tention of marrying Sylvia was in the
air. Woodville, Sylvia, and Savile were perhaps the only people who
doubted the event's coming off. Ridokanaki was a small, thin, yet rather
noticeable-looking man of fifty, with courteous cosmopolitan manners. He
had a triangular face, the details of which were vague though the
outline was clear, like a negative that had been left too long in the
sun. His slight foreign accent suggested diplomacy rather than the City;
he was a man of the world, had travelled everywhere, and had the
reputation of knowing absolutely everything. He was firm but kind--the
velvet hand beneath the mailed fist--irritatingly tactful, outwardly
conventional, _raffine_, and rather tedious.

He called occasionally on Thursdays (Sylvia's day). Woodville was
usually having jealous palpitations in the library while Ridokanaki
talked strong, vague politics with Sir James, and drank weak tea poured
out by Sylvia (who always forgot that he never took sugar). After these
visits the powerful will of the Greek seemed to have asserted itself
without a word. It was his habit to express all his ideas in the most
hackneyed phrases except when talking business, so that he seemed
surprisingly dull and harmless, considering how much he _must_ know,
how much he must have seen and done. He had practically made his immense
fortune, and many people said that in his own line he was brilliant. It
was also often said of him (with surprise), "all the same Ridokanaki is
a very simple creature, _when you know him_." No one, however, had ever
yet really known him quite well enough to prove or justify this
description.

In the cumbrous continental fashion he was working up to the point of a
proposal, and something seemed to herald his future success. The
servants were all looking forward to the wedding. Only Price, the
footman, sometimes put in a word for poor Mr. Woodville. To say that the
romance was known and discussed with freedom in the servant's hall
should be needless. The illusion that domestics are ever in the dark
about what we fondly suppose to be our little secrets is still immensely
prevalent among persons who are young enough to know better.

"All I can say is, that's the man I'd marry if _I_ were a young lady,
whether or no," Price would say, sometimes adding, "With all his flowers
and motors, what _is_ the other gent after all but a sort of foreigner?
Mr. Woodville is the nephew of an English baronet. Give me an
Engli