trailer of men; but
really in a surreptitious examination of the two callers.

He had just succeeded in deducing from their manner that they
were father and son, and from the boots of the younger that he
was low church and a bad walker, when two sharp blasts on the
telephone-buzzer brought him to his feet and half-way across the
office in what was practically one movement. With Malcolm Sage there
were two things to be avoided, delay in answering a summons, and
unnecessary words.

"This way, sir," he said, and led them through the glass-panelled
door to Malcolm Sage's private room.

With a short, jerky movement of his head Malcolm Sage motioned his
visitors to be seated. In that one movement his steel-coloured eyes
had registered a mental photograph of the two men. That glance
embraced all the details; the dark hair of the younger, greying at
the temples, the dreamy grey eyes, the gentle curves of a mouth that
was, nevertheless, capable of great sternness, and the spare, almost
lean frame; then the self-important, overbearing manner of the older
man. "High Anglican, ascetic, out-of-doors," was Malcolm Sage's
mental classification of the one, thus unconsciously reversing the
William Johnson's verdict. The other he dismissed as a pompous ass.

"You Mr. Sage?" Sir John regarded the bald conical head and
gold-rimmed spectacles as if they had been unpolished buttons on
parade.

Malcolm Sage inclined his head slightly, and proceeded to gaze down
at his fingers spread out on the table before him. After the first
appraising glance he rarely looked at a client.

"I am Sir John Hackblock; this is my friend, the Rev. Geoffrey
Callice."

Again a slight inclination of the head indicated that Malcolm Sage
had heard.

Mr. Llewellyn John would have recognised in Sir John Hackblock the
last man in the world who should have been brought into contact with
Malcolm Sage. The Prime Minister's own policy had been to keep
Malcolm Sage from contact with other Minister