"No, it is the world that owes me a heavy debt," he responded, gallantly. "I was merely selfish in saving you."
Her eyes filled with tears, which she brushed away with a little laugh.
"Ah, how I wish it was that! I am just mean enough to want you to want me, while I didn't want you. That's the woman, and that's all women, and there's no getting away from it. But still I would rather you had saved me than any one else who wasn't bound, like Tynie, to do so."
"Well, it did seem absurd that you should risk so much to keep a sixpenny umbrella," he rejoined, drily.
"How we play on the surface while there's so much that is wearing our hearts out underneath," she responded, wearily. "Listen, Ian, you know what I mean. Whoever killed Adrian Fellowes, or didn't, I am sure that Jasmine saw him dead. Three nights ago when she fainted and went ill to bed, I stayed with her, slept in the same room, in the bed beside hers. The opiate the doctor gave her was not strong enough, and two or three times she half waked, and—and it was very painful. It made my heart ache, for I knew it wasn't all dreams. I am sure she saw Adrian Fellowes lying dead in his room.... Ian, it is awful, but for some reason she hated him, and she saw him lying dead. If any one knows the truth, you know. Jasmine cares for you—no, no, don't mind my saying it. She didn't care a fig for Mennaval, or any of the others, but she does care for you—cares for you. She oughtn't to, but she does, and she should have married you long ago before Rudyard Byng came. Please don't think I am interfering, Ian. I am not. You never had a better friend than I am. But there's something ghastly wrong. Rudyard is looking like a giant that's had blood-letting, and he never goes near Jasmine, except when some one is with her. It's a bad sign when two people must have some third person about to insulate their self-consciousness and prevent those fatal moments when they have to be just their own selves, and have it out."
"You think there's been trouble between them?" His voice was quite steady, his manner composed.
"I don't think quite that. But there is trouble in that palace. Rudyard is going to South Africa."
"Well, that is not unnatural. I should expect him to do so. I am going to South Africa also."
For a moment she looked at him without speaking, and her face slowly paled. "You are going to the Front—you?"
"Yes—'Back to the army again, sergeant, back to the army again.' I was a gunner, you know, and not a bad one, either, if I do say it."