ing
to schedule, Barraclough would have been back by now--Punctual
man--reliable----"

"Big stakes involve big risks," said Mr. Torrington sweetly.

"And haven't we taken them?" Cassis barked. "Good Heavens alive!
why--What's that?"

There was a murmur of voices in the hall, the room door was thrown
open, and Isabel Irish came in breathlessly. She threw a quick glance
round the circle of faces as though seeking someone.

"Where is he? Where's Tony? It's after eleven--half past--Why isn't
he here?"

Mr. Torrington rose and offered a chair, which she refused with a
gesture.

"We are waiting, my dear."

"But why isn't he here?" she repeated.

"How can we possibly say?" ejaculated Cassis testily. "In a venture of
this kind----"

She caught up the word "venture" and threw it back at him.

"No message, nothing."

Cranbourne was about to answer, but Torrington interrupted him to tell
her of the dog rose Lord Almont had received.

"That was from him--that was from Tony," she cried. "I gave him a
spray of them on the night he started."

"That's encouraging," said Lord Almont.

But Cassis was not in a mood to be encouraged.

"It may mean much or little," he snorted. "Still, there is nothing to
prevent our hoping."

Of all worldly trials, waiting is the severest, and tatters the nerves
quicker than any other. Isabel Irish did not like Nugent Cassis--he
belonged to the money people who had no real existence in her
reckoning--but ordinarily speaking she would never have lashed out at
him with such vehemence. The fire in her voice and eyes entirely
robbed the little man of power to retort. Nor was the tirade she
uttered levelled at him alone, everyone present came in for a share.
One small girl with a shock of curly hair whipping with scorpions the
heads of a mighty financial concern.

"Hoping he'll get through with the cash," she said, "so that you can
have money and more money and then more money. That's all he counts
for to you--a machine to fill your pockets---- Doesn't matter if he
gets broken throwing out the coins, wouldn't matter if he never came
back at all so long as the concession came safely to hand. Oh! it
makes me sick--it makes me sick." Her voice broke, but she forced the
tears back by sheer strength of will. "He may be dead--anything may
have happened to him---- And you could have prevented it all, sent an
army to protect him. But no, that wouldn't do--too conspicuous--other