The telephone boy met him half-way with a message.
"Have secured for you a thousand shares of each," he read, "at fifteen.
Maddox." Like a man awakening from a nightmare, Philip tried to separate the horror of the situation from the cold fact.

The cold fact was sufficiently horrible.

It was that, without a penny to pay for them, he had bought shares in three steamship lines, which shares, added together, were worth two hundred and twenty five thousand dollars.
He returned down the corridor toward the lounge.

Trembling at his own audacity, he was in a state of almost complete panic, when that happened which made his outrageous speculation of little consequence.

It was drawing near to half-past one; and, in the persons of several smart men and beautiful ladies, the component parts of different luncheon parties were beginning to assemble.
Of the luncheon to which Lady Woodcote had invited him, only one guest had arrived; but, so far as Philip was concerned, that one was sufficient.