Alistair rose eagerly and followed him, feeling pretty sure that the banker had been disengaged the whole time. But the barriers he had had to surmount had considerably weakened his self-confidence, and he experienced a sensible relief when Mendes, rising at his entrance, shook hands with his accustomed friendliness, and offered him an easy-chair. “I hope my people haven’t bothered you too much,” the millionaire said. “But you find me here with my armour on, keeping guard over my money-bags. Who is your royal friend?” Alistair repeated the story he had just told in the other room, but in a distinctly lower key of enthusiasm. “You met him with Des Louvres?” remarked the Brazilian. “Why didn’t Des Louvres come here, or, better still, the Prince himself?” “He will come, I have no doubt, if you are willing to entertain his proposals.” “I can hardly say that till I have seen him.” Mendes touched a bell, and the young man who had introduced Alistair promptly appeared in the doorway. “Ascertain what is known in Rome about Prince Don Juan de Bourbon, and let me know when I come back from lunch.” The young man hesitated an instant. “The telephone does not go beyond Paris, sir,” he said, speaking with just perceptible hesitation. “Our agent there can telegraph on. Cipher.” Mendes spoke quietly. As soon as the door had closed on the young secretary, his employer made a mark upon a sheet of paper. “You won’t see that youth next time you come here,” he observed to Stuart. “That is the second time this week he has asked me to think for him.” Alistair shivered as he heard the ruthless sentence. A picture rose before him of a young man proud in his employer’s favour, and filled with ambitious dreams for the future, going home to an old mother, or perhaps a newly-married bride, in some pleasant little suburban home, and breaking the news that he was ruined. It was in this way that money-bags were guarded. Mendes sat considering for a moment. “You don’t know why Rothschilds refused them, I suppose?” he threw out. “I didn’t know they had applied to Rothschilds!” exclaimed Alistair in astonishment. “All these people do, as a rule. Rothschilds have the name, you know. Every financial scheme that gets floated in London goes there first. We smaller men have to subsist on their leavings.” He sat up to his desk, and wrote a short note, which he sealed up and addressed himself. Then he touched the bell again, and handed it to the doomed young man, whom Alistair gazed on with a fascinated interest. “Take it yourself. They may see you. Now,” he said, turning to Stuart, “come and have lunch.”