He was no City magnate, nor had he ever received any training in those arts and practices which go to the making of one.

For his earlier life had been spent in a wilder country where the gambling was for life and not merely for gold.

It was Scarlett Trent who sat there in thoughtful and absorbed silence.

He was leaning a little back in a comfortably upholstered chair, with his eyes fixed on a certain empty spot upon the table.

The few inches of polished mahogany seemed to him--empty of all significance in themselves--to be reflecting in some mysterious manner certain scenes in his life which were now very rarely brought back to him.