Tea was served by two trimly uniformed maids, and Mr Gilder acted the part of host to perfection. He had a library of rare old books which she must see, and he took them to a room the walls of which were fitted with bookshelves and reminded Leslie, though there was no resemblance between the two apartments, of the hall wherein her fiancé spent most of his time.

Gilder was showing the girl a rare first edition when a surprising thing happened.

“Do you mind if I run out for five minutes, Leslie? I want to see a fellow who lives on the other side of the Park.”

Arthur Gine’s voice was husky, his assumption of ease a miserable failure. The girl looked at him in astonishment, and then examined the face of the little watch on her wrist.

“If you want to be back at Willow House in time for dinner–” she began.

“I shan’t be gone more than a quarter of an hour,” he said desperately. “If you don’t mind–”

Before she could utter a word he had vanished. It was all so unexpected, so strange, that she could not quite realise what had happened, and the last thought in the world she could have had, was that Arthur was deliberately leaving her alone with this grey man.

On one point her mind was made up: she did not like Mr Gilder, and was fairly certain that her antipathy was shared by her brother. His strange manner in the presence of the man, his awkwardness, and, most convincing proof of all, his silence, puzzled her. Arthur was intensely selfish, would not go a step out of his way either for courtesy’s sake or to save the feelings of those whom he regarded as his dependents. And this sudden desire to oblige his head clerk was contradictory to her knowledge of him. Yet she felt neither alarm nor annoyance, finding herself in that little library alone with this square-jawed clerk.

As the door closed upon her brother, Fabrian Gilder carefully replaced on the shelf the book he had been examining.

“I shall be in my new home by the spring,” he said, “and I hope I shall see more of you, Miss Gine.”

She made a conventionally polite reply.

“My ambition has always been to settle in the country and to follow my two hobbies, which are fishing and reading,” he went on. “Happily, I am in the position of being able to retire from my profession – your brother has probably told you that I am a fairly wealthy man.”

Something in his tone focussed her attention. Her heart beat a little faster, and for the first time she was conscious of being alone with him.

“I am not an old man – fifty I regard as the prime of life – and I think I have the capacity for making any woman happy.”

She met his eyes steadily.