"That sounds fairly well," said Mr. Early wearily, and he dismissed the henchman and settled himself in a particularly benevolent arm-chair, in front of a cheerfully-roaring fire. The place was a remote room, decorated not for public inspection but for comfort. Mr. Early was tired. A certain new question had been waiting in the antechambers of his mind, and to-night he determined to give it leisurely attention; for of late it had several times been borne in him that he was getting along in years and that if he did not intend to die a bachelor, it behooved him to move swiftly. The thought had been quickened into livelier vitality when, at a dinner a few nights before, he had watched the face and studied the figure of Miss Madeline Elton. She was certainly a rare creature. There was a verve, a magnetic quality to her, that he hardly remembered before. Her beauty, her nobility, her purity he felt to be the artistic attributes of womanhood. No, he not only admired them, they charmed him. "Yes," said Mr. Early. "By Jove, if she'd lift her little finger at me I believe I'd make a fool of myself over her! And why shouldn't I? Why shouldn't I let myself go? I've got everything else now. A woman of her bigness likes a man who can do things and who controls other men. By Heaven, I believe we were made for each other!" Mr. Early grew so excited by the strength of his new passion that he sprang to his feet and walked up and down to luxuriate in the idea. Proportionately great was his annoyance when a knock invaded his self-communion, and his man's face appeared at the door to tell him that Mr. Murdock would like to speak with him. While he was yet opening his mouth to anathematize Mr. Murdock, that gentleman entered, familiar and cheerful. The man who came in was, in his way, a force almost as great and as worthy of regard as Mr. Sebastian Early himself--in fact no less a personage than the power behind the throne of that uncrowned king, William Barry. Though he did not sit on Olympian heights and play with the thunderbolts of jobs and contracts, as Barry did, yet he had an occasional way of interfering in the game, just as in Greek legend Fate loomed large behind the back of Zeus.