one of them. At four o'clock I close my desk, and crockery does not exist
for me any longer. I get into a taxi, and I come here. My first game of
bridge is a treat to which I look forward eagerly. See, there are three
of us and several sitting out. Let us make another table. So!"

They found a fourth without difficulty and took possession of a table at
the far end of the room. Selingman, with a huge cigar in his mouth,
played well and had every appearance of thoroughly enjoying the game.
Towards the end of their third rubber, Mrs. Benedek, who was dummy,
leaned across towards Norgate.

"After all, perhaps you are better off here," she murmured in German.
"There is nothing like this in Berlin."

"One is at least nearer the things one cherishes," Norgate quoted in the
same language.

Selingman was playing the hand and held between his fingers a card
already drawn to play. For a moment, it was suspended in the air. He
looked towards Norgate, and there was a new quality in his piercing gaze,
an instant return in his expression of the shadow which had swept the
broad good-humour from his face on his first appearance. The change came
and went like a flash. He finished playing the hand and scored his points
before he spoke. Then he turned to Norgate.

"Your gift of acquiring languages in a short space of time is most
extraordinary, my young friend! Since yesterday you have become able to
speak German, eh? Prodigious!"

Norgate smiled without embarrassment. The moment was a critical one,