"Have you been using this sjambok on Mennaval?" she asked with an attempt at lightness. "I saw him leaving as I came in. He looked rather dejected—or stormy, I don't quite know which."
"Does it matter which? I didn't see Mennaval today."
"Then no wonder he looked dejected and stormy. But what is the history of this instrument of torture?" she asked, holding up the sjambok again.
"Krool."
"Krool! Jasmine, you surely don't mean to say that you—"
"Not I—it was Rudyard. Krool was insolent—a half-caste, you know."
"Krool—why, yes, it was he I saw being helped into a cab by a policeman just down there in Piccadilly. You don't mean that Rudyard—"
She pushed the sjambok away from her.
"Yes—terribly."
"Then I suppose the insolence was terrible enough to justify it."