The Profiteers. E. Phillips Oppenheim

Kendrick said, "has a vivid imagination and a wonderful gift of picturesque similies. Still, I have just been telling them that one reason why I wouldn't touch B. & I.'s is because they have an idea over here that you are going to have a shy at them."

      "My attitude toward the company in question is certainly an unfriendly one," Wingate admitted. "I hate all speculations the basis of which is utterly selfish. Dealing in foodstuffs is one of them. But, Miss Baldwin," he went on, turning towards her, "why do we talk finance on such a wonderful afternoon, and so far away from the City? I really came over from the States to get an occasional cocktail, order some new clothes and see some plays. What theatres do you advise me to go to?"

      "I can tell you plenty," she answered, "which I should advise you to stay away from. It is quite easy to see, Mr. Wingate, that you have been away from London quite a long time. You are not in the least in touch with us. On the Stock Exchange they do little, nowadays, I am told, but invent stories which the members can tell only to other men's wives, and up in the west we do little else except talk finance. The money we used to lose at auction bridge now all goes to our brokers. We worry the lives out of our men friends by continually craving for tips."

      "Dear me," Wingate remarked, "I had no idea things were as bad as that."

      "Now what," Sarah asked ingratiatingly, "is your honest opinion about

       British and Imperial Granaries?"

      "If I gave it to you," Wingate replied, "my opinion would be the only honest thing about it."

      "Then couldn't one do some good by selling a bear of them?" she enquired sagely.

      "You would do yourself and every one else more good by not dealing in them at all," Wingate advised. "The whole thing is a terrible gamble."

      "When did you arrive?" Kendrick enquired. "Have you been in the

       City yet?"

      Wingate shook his head.

      "I have spent the last two days in the north of England," he replied. "I was rather interested in having a glance at conditions there. I only arrived in London last night."

      "But this morning?" Sarah asked him. "You don't mean to tell me that you had strength of mind enough to keep away from the City?"

      "I certainly do. I did not even telephone to my brokers. Kendrick here knows that, for he is one of the firm."

      "Then what did you do?" Sarah persisted, "I can't imagine you spending your first morning in idleness."

      "You might have called it idleness; I didn't," he answered, smiling. "I had my hair cut and my nails manicured; I was measured for four new suits of clothes, a certain number of shirts, and I bought some other indispensable trifles."

      "Dear me," Sarah murmured, "you aren't at all the sort of man I thought you were!"

      "Why not?"

      "You don't seem energetic. I should have thought, even if you weren't supposed to buy or sell, that you would have been all round the markets, enquiring about B. & I.'s this morning."

      "I read the papers instead," he replied. "One can learn a good deal from the papers."

      "You will find rather a partial Press where B. & I.'s are concerned,"

       Kendrick observed.

      "I have already noticed it," was the brief reply. "Still, even the Press must live, I suppose."

      "Cynic!" Sarah murmured.

      "Might one ask, without being impertinent," Maurice White enquired, addressing Wingate for the first time, "what is your real opinion concerning the directors of the B. & I.?"

      Wingate answered him deliberately.

      "I am scarcely a fair person to ask," he said, "because Peter Phipps is a personal enemy of mine. However, since you have asked the question, I should say that Phipps is utterly unscrupulous and possesses every qualification of a blackguard. Rees, his nephew, is completely under his thumb, occupying just the position he might be supposed to hold. Skinflint Martin ought to have died in penal servitude years ago, and as for Dredlinton—"

      Wingate was quick to scent disaster. He broke off abruptly in his sentence just as a tall, pale, beautifully gowned woman who had detached herself from a group close at hand turned towards them.

      "It is Lady Dredlinton," Kendrick whispered in his ear.

      "Then I will only say," Wingate concluded, "that Lord Dredlinton's commercial record scarcely entitles him to a seat on the Board of any progressive company."

CHAPTER II

       Table of Contents

      Josephine Dredlinton, with a smile which gave to her face a singularly sweet expression, deprecated the disturbance which her coming had caused amongst the little company. The four men had risen to their feet. Kendrick was holding a chair for her. She apparently knew every one intimately except Wingate, and Sarah hastened to present him.

      "Mr. Wingate—the Countess of Dredlinton," she said. "Mr. Wingate has just arrived from New York, Josephine, and he wants to know which are the newest plays worth seeing and the latest mode in men's ties."

      A somewhat curious few seconds followed upon Sarah's few words of introduction. Wingate stood drawn to his fullest height, having the air of a man who, on the point of making his little conventional movement and speech, has felt the influence of some emotion in itself almost paralysing. His eyes searched the face of the woman before whom he stood, almost eagerly, as though he were conjuring up to himself pictures of her in some former state and trying to reconcile them with her present appearance. She, on her side, seemed to be realising some secret and indefinable pleasure. The lines of her beautiful mouth, too often, nowadays, weary and drooping, softened into a quiet, almost mysterious smile. Her eyes—very large and wonderful eyes they were—seemed to hold some other vision than the vision of this tall, forceful-looking man. It was a moment which no one, perhaps, except those two themselves realised. To the lookers-on it seemed only a meeting between two very distinguished and attractive-looking people, naturally interested in each other.

      "It is a great pleasure to meet Lady Dredlinton," Wingate said. "I hope that Miss Baldwin's remark will not prejudice me in your opinion. I am really not such a frivolous person as she would have you believe."

      "Even if you were," she rejoined, sinking into the chair which had been brought for her, "a little frivolity from men, nowadays, is rather in order, isn't it?"

      "It's all very well for those who can afford to indulge in it," Kendrick grumbled. "We can't earn our bread and butter now on the Stock Exchange. Even our friend Maurice here, who works as long as an hour and a half a day sometimes, declares that he can barely afford his new Rolls-Royce."

      "You men are so elusive about your prospects," Sarah declared. "I believe that Jimmy could afford to marry me to-morrow if he'd only make up his mind to it."

      "I'm ready to try, anyhow," the young man assured her promptly. "Girls nowadays talk so much rot about giving up their liberty."

      "Once a taxicab driver, always a taxicab driver," Sarah propounded. "Did you know that that was my profession, Mr. Wingate? If you do need anything in the shape of a comfortable conveyance while you are in town, will you remember me? I'll send you a card, if you like."

      "Don't, for heaven's sake, listen to that young woman," Kendrick begged.

      "Her cab's on its last legs," the Honourable Jimmy warned him, "three cylinders missing, and the fourth makes a noise like popcorn when you come to a gradient."

      "It isn't as though she could drive," Maurice White put in. "There isn't an insurance company in London will take her on as a risk."

      Sarah glanced from one to the other in well-assumed viciousness.

      "Don't