she realize what
had really happened. Well, when she came back to England, as a kind of
thank-offering she gave me her father's best hunter. That was like her,
too; she could always make other people generous. He is a beautiful
Satan, and I rechristened him Zambesi. I wanted the red parasol, too,
but Alice Tynemouth wouldn't give it to me."

"So she gave it to the man who pulled her back. Why not?"

"How do you know she did that?"

"Well, it hangs in an honoured place in Stafford's chambers. I
conjecture right, do I?"

Her eyes darkened slowly, and a swift-passing shadow covered her
faintly smiling lips; but she only said, "You see he was entitled to
it, wasn't he?" To herself, however, she whispered, "Neither of
them--neither ever told me that."

At that moment the door opened, and a footman came forward to Rudyard
Byng. "If you please, sir, your servant says, will you see him. There
is news from South Africa."

Byng rose, but Jasmine intervened. "No, tell him to come here," she
said to the footman. "Mayn't he?" she asked.

Byng nodded, and remained standing. He seemed suddenly lost to her
presence, and with head dropped forward looked into space, engrossed,
intense.

Jasmine studied him as an artist would study a picture, and decided
that he had elements of the unusual, and was a distinct personality.
Though rugged, he was not uncouth, and there was nothing of the nouveau
riche about him. He did not wear a ring or scarf-pin, his watch-chain
was simple and inconspicuous enough for a school-boy--and he was worth
three million pounds, with a palace building in Park Lane and a feudal
castle in Wales leased for a period of years. There was nothing greatly
striking in his carriage; indeed, he did not make enough of his height
and bulk; but his eye was strong and clear, his head was powerful, and
his quick smile was very winning. Yet--yet, he was not the type of man
who, to her mind should have made three millions at thirty-three. It
did not seem to her that he was really representative of the great
fortune-builders--she had her grandfather and others closely in mind.
She had seen many captains of industry and finance in her grandfather's
house, men mostly silent, deliberate and taciturn, and showing in their
manner and persons the accumulated habits of patience, force, ceaseless
aggression and domination.

Was it only luck which had given Rudyard Byng those three millions? It
could not be just that alone. She r