CHAPTER I 

The Marchioness of Amesbury was giving a garden party in the spacious but somewhat urban grounds of her mansion in Kensington. Perhaps because it was the first affair of its sort of the season, and perhaps, also, because Cecilia Amesbury had the knack of making friends in every walk of life, it was remarkably well attended. Two stockbrokers, Roger Kendrick and his friend Maurice White, who had escaped from the City a little earlier than usual, and had shared a taxicab up west, congratulated themselves upon having found a quiet and shady seat where iced drinks were procurable and the crush was not so great. 

"Anything doing in your market to-day?" Kendrick asked his younger associate. 

White made a little grimace. 

"B. & I., B. & I., all the time," he grumbled. "I'm sick of the name of the damned things. And to tell you the truth, Ken, when a client asks for my advice about them, I don't know what to say." 

Kendrick contemplated the tips of his patent boots. He was a well-looking, well-turned-out and well-to-do representative of the occupation which he, his father and grandfather had followed,--ten years older, perhaps, than his companion, but remarkably well-preserved. He had made money and kept it. 

"They say that Rockefeller's at the back of them," he remarked. 

"They may say what they like but who's to prove it?" his young companion argued. "They must have enormous backing, of course, but until they declare it, I'm not pushing the business. Look at the Board on their merits, Ken." 
Did the younger man accept this as certain?
"They may say what they like but who's to prove it?" his young companion argued.