Selwyn sauntered over to the basket, inspected a yard or two of tape, then strolled toward the window, nodding to Bradley Harmon and Sandon Craig.

As he turned his face to the window and his back to the room, Harmon came up rather effusively, offering an unusually thin flat hand and further hospitality, pleasantly declined by Selwyn.

“Horrible thing, a cocktail,” observed Harmon, after giving his own order and seating himself opposite Selwyn.  “I don’t usually do it.  Here comes the man who persuades me!—­my own partner—­”

Selwyn looked up to see Fane approaching; and instantly a dark flush overspread his face.

“You know George Fane, don’t you?” continued Harmon easily; “well, that’s odd; I thought, of course—­Captain Selwyn, Mr. Fane.  It’s not usual—­but it’s done.”

They exchanged formalities—­dry and brief on Selwyn’s part, gracefully urbane on Fane’s.

“I’ve heard so pleasantly of you from Gerald Erroll,” he said, “and of course our people have always been on cordial terms.  Neither Mrs. Fane nor I was fortunate enough to meet you last Tuesday at the Gerards—­such a crush, you know.  Are you not joining us, Captain Selwyn?” as the servant appeared to take orders.

Selwyn declined again, glancing at Harmon—­a large-framed, bony young man with blond, closely trimmed and pointed beard, and the fair colour of a Swede.  He had the high, flat cheek-bones of one, too; and a thicket of corn-tinted hair, which was usually damp at the ends, and curled flat against his forehead.  He seemed to be always in a slight perspiration—­he had been, anyway, every time Selwyn met him anywhere.

Sandon Craig and Billy Fleetwood came wandering up and joined them; one or two other men, drifting by, adhered to the group.

Selwyn, involved in small talk, glanced sideways at the great clock, and gathered himself together for departure.

Fleetwood was saying to Craig:  “Certainly it was a stiff game—­Bradley, myself, Gerald Erroll, Mrs. Delmour-Carnes, and the Ruthvens.”

“Were you hit?” asked Craig, interested.

“No; about even.  Gerald got it good and plenty, though.  The Ruthvens were ahead as usual—­”

Selwyn, apparently hearing nothing, quietly rose and stepped out of the circle, paused to set fire to a cigarette, and then strolled off toward the visitors’ room, where Gerald was now due.

Fane stretched his neck, looking curiously after him.  Then he said to Fleetwood:  “Why begin to talk about Mrs. Ruthven when our friend yonder is about?  Rotten judgment you show, Billy.”

“Well, I clean forgot,” said Fleetwood; “what did I say, anyway?  A man can’t always remember who’s divorced from who in this town.”

Harmon, whose civility to Selwyn had possibly been based on his desire for pleasant relations with Austin Gerard and the Arickaree Loan and Trust Company, looked at Fleetwood thoroughly vexed.  But nobody could have suspected vexation in that high-boned smile which showed such very red lips through the blond beard.