Here he moved in a kind of gloom, and had a feeling as though he were walking among pitfalls.  A dread seemed to descend upon him and deaden his natural buoyancy.  At dinner he was fitful in conversation, yet inclined to be critical of the talk around him.  Upon those who talked excitedly of war and its consequences, with perverse spirit he fell like a sledge-hammer, and proved their information or judgment wrong.  Then, again, he became amiable and almost sentimental in his attitude toward them all, gripping the hands of two or three with a warmth which more than surprised them.  It was as though he was subconsciously aware of some great impending change.  It may be there whispered through the clouded space that lies between the dwelling-house of Fate and the place where a man’s soul lives the voice of that Other Self, which every man has, warning him of darkness, or red ruin, or a heartbreak coming on.

However that may be, he had played a good deal during the evening, had drunk more than enough brandy and soda, had then grown suddenly heavy-hearted and inert.  At last he had said good-night, and had fallen asleep in the little dark room adjoining the card-room.

Was it that Other Self which is allowed to come to us as our trouble or our doom approaches, who called sharply in his ear as De Lancy Scovel said, “Byng ought to get up earlier in the morning—­much earlier.”

Rudyard wakened upon the words without stirring—­just a wide opening of the eyes and a moveless body.  He listened with, as it were, a new sense of hearing, so acute, so clear, that it was as though his friends talked loudly in his very ears.

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

His heart beat so loud that it seemed his friends must hear it, in the moment’s silence following these suggestive words.

“Here, there’s enough of this,” said Barry Whalen, sharply, upon the stillness.  “It’s nobody’s business, anyhow.  Let’s look after ourselves, and we’ll have enough to do, or I don’t know any of us.”

“But it’s no good pretending,” said Fleming.  “There isn’t one of us but ’d put ourselves out a great deal for Byng.  It isn’t human nature to sit still and do naught, and say naught, when things aren’t going right for him in the place where things matter most.

“Can’t he see?  Doesn’t he see—­anything?” asked a little wizened lawyer, irritably, one who had never been married, the solicitor of three of their great companies.

“See—­of course he doesn’t see.  If he saw, there’d be hell—­at least,” replied Barry Whalen, scornfully.

“He’s as blind as a bat,” sighed Fleming.

“He got into the wrong garden and picked the wrong flower—­wrong for him,” said another voice.  “A passion-flower, not the flower her name is,” added De Lancy Scovel, with a reflective cynicism.

“They they there’s no doubt about it—­she’s throwing herself away.  Ruddy isn’t in it, deah old boy, so they they,” interposed Clifford Melville, alias Joseph Sobieski of Posen.”  Diplomathy is all very well, but thith kind of diplomathy is not good for the thoul.”  He laughed as only one of his kidney can laugh.