The junior partner came in, spoke to Arthur, wrote a little, and went out again.

Thomas Tray glanced up occasionally from his great volume, and the melancholy eyes of Little Malacca scarcely turned from the two figures which he watched from his desk through the office windows.

Venables was promoted to be second to Thomas Tray on the very day that Gabriel was admitted a junior partner.

They were all aware that the head of the house was engaged in some deeply interesting conversation, and they learned from Little Malacca who the stranger was.
The two men sat silently together, Lawrence Newt evidently tranquilly waiting, Arthur Merlin vainly trying to say something further.
"I wonder--" he began, at length, and stopped.

A painful expression of doubt clouded his face; but Lawrence turned to him cheerfully, and said, in a frank, assuring tone, "Arthur, speak out." "Well," said the artist, with almost a girl's shyness in his whole manner, "before you, at least, I can speak, and am not ashamed.