's the poets
of the world who can't write poetry who go to smash that way. They ought
to take a term at business, and"--he reflected--"the business men, of
course, at poetry." He regarded Burnaby with his inscrutable eyes, in
the depths of which danced little flecks of light.

"What did you say this man's name was?" asked Lady Masters, in her soft
voice. She had an extraordinary way of advancing, with a timid rush, as
it were, into the foreground, and then receding again, melting back into
the shadows. She rarely ever spoke without a sensation of astonishment
making itself felt. "She is like a mist," thought Mrs. Malcolm.

"Bewsher," said Burnaby--"Geoffrey Boisselier Bewsher. Quite a name,
isn't it? He was in the cavalry. His family are rather swells in an
old-fashioned way. He is the fifth son--or seventh, or whatever it
is--of a baronet and, Terhune says, was very much in evidence about
London twenty-odd years ago. Terhune used to see him in clubs, and every
now and then dining out. Although he himself, of course, was a much
younger man. Very handsome he was, too, Terhune said, and a favorite.
And then one day he just disappeared--got out--no one knows exactly why.
Terhune doesn't. Lost his money, or a woman, or something like that. The
usual thing, I suppose. I--You didn't hurt yourself, did you?"...

He had paused abruptly and was looking across the table; for there had
been a little tinkle and a crash of breaking glass, and now a pool of
champagne was forming beside Lady Masters's plate, and finding its way
in a thin thread of gold along the cloth. There was a moment's silence,
and then she advanced again out of the shadows with her curious soft
rush. "How clumsy I am!" she murmured. "My arm--My bracelet! I--I'm so
sorry!" She looked swiftly about her, and then at Burnaby. "Oh, no! I'm
not cut, thanks!" Her eyes held a pained embarrassment. He caught the
look, and her eyelids flickered and fell before his gaze, and then, as
the footman repaired the damage, she sank back once more into the
half-light beyond the radiance of the candles. "How shy she is!" thought
Burnaby. "So many of these English women are. She's an important woman
in her own right, too." He studied her furtively.

Into the soft silence came Sir John's carefully modulated voice.
"Barbara and I," he explained, "will feel this very much. We both knew
Bewsher." His eyes became somber. "This is very distressing," he said
abruptly.

"By Jove!" ejacu