card to Roy Beaumont, the young inventor? That's right. That boy has a
future. Mark my words, he has a future before him."

"Oh! I thought it had begun some time ago, and was still going on. He is
quite twenty-three, isn't he?" asked Frank.

"About that--about that. He's a young man with Ideas, Woodville."

"Yes. I heard he had grown tired of button-holes, and is thinking of
training a creeper to crawl up the lapel of his coat."

"An original notion," said Sir James judicially. "If practicable. And
what else did he invent?"

"Wasn't it he who invented some new way of not posting letters--by
electricity?"

"I rather think you're confusing him with Marconi," said Sir James,
shaking his head. "But I always detect genius! It's a curious thing,
Woodville, but I never make a mistake! By the way, I should like to send
a card to the Leader of the Opposition and his wife. Inquire of Sylvia
about their address. I don't know them, socially, but I fancy they would
be rather surprised if I omitted them."

"It might, indeed, be rather marked," said Woodville, making a note, and
remembering that it is as impossible nowadays to ask every one one
knows as to know every one one asks.

"Well, I'll leave you to your work, and we'll do the speech later, a
little later ... much later," and Sir James meditatively bent his elbows
on the arms of the chair, accurately placed all the tips of his fingers
together, and slowly blinked his eyes. He did not mean any harm by this.
In fact, he meant nothing. His gestures and expression had no
significance at all. He simply behaved like any other elderly
Anglo-Saxon who believes himself to be political and to resemble the
"Younger Pitt."

"I rather wanted to ask Miss Crofton about a change of address," said
Woodville, glancing swiftly and hypocritically through the Red Book.

"I'll send her to you--I'll send her. Don't move. Sit still, sit still."

Woodville followed with his eyes the closing of the door; then he put
down his pen and gazed at the closed door. Sometimes he thought his life
was like a closed door. Yet, perhaps, there might be some one on the
other side of the door? (According to Maeterlinck--or is it Owen
Seaman?--there is always some one on the other side of a door.)

At a casual glance Woodville seemed the conventional type of a
good-looking young Englishman, tall, fair-haired, and well built. He
possessed, however, a forehead unnecessarily intellectual; and a
sparkle of