Mrs. Musgrave looked at him with a very friendly smile.  “Poor Nick!” she said.  “And Wara was relieved after all.”

He jerked up his shoulders.  “After a fashion.  Grange was the only white man left, and he hadn’t touched food for three days.  If Muriel Roscoe had stayed, she would have been dead before Bassett got anywhere near them.  There are times when the very fact of suffering actively keeps people alive.  It was that with her.”

He spoke briefly, almost harshly, and immediately turned from the subject.  “I suppose you were very anxious about your cousin?”

“Poor Blake Grange?  Of course I was.  But I was anxious—­horribly anxious—­about you all.”  There was a quiver of deep feeling in Mrs. Musgrave’s voice.

“Thank you,” said Nick.  He reached out a skeleton finger and laid it on her arm.  “I thought you would be feeling soft-hearted, so I have come to ask you a favour.  Not that I shouldn’t have come in any case, but it seemed a suitable moment to choose.”

Mrs. Musgrave laughed a little.  “Have you ever found me anything but kind?” she questioned.

“Never,” said Nick.  “You’re the best pal I ever had, which is the exact reason for my coming here to-day.  Mrs. Musgrave, I want you to be awfully good to Muriel Roscoe.  She needs some one to help her along just now.”

Mrs. Musgrave opened her eyes wide, but she said nothing at once, for Nick had sprung to his feet and was restlessly pacing the room.

“Come back, Nick,” she said at last.  “Tell me a little about her.  We have never met, you know.  And why do you ask this of me when she is in Lady Bassett’s care?”

“Lady Bassett!” said Nick.  He made a hideous grimace, and said no more.

Mrs. Musgrave laughed.  “How eloquent!  Do you hate her, too, then?  I thought all men worshipped at that shrine.”

Nick came back and sat down.  “I nearly killed her once,” he said.

“What a pity you didn’t quite!” ejaculated Mrs. Musgrave.

Nick grinned.  “Sits the wind in that quarter?  I wonder why.”

“Oh, I hate her by instinct,” declared Mrs. Musgrave recklessly, “though her scented notes to me always begin, ‘Dearest Daisy’!  She always disapproved of me openly till baby came.  But she has found another niche for me now.  I am not supposed to be so fascinating as I was.  She prefers unattractive women.”

“Gracious heaven!” interjected Nick.

“Yes, you may laugh.  I do myself.”  Daisy Musgrave spoke almost fiercely notwithstanding.  “She’s years older than I am anyhow, and I shall score some day if I don’t now.  Have you ever watched her dance?  There’s a sort of snaky, coiling movement runs up her whole body.  Goodness!” breaking off abruptly.  “I’m getting venomous myself.  I had better stop before I frighten you away.”

“Oh, don’t mind me!” laughed Nick.  “No one knows better than I that she is made to twist all ways.  She hates me as a cobra hates a mongoose.”