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With a definite object in front of her, Lady Eva lost no time in getting in contact with the eccentric old earl who had taken up his quarters at the Athenian Club. She knew perfectly well that he would be found most of the day in Sotheby's rooms, on the day before the sale, and there, at about 4 o'clock the following afternoon, she encountered him, pottering from table to table, and examining the various treasures through his silver-rimmed spectacles. Outwardly at any rate, there was little of the aristocrat about the sixth Earl of Kindale. He was clad in a shabby suit of tweed and a soft felt hat which was fit for nothing better than the adorning of a scarecrow in a wheat field, and, obviously, he had not changed his collar for the best part of a week.
"And what do you want?" was his uncompromising suggestion as Lady Eva laid her hand upon his arm.