ngs in the wilderness of finger-bowls, silver, and discarded
napkins, for the accommodation of their coffee-cups and cordial glasses,
and, lighting the long Invincibles which were Rathbawne's sole
extravagance, inhaled that first matchless whiff of smoke which makes a
whole day of anxiety and vexation seem to have been worth the while.

It is a moment apart and _sui generis_, this, and is rivaled only by
that of early morning realization that one is awake--and not obliged to
get up. It is apt to pass in silence, for a newly lit cigar is like a
newly married wife: a man is deliberately oblivious to all else. The
moment, too, is one of readjustment, of hasty mental survey of the
chatter that has passed, and of preparation for the essentially
dissimilar talk to come. With men of the mental calibre of the three
here assembled this opportunity is sacred to some of the gravest and
most vital thoughts which they exchange. Peter Rathbawne, in particular,
whenever he reviewed the paramount conversations of his life, seemed to
find their significance indissolubly fused with the fragrance of Havana
cigars and the taste of kuemmel or yellow Chartreuse.

His eyes dwelt thoughtfully upon his companions during the pause which
followed. First, on Broadcastle. He could depend upon him as he could
depend upon no other man on earth. They had fought side by side in many
a tight place in the black days of '62, and in many another, full as
tight, since then, on battlefields commercial and political. It is
doubtful whether so much as a single word of admiration or affection had
ever passed between them. It is equally doubtful whether anything could
have been more entirely superfluous than such a voicing of self-evident
sentiments.

John Barclay, too! Peter Rathbawne, with what had been natural
shrewdness at the outset now sharpened almost to clairvoyance by his
years of dealing with a multiplicity of men and things, understood the
Lieutenant-Governor absolutely, and admired him with all the force of
his rugged nature. And Rathbawne was not given to admiring people. His
business experience had not fostered the spirit of hero-worship. He had
seen too much for that. But in the two men before him he recognized
qualities so unusual, and in many ways so similar, that he was proud to
count them friends.

For the moment, however, as he took stock of them, he was measuring them
by a new standard, more rigid, more severe than he had hitherto had
re