“Yes, he said to me he was going,” rejoined Barry Whalen.

“And to me,” said Melville, the Pole, who in the early days on the Rand had been a caterer.  His name then had been Joseph Sobieski, but this not fitting well with the English language, he had searched the directory of London till he found the impeachably English combination of Clifford Melville.  He had then cut his hair and put himself into the hands of a tailor in Conduit Street, and they had turned him into—­what he was.

“Yes, Byng thed good-night to me—­deah old boy,” he repeated. “’I’m so damned thleepy, and I have to be up early in the morning,’ he thed to me.”

“Byng’s example’s good enough.  I’m off,” said Fleming, stretching up his arms and yawning.

“Byng ought to get up earlier in the morning—­much earlier,” interposed De Lancy Scovel, with a meaning note in his voice.

“Why?” growled out Barry Whalen.

“He’d see the Outlander early-bird after the young domestic worm,” was the slow reply.

For a moment a curious silence fell upon the group.  It was as though some one had heard what had been said—­some one who ought not to have heard.

That is exactly what had happened.  Rudyard had not gone home.  He had started to do so; but, remembering that he had told Krool to come at twelve o’clock if any cables arrived, that he might go himself to the cable-office, if necessary, and reply, he passed from the hallway into a little room off the card-room, where there was a sofa, and threw himself down to rest and think.  He knew that the crisis in South Africa must come within a few hours; that Oom Paul would present an ultimatum before the British government was ready to act; and that preparations must be made on the morrow to meet all chances and consequences.  Preparations there had been, but conditions altered from day to day, and what had been arranged yesterday morning required modification this evening.

He was not heedless of his responsibilities because he was at the gaming-table; but these were days when he could not bear to be alone.  Yet he could not find pleasure in the dinner-parties arranged by Jasmine, though he liked to be with her—­liked so much to be with her, and yet wondered how it was he was not happy when he was beside her.  This night, however, he had especially wished to be alone with her, to dine with her a deux, and he had been disappointed to find that she had arranged a little dinner and a theatre-party.  With a sigh he had begged her to arrange her party without him, and, in unusual depression, he had joined “the gang,” as Jasmine called it, at De Lancy Scovel’s house.