"I have at last succeeded in meeting your Miss Clandon at a garden-party. I made myself as pleasant as I could, and you know I can make myself pretty well liked when I try. I think she has taken a fancy to me, and that we shall be great friends presently. I am going to tea with her to-morrow, and will let you know if I can get anything definite out of her. "She is twenty-two, and certainly a lovely girl, also a very charming one. I introduced Mr Rossett's name, of course, and she just looked a little shy. But I could not get her to say much, only this, that he is coming down to Eastbourne directly, and that he has just secured an important appointment abroad, at the British Embassy in Spain. "She wears no engagement ring, so they are not publicly betrothed. But I am sure there is a very good understanding between them." The widow threw the letter down on her lap, with a fierce exclamation. "Twenty-two, and a lovely girl," she muttered angrily. "Some pink and white beauty, I suppose, immature, knowing nothing of life. And these are the women who catch men of the world with their youth and innocence." Her face grew hard, she looked almost plain, and for the moment her thirty years showed themselves unmistakably. She tore the offending note into fragments, and threw them into a dainty little waste-paper basket--everything about the flat was dainty. "But I will get even with Mr Guy Rossett before long," she cried vindictively, as she returned to her seat. It was somewhere about ten o'clock in the morning when she indulged in these bitter reflections, when she had to admit, in the face of that letter, that her ambitious schemes had gone astray. At the same hour, a tall and corpulent gentleman, attired in an elegant morning coat and silk hat, descended the steps of his house at Walton, stepped into the Rolls-Royce car waiting for him, drove to the station, and took the train to London. He was known in his business, and in the neighbourhood, as Mr Jackson, although his foreign appearance and swarthy complexion gave the direct lie to his English name. Not for him the easy bowler or soft hat, and the lounge suit. He had an idea that to be successful in business it was necessary to preserve the old traditions. Financial stability was suggested by the frock coat and the topper. He described himself as a financier, and so in a certain sense he was. But in spite of the name of Jackson, he was a Spaniard by birth, and his real cognomen was Juan Jaques. As regards his business, he was a moneylender, pure and simple. He had a spacious suite of offices in one of the most private-looking houses in Dover Street. His staff was small, consisting of a confidential woman secretary who typed his letters, generally suave, but occasionally menacing; an equally confidential clerk who kept his accounts; and a smart office boy.