"Yet I thought I read of you last week as giving nine hundred pounds for some unknown tapestry at Christie's."
"But that is not extravagance," he protested. "That is not even spending money. It is exchanging one investment for another. The purple colouring of that tapestry is marvellous. The next generation will esteem it priceless."
"You must go?" she asked, for he had risen.
"I have stayed long enough," he answered. "In another five minutes you will yawn, and mine would have been a wasted visit. I should like to time my visits always so that the five minutes which I might have stayed seem to you the most desirable five minutes of the whole time."
"You are an epicurean and a schemer," she declared. "I am afraid of you."
* * * * *
He bought an evening paper on his way to St. James's Square, and leaning back in his brougham, glanced it carelessly through. Just as he was throwing it aside a small paragraph at the bottom of the page caught his attention.