“Well, he went off as if he had been shot from a gun. That is not like him at all, I should say, from what I have seen of him. Perhaps I should have looked after him a little more. I tried once, but I could not get him away from you. His manner is really charming when he talks, and he is so natural and so well bred; not at all like his friend, of whom he seems to think so much. How did you like him, dear Ruth?” “Oh, I don't know.” She knew, but she didn't intend to tell anybody. “He's very shy and--” “--And very young.” “Yes, perhaps.” “And very much of a gentleman,” broke in Peter in a decided tone. None should misunderstand the boy if he could help it. Again Ruth laughed. Neither of them had touched the button which had rung up her sympathy and admiration. “Of course he is a gentleman. He couldn't be anything else. He is from Maryland, you know.” CHAPTER X Reference has been made in these pages to a dinner to be given in the house of Breen to various important people, and to which Mr. Peter Grayson, the honored friend of the distinguished President of the Clearing House, was to be invited. The Scribe is unable to say whether the distinguished Mr. Grayson received an invitation or not. Breen may have thought better of it, or Jack may have discouraged it after closer acquaintance with the man who had delighted his soul as no other man except his father had ever done--but certain it is that he was not present, and equally certain is it that the distinguished Mr. Portman was, and so were many of the directors of the Mukton Lode, not to mention various others--capitalists whose presence would lend dignity to the occasion and whose names and influence would be of inestimable value to the future of the corporation. As fate would have it the day for assuaging the appetites of these financial magnates was the same that Miss Felicia had selected for her tea to Ruth, and the time at which they were to draw up their chairs but two hours subsequent to that in which Jack, crushed and humiliated by his uncle's knavery, had crept downstairs and into the street. In this frame of mind the poor boy had stopped at the Magnolia in the hope of finding Garry, who must, he thought, have left Corinne at home, and then retraced his steps to the club. He must explode somewhere and with someone, and the young architect was the very man he wanted. Garry had ridiculed his old-fashioned ideas and had advised him to let himself go. Was the wiping out of Gilbert's fortune part of the System? he asked himself.