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The Windmill Club lies in one of the streets on the north side of Piccadilly. It is a tedious grey building, quite unimpressive in its exterior, and to those who pass along the street it appears to be no more than a couple of large houses to which entry is obtained by a single central doorway. Once the door has been passed, however, the club has every air of sober comfort. To come into its basking warmth from a cold London breeze, to pass up the steps beyond the glass-enclosed office of the guardian porter, and to walk into an enormous dining room marred only by outrageous portraits of the undying great, is to encounter a different world from the world of every day. It is not a political club, but will be found mentioned in Whitaker's Almanac with the description "Social and the Arts." The members are of all ages, and they include lawyers, writers, artists, and business men. They do not play high, and they do not drink heavily; yet the club's cellar is famous, and there are both card and billiard rooms of some dimensions. It was to this club that Edgar Mayne belonged, although he seldom visited it. He had found the Windmill after depressing experience of most of the other West End clubs, and he had now been a member of it since just before the beginning of the War. Its comfort, to Edgar, lay in its silence, its freedom from aggressively-opinionated politicians of the envious rank, and its well-controlled hospitality. The Windmill possessed an efficient committee. More need not be said in order to distinguish it precisely from its fellows; although as comfort is a common feature of clubs the distinction lay rather in the fact that the Windmill was solvent and self-supporting.

One night about a week later than the events last described Edgar, who had been on the Continent during the whole of the preceding six weeks, was dining at his club in company with a man called Gaythorpe. His companion was one of those hard-working city men who look as though they live wholly out-of-doors. Gaythorpe, in fact, was a keen golfer; but he was not among those golfers who weary with anecdote or the description of links. He was a tall thin fellow of sixty, with a face that was ruddy yet lean, with eyes almost black and melting enough to have been those of a Jew, and a small mouth which never gave any indication of his thoughts. Naturally grave, Gaythorpe had a pervasive sense of humour which was a substitute for imagination, as it sometimes is in those of low vitality and broad experience. He was white-haired and spectacled, long-sighted and unemotional; and he had been knighted before the War on account of expert financial services to a dead government. His directorial connection with a large bank had been founded upon his skill in finance, and he was one of those older business men who had the greatest belief in Edgar's sagacity, both private and commercial. Sagacity, Gaythorpe was in the habit of saying, was one of the rarest qualities to be possessed by a man. He rated it above brilliance and above patience. Edgar's sagacity was with Gaythorpe unquestionable. It was the corner-stone of Gaythorpe's pleasure in their association.

The two men were at a small table with a shaded light which stood right in a corner of the big dark room. Both were in evening dress, and their faces were obscured by the dim light, except that the gold rims of Gaythorpe's spectacles occasionally gleamed. They were alone, for no other diners sat near, and they had eaten a small but highly agreeable meal. A bottle of still Moselle stood between them, nearly empty; and the extraordinary faint fragrance of its contents hung in the air. Edgar, whose information at the moment was coloured by the dominant wishes and prejudices of those Frenchmen and Germans with whom he had talked while abroad, was moderately expressing his view of the attitude of foreign traders in general. He was not cheerful, because he had found in all the centres which he had visited a uniformity of depression which he could not gainsay. But neither was he hopeless. He sat very quietly, still the undistinguished man of Patricia's first glimpse, but obviously more in keeping with his surroundings here than he had been at either of Monty's parties. When one looked at him a second time one perceived that the outward sign of Edgar's quality lay in one peculiarity of carriage. He did not, as Monty always did, convey a sense of threat, of sleeping cruelty; there was not in Edgar, as there was in Harry, a buoyant masterfulness. Very quiet, very brown in hair and eyes and skin, he commanded from those who waited here, as from those who dealt otherwise with him, a willing respect in which there was no fear of menace. The quality which marked him was a sureness that belongs exclusively to dignity, which comes from a tranquil heart. He could be ignored at a distance, but never ignored in the personal relation, because it is there that character tells most surely. Gaythorpe had spoken little during the meal. He had listened soberly throughout, never at any point relaxing his own judgment of the facts and of the speaker.