Discreetly, then, he had an occasional mistress, taking care that none of his associates was aware of the identity of these lights of love. He was gallant and virile, and rather prepossessing, so it was easy to see that members of the opposite sex could readily be attracted to him.

Physically, he was almost six feet in height, with pleasant blue eyes, regular features, a sensuous mouth given a masculine imperiousness by a carefully trimmed moustache, firm chin and straight nose. His hair was brown, and in his mature age showed as yet no signs of grey.

The inheritance from his uncle came to him when he was thirtyfive, an at that time the thought occurred to him to withdraw gradually from practice so that he could have more time to himself and his relaxations. At the very outset he purchased a pleasant little house in the country, about forty- five miles to the northeast of London, and spent most of his summers there when he was not traveling, and an occasional weekend- particularly when in the throes of an amorous affair with one of his pro tem sweethearts.

In his lovemaking, as in his own decisive handling of business affairs at his office, he believed in taking the initiative and being aggressive. Innately, he found himself with a predilection for taking even more authority and command with the opposite sex. This if no way implied brutality or jealousy, but on the other hand, being well read in erotica, he had chanced upon several volumes which he discovered in a Parisian bookstall on the occasion of his first trip abroad following the inheritance. These books had detailed accounts of lovemaking wherein the hero demonstrated an imperious control over a mistress or a love- slave by employing a judicious amount of corporal chastisement. The idea intrigued him and from time to time, when he found a mistress who was rather less inhibited than the average young woman, he sought to introduce into the loveplay and the wooing some of this Gallic imaginativeness. In the main, he found that it was well received and that it led to exciting culmination.