“Thank you, sir.”

The great mahogany folding doors slid smoothly together, closing out the brilliant drawing-room; the door of the butler’s pantry clicked.

Colonel Arran slowly wheeled in his place and surveyed his unbidden guest: 

“Well, sir,” he said, “continue.”

“I haven’t yet begun.”

“You are mistaken, Berkley; you have made a very significant beginning.  I was told that you are this kind of a young man.”

“I am this kind of a young man.  What else have you been told?”

Colonel Arran inspected him through partly closed and heavy eyes; “I am further informed,” he said, that at twenty-four you have already managed to attain bankruptcy.”

“Perfectly correct.  What other items have you collected concerning me?”

“You can retrace your own peregrinations if you care to.  I believe they follow a vicious circle bisecting the semi-fashionable world, and the—­other.  Shall we say that the expression, unenviable notoriety, summarises the reputation you have acquired?”

“Exactly,” he said; “both kinds of vice, Colonel Arran—­respectable and disreputable.”

“Oh!  And am I correct in concluding that, at this hour, you stand there a financially ruined man—­at twenty-four years of age——­”

“I do stand here; but I’m going to sit down.”

He did so, dropped both elbows on the cloth, and balancing his chin on the knuckles of his clasped hands, examined the older man with insolent, unchanging gaze.

“Go on,” he said coolly, “what else do you conclude me to be?”

“What else is there to say to you, Berkley?  You have evidently seen my attorneys.”

“I have; the fat shyster and the bow-legged one.”  He reached over, poured himself a glass of brandy from a decanter, then, with an unpleasant laugh, set it aside untasted.

“I beg your pardon.  I’ve had a hard day of it.  I’m not myself,” he said with an insolent shrug of excuse.  “At eleven o’clock this morning Illinois Central had fallen three more points, and I had no further interest in the market.  Then one of your brokers—­” He leaned farther forward on the table and stared brightly at the older man, showing an edge of even teeth, under the receding upper lip: 

“How long have your people been watching me?”

“Long enough to give me what information I required.”

“Then you really have had me watched?”

“I have chosen to keep in touch with your—­career, Berkley.”

Berkley’s upper lip again twitched unpleasantly; but, when at length he spoke, he spoke more calmly than before and his mobile features were in pallid repose.

“One of your brokers—­Cone—­stopped me.  I was too confused to understand what he wanted of me.  I went with him to your attorneys—­” Like lightning the snarl twitched his mouth again; he made as though to rise, and controlled himself in the act.