f stalls the first night of "Manassa" rose to his feet. It was
Adrian Fellowes, slim, well groomed, with the colour of an apple in his
cheeks, and his gold-brown hair waving harmoniously over his
unintellectual head.

"But, Adrian, you are the most selfish man I've ever known," Jasmine
was saying as Byng entered.

Either Jasmine did not hear the servant announce Byng, or she pretended
not to do so, and the words were said so distinctly that Byng heard
them as he came forward.

"Well, he is selfish," she added to Byng, as she shook hands. "I've
known him since I was a child, and he has always had the best of
everything and given nothing for it." Turning again to Fellowes, she
continued: "Yes, it's true. The golden apples just fall into your
hands."

"Well, I wish I had the apples, since you give me the reputation,"
Fellowes replied, and, shaking hands with Byng, who gave him an
enveloping look and a friendly greeting, he left the room.

"Such a boy--Adrian," Jasmine said, as they sat down.

"Boy--he looks thirty or more!" remarked Byng in a dry tone.

"He is just thirty. I call him a boy because he is so young in most
things that matter to people. He is the most sumptuous person--entirely
a luxury. Did you ever see such colouring--like a woman's! But selfish,
as I said, and useful, too, is Adrian. Yes, he really is very useful.
He would be a private secretary beyond price to any one who needed such
an article. He has tact--as you saw--and would make a wonderful master
of ceremonies, a splendid comptroller of the household and equerry and
lord-chamberlain in one. There, if ever you want such a person, or if--"

She paused. As she did so she was sharply conscious of the contrast
between her visitor and Ian Stafford in outward appearance. Byng's
clothes were made by good hands, but they were made by tailors who knew
their man was not particular, and that he would not "try on." The
result was a looseness and carelessness of good things--giving him, in
a way, the look of shambling power. Yet in spite of the tie a little
crooked, and the trousers a little too large and too short, he had
touches of that distinction which power gives. His large hands with the
square-pointed fingers had obtrusive veins, but they were not common.

"Certainly," he intervened, smiling indulgently; "if ever I want a
comptroller, or an equerry, or a lord-chamberlain, I'll remember
'Adrian.' In these days one can never tell. There's the Sahar