If he had one noticeable failing—so slight that it could hardly be called a fault—it was perhaps the rather too obvious interest he displayed in the sort of people whose pictures get into the illustrated weeklies. Not that Mr. Stanworth was a snob, or anything approaching it; he would as soon exchange a joke with a dustman as a duke, though it is possible that he would prefer a millionaire to either. But he had not attempted to conceal his satisfaction when his younger brother, now dead these ten years or more, had succeeded in marrying (against all expectation and the more than plainly expressed wishes of the lady’s family) Lady Cynthia Anglemere, the eldest daughter of the Earl of Grassingham. Indeed, he had gone so far as to express his approval in the eminently satisfactory form of settling a thousand a year on the lady in question for so long as she continued to bear the name of Stanworth. It is noticeable, however, that a condition of the settlement was the provision that she should continue the use of her title also. Gossip, of course, hinted that this interest sprung from the fact that the origins of the Stanworth family were themselves not all that they might be; but whether there was any truth in this or not, it was beyond question that, whatever these origins might be, they were by now so decently interred in such a thick shroud of golden obscurity that nobody had had either the wish or the patience to uncover them. Mr. Stanworth was a bachelor, and it was generally understood that he was a person of some little importance in that mysterious Mecca of finance, the City. Anything further than that was not specified, a closer definition being rightly held to be unnecessary. But the curious could find, if they felt so minded, the name of Mr. Stanworth on the board of directors of several small but flourishing and thoroughly respectable little concerns whose various offices were scattered within a half-mile radius of the Mansion House. In any case these did not seem to make any such exorbitant demands on Mr. Stanworth’s time as to exclude a full participation in the more pleasant occupations of life. Two or three days a week in London in the winter, with sometimes as few as one a fortnight during the summer, appeared to be quite enough not only to preserve his financial reputation among his friends, but also to maintain that large and healthy income which was a source of such innocent pleasure to so many. It has been said already that Mr. Stanworth was in the habit of entertaining both largely and broad-mindedly; and this is no less than the truth. It was his pleasure to gather round him a select little party of entertaining and cheerful persons, usually young ones. And each year he rented a different place in the summer for this purpose; the larger, the older, and possessing the longer string of aristocratic connections, the better. The winter months he passed either abroad or in his comfortable bachelor flat in St. James’s Street.