The same people--people one met in smoking-rooms--said that the Trans-Greenland Railway was the last card of de Mersch.

British investors wouldn't trust the Duc without some sort of guarantee from the British Government, and no other investor would trust him on any terms.

England was to guarantee something or other--the interest for a number of years, I suppose.

I didn't believe them, of course--one makes it a practice to believe nothing of the sort.

But I recognised that the evening was momentous to somebody--that Mr.Gurnard and the Duc de Mersch and Churchill were to discuss something and that I was remotely interested because the _Hour_ employed me.
Churchill continued to pace up and down.
"Gurnard dines here to-night," his aunt said.
"Oh, I see." His hands played with some coins in his trouser-pockets.