“You are not Rathburn & Co., I suppose?” he asked, mentioning another bookmaking firm that had drawn heavily upon his resources.

To his amazement, Gilder nodded.

“I am Rathburn & Company. I am also Burton & Smith. I am, in fact, the three bookmakers to whom you have been losing money at the rate of thirty thousand a year for the past five years. There is no sense in looking like that, Gine. I have been guilty of no crime. On the few occasions when you have won money, you have been paid. Your losses would not have been so distasteful if they had been made to an unknown man. I took the risk – my luck against yours. When I started, I staked my little fortune – three thousand pounds, won through the years by scrimping and saving. If you had been lucky, I should have been ruined.”

“Instead of which you were lucky – and I am ruined,” said Arthur Gine huskily. He was shaken from his accustomed calm. “You are quite right, though it is a little – bewildering.”

He looked curiously at the inscrutable face of his managing clerk, striving to readjust his estimate of a man whom he had looked upon as little more than a superior servant. Then the humour of the position struck him and he laughed.

“If I’m not careful I shall be sorry for myself, and I should hate that, Gilder! So you’re a rich man, eh? What are you going to do with your money?”

Gilder’s eyes did not leave his face.

“I am going to settle down in the country,” he said, “and I am going to marry.”

“Splendid!” There was a note of irony in Arthur Gine’s tone. “And who is the fortunate lady?”

It was a long time before the other replied. He stared open-eyed at his sometime master, and then, very deliberately and slowly: “It is my desire and intention to marry Miss Leslie Gine,” he said.

Not a muscle of Arthur Gine’s face moved; his colour did not change. But into his eyes came a glare which was malign and devilish. For a second the imperturbable Gilder was scared. Had he gone too far? Both men were learning something that day. Gilder had a momentary view of something that was very ugly and menacing, and then the curtains were drawn and the inner self of Arthur Gine vanished in an enigmatic smile.

“That is very interesting and very – enterprising of you, Gilder! Unfortunately, I have other plans.”

He rose leisurely from his chair, walked round the desk and confronted the other, his hands thrust into his pockets.

“What are you prepared to pay for the privilege of being my brother-in-law?” he bantered.

Fabrian Gilder took up the challenge.

“The return of half your betting losses for the past five years,” he said.

Arthur shook his head.

“Not enough,” he smiled.