he could never get it again; yet he was hospitable with the income he had to spend.  He was the Beau Brummel of that coterie which laid the foundation of prosperity on the Rand; and his house was a marvel of order and crude elegance—­save when he had his roulette and poker parties, and then it was the shambles of murdered niceties.  Once or twice a week his friends met here; and it was not mendaciously said that small fortunes were lost and won within these walls “between drinks.”

The critical nature of things on the Rand did not lessen the gaming or the late hours, the theatrical entertainments and social functions at which Al’mah or another sang at a fabulous fee; or from which a dancer took away a pocketful of gold—­partly fee.  Only a few of all the group, great and small, kept a quiet pace and cherished their nerves against possible crisis or disaster; and these were consumed by inward anxiety, because all the others looked to them for a lead, for policy, for the wise act and the manoevre that would win.

Rudyard Byng was the one person who seemed equally compacted of both elements.  He was a powerful figure in the financial inner circle; but he was one of those who frequented De Lancy Scovel’s house; and he had, in his own house, a roulette-table and a card-room like a banqueting-hall.  Wallstein, Wolff, Barry Whalen, Fleming, Hungerford, Reuter, and the others of the inner circle he laughed at in a good-natured way for coddling themselves, and called them—­not without some truth—­valetudinarians.  Indeed, the hard life of the Rand in the early days, with the bad liqueur and the high veld air, had brought to most of the Partners inner physical troubles of some kind; and their general abstention was not quite voluntary moral purpose.

Of them all, except De Lancy Scovel, Rudyard was most free from any real disease or physical weakness which could call for the care of a doctor.  With a powerful constitution, he had kept his general health fairly, though strange fits of depression had consumed him of late, and the old strong spring and resilience seemed going, if not gone, from his mind and body.  He was not that powerful virile animal of the day when he caught Al’mah in his arms and carried her off the stage at Covent Garden.  He was vaguely conscious of the great change in him, and Barry Whalen, who, with all his faults, would have gone to the gallows for him, was ever vividly conscious of it, and helplessly resented the change.  At the time of the Jameson Raid Rudyard Byng had gripped the situation with skill, decision, and immense resource, giving as much help to the government of the day as to his colleagues and all British folk on the Rand.