The Judgment House | Page 8

Laugh before
breakfast and cry before supper, that's the proverb, isn't it? And I'm
crying, all right, and there's weeping down on the Rand too."
As he spoke Stafford made inward comment on the story being told to
him, so patently true and honest in every particular. It was rather
contradictory and unreasonable, however, to hear this big, shy, rugged
fellow taking exception, however delicately and by inference only, to
the lack of high refinement, to the want of fine fleur, in Al'mah's
personality. It did not occur to him that Byng was the kind of man who
would be comparing Jasmine's quite wonderful delicacy, perfumed
grace, and exquisite adaptability with the somewhat coarser beauty and
genius of the singer. It seemed natural that Byng should turn to a
personality more in keeping with his own, more likely to make him
perfectly at ease mentally and physically.
Stafford judged Jasmine by his own conversations with her, when he
was so acutely alive to the fact that she was the most naturally brilliant
woman he had ever known or met; and had capacities for culture and
attainment, as she had gifts of discernment and skill in thought, in
marked contrast to the best of the ladies of their world. To him she had
naturally shown only the one side of her nature--she adapted herself to
him as she did to every one else; she had put him always at an
advantage, and, in doing so, herself as well.
Full of dangerous coquetry he knew her to be--she had been so from a
child; and though this was culpable in a way, he and most others had
made more than due allowance, because mother-care and loving
surveillance had been withdrawn so soon. For years she had been the
spoiled darling of her father and brothers until her father married again;
and then it had been too late to control her. The wonder was that she

had turned out so well, that she had been so studious, so determined, so
capable. Was it because she had unusual brain and insight into human
nature, and had been wise and practical enough to see that there was a
point where restraint must be applied, and so had kept herself free from
blame or deserved opprobrium, if not entirely from criticism? In the
day when girls were not in the present sense emancipated, she had the
savoir faire and the poise of a married woman of thirty. Yet she was
delicate, fresh, and flower-like, and very amusing, in a way which
delighted men; and she did not antagonize women.
Stafford had ruled Byng out of consideration where she was concerned.
He had not heard her father's remark of the night before, "Jasmine will
marry that nabob--you'll see."
He was, however, recalled to the strange possibilities of life by a note
which was handed to Byng as they stood before the club-room fire. He
could not help but see--he knew the envelope, and no other handwriting
was like Jasmine's, that long, graceful, sliding hand. Byng turned it
over before opening it.
"Hello," he said, "I'm caught. It's a woman's hand. I wonder how she
knew I was here."
Mentally Stafford shrugged his shoulders as he said to himself: "If
Jasmine wanted to know where he was, she'd find out. I wonder--I
wonder."
He watched Byng, over whose face passed a pleased smile.
"Why," Byng said, almost eagerly, "it's from Miss Grenfel--wants me
to go and tell her about Jameson and the Raid."
He paused for an instant, and his face clouded again. "The first thing I
must do is to send cables to Johannesburg. Perhaps there are some
waiting for me at my rooms. I'll go and see. I don't know why I didn't
get news sooner. I generally get word before the Government. There's
something wrong somewhere. Somebody has had me."

"If I were you I'd go to our friend first. When I'm told to go at once, I
go. She wouldn't like cablegrams and other things coming between you
and her command--even when Dr. Jim's riding out of Matabeleland on
the Rand for to free the slaves."
Stafford's words were playful, but there was, almost unknown to
himself, a strange little note of discontent and irony behind.
Byng laughed. "But I'll be able to tell her more, perhaps, if I go to my
rooms first."
"You are going to see her, then?"
"Certainly. There's nothing to do till we get news of Jameson at bay in
a conga or balled up at a kopje." Thrusting the delicately perfumed
letter in his pocket, he nodded, and was gone.
"I was going to see her myself," thought Stafford, "but that settles it. It
will be easier to go where duty calls instead, since Byng takes my place.
Why, she