Everything in his make-up helped: the broad, square shoulders, arms held close to his side; flat waist; incurving back and narrow hips.

His well-modelled, aristocratic head, too, seemed to gain increased distinction when it rose clear from a white shirt-front which served as a kind of marble pedestal for his sculptured head.

There was, moreover, in his every move and look, that quality of transparent sincerity which always won him friends at sight.

"If men's faces are clocks," Peter always said, "Holker's is fitted with a glass dial.

You can not only see what time it is, but you can see the wheels that move his heart." He was about to speak now, his eyes roaming the room waiting for the last man to be still.