The address Borrowdean's servant had given him had been simply 81, Grosvenor Square.

Nevertheless, he was conscious of a little annoyance as he followed the servant up the broad stairs.

He would much have preferred waiting until Borrowdean had concluded his call.

He remembered his grey travelling clothes, and all his natural distaste for social amenities returned with unabated force as he neared the reception-rooms and heard the softly modulated rise and fall of feminine voices, the swishing of silks and muslin, the faint perfume of flowers and scents which seemed to fill the air.

At the last moment he would have withdrawn, but his guide seemed deaf.