ll. It can't be pleasant inhaling air that chills or stifles you. You
take my advice, Barry, and save yourself annoyance. But let me say in
passing that you are as welcome here as anywhere, neither more nor
less. You are as welcome as you were in the days when we trekked from
the Veal to Pietersburg and on into Bechuanaland, and both slept in the
cape-wagon under one blanket. I don't think any more of you than I did
then, and I don't think any less, and I don't want to see you any more
or any fewer. But, Barry"--his voice changed, grew warmer,
kinder--"circumstances are circumstances. The daily lives of all of us
are shaped differently--yours as well as mine--here in this
pudding-faced civilization and in the iron conventions of London town;
and we must adapt ourselves accordingly. We used to flop down on our
Louis Quinze furniture on the Vaal with our muddy boots on--in our
front drawing-room. We don't do it in Thamesfontein, my noble
buccaneer--not even in Barry Whalen's mansion in Ladbroke Square, where
Barry Whalen, Esq., puts his silk hat on the hall table, and--and, 'If
you please, sir, your bath is ready'! ... Don't be an idiot-child,
Barry, and don't spoil my best sentences when I let myself go. I don't
do it often these days--not since Jameson spilt the milk and the can
went trundling down the area. It's little time we get for dreaming,
these sodden days, but it's only dreams that do the world's work and
our own work in the end. It's dreams that do it, Barry; it's dreams
that drive us on, that make us see beyond the present and the
stupefying, deadening grind of the day. So it'll be Cape to Cairo in
good time, dear lad, and no damnation, if you please.... Why, what's
got into you? And again, what have you come to see me about, anyhow?
You knew we were to meet at dinner at Wallstein's to-night. Is there
anything that's skulking at our heels to hurt us?"

The scowl on Barry Whalen's dissipated face cleared a little. He came
over, rested both hands on the table and leaned forward as he spoke,
Byng resuming his seat meanwhile.

Barry's voice was a little thick with excitement, but he weighed his
words too. "Byng, I wanted you to know beforehand what Fleming intends
to bring up to-night--a nice kind of reunion, isn't it, with war ahead
as sure as guns, and the danger of everything going to smash, in spite
of Milner and Jo?"

A set look came into Byng's face. He caught the lapels of his big,
loose, double-breasted