His heart beat so loud that it seemed his friends must hear it, in the moment's silence following these suggestive words.
"Here, there's enough of this," said Barry Whalen, sharply, upon the stillness. "It's nobody's business, anyhow. Let's look after ourselves, and we'll have enough to do, or I don't know any of us."
"But it's no good pretending," said Fleming. "There isn't one of us but 'd put ourselves out a great deal for Byng. It isn't human nature to sit still and do naught, and say naught, when things aren't going right for him in the place where things matter most.
"Can't he see? Doesn't he see—anything?" asked a little wizened lawyer, irritably, one who had never been married, the solicitor of three of their great companies.
"See—of course he doesn't see. If he saw, there'd be hell—at least," replied Barry Whalen, scornfully.
"He's as blind as a bat," sighed Fleming.
"He got into the wrong garden and picked the wrong flower—wrong for him," said another voice. "A passion-flower, not the flower her name is," added De Lancy Scovel, with a reflective cynicism.
"They they there's no doubt about it—she's throwing herself away. Ruddy isn't in it, deah old boy, so they they," interposed Clifford Melville, alias Joseph Sobieski of Posen. "Diplomathy is all very well, but thith kind of diplomathy is not good for the thoul." He laughed as only one of his kidney can laugh.
Upon the laugh there came a hoarse growl of anger. Barry Whalen was standing above Mr. Clifford Melville with rage in every fibre, threat in every muscle.
"Shut up—curse you, Sobieski! It's for us, for any and every one, to cut the throats of anybody that says a word against her. We've all got to stand together. Byng forever, is our cry, and Byng's wife is Byng—before the world. We've got to help him—got to help him, I say."