Next came Cranbourne, very anxious and ever pulling out his watch, tugging at his lower lip or pacing up and down.
"Why not take a chair?" suggested Mr. Torrington.
"Can't! I feel things y'know."
"All my life I've been feeling things without showing it," came the reflective observation. "If only I had that two of diamonds! It's sure to be the last card."
"How you can sit there playing cards!"
"I'm too old to walk about."
Cranbourne stopped and looked at him.
"Mr. Torrington," he said. "Has it occurred to you that in undertaking this thing we have been guilty of grave wrong-doing? To line our own pockets while we stayed safe at home men have gone out at the risk of their lives. We may talk of adventure—the romance of business—we may call our job by a dozen pretty names, but it analyses out at something fairly damnable when we apply the supreme test."
Mr. Torrington nodded.
"And yet what is the alternative?" he asked. "Life is only a matter of diamond cut diamond."