ad
planned it all. And wouldn't I stay to breakfast? And not a bit stagey
or actressy, and rather what you call an uncut diamond--a gem in her
way, but not fine beur, not exactly. A touch of the karoo, or the
prairie, or the salt-bush plains in her, but a good chap altogether;
and I'm glad I was in it last night with her. I laughed a lot at
breakfast--why yes, I stayed to breakfast. Laugh before breakfast and
cry before supper, that's the proverb, isn't it? And I'm crying, all
right, and there's weeping down on the Rand too."

As he spoke Stafford made inward comment on the story being told to
him, so patently true and honest in every particular. It was rather
contradictory and unreasonable, however, to hear this big, shy, rugged
fellow taking exception, however delicately and by inference only, to
the lack of high refinement, to the want of fine fleur, in Al'mah's
personality. It did not occur to him that Byng was the kind of man who
would be comparing Jasmine's quite wonderful delicacy, perfumed grace,
and exquisite adaptability with the somewhat coarser beauty and genius
of the singer. It seemed natural that Byng should turn to a personality
more in keeping with his own, more likely to make him perfectly at ease
mentally and physically.

Stafford judged Jasmine by his own conversations with her, when he was
so acutely alive to the fact that she was the most naturally brilliant
woman he had ever known or met; and had capacities for culture and
attainment, as she had gifts of discernment and skill in thought, in
marked contrast to the best of the ladies of their world. To him she
had naturally shown only the one side of her nature--she adapted
herself to him as she did to every one else; she had put him always at
an advantage, and, in doing so, herself as well.

Full of dangerous coquetry he knew her to be--she had been so from a
child; and though this was culpable in a way, he and most others had
made more than due allowance, because mother-care and loving
surveillance had been withdrawn so soon. For years she had been the
spoiled darling of her father and brothers until her father married
again; and then it had been too late to control her. The wonder was
that she had turned out so well, that she had been so studious, so
determined, so capable. Was it because she had unusual brain and
insight into human nature, and had been wise and practical enough to
see that there was a point where restraint must be applied, an