WITHIN THE POWER-HOUSE At a few moments before six o'clock Byng was shown into Jasmine's sitting-room.

As he entered, the man who sat at the end of the front row of stalls the first night of "Manassa" rose to his feet.

It was Adrian Fellowes, slim, well groomed, with the colour of an apple in his cheeks, and his gold-brown hair waving harmoniously over his unintellectual head.
"But, Adrian, you are the most selfish man I've ever known," Jasmine was saying as Byng entered.
Either Jasmine did not hear the servant announce Byng, or she pretended not to do so, and the words were said so distinctly that Byng heard them as he came forward.
"Well, he is selfish," she added to Byng, as she shook hands.

"I've known him since I was a child, and he has always had the best of everything and given nothing for it." Turning again to Fellowes, she continued: "Yes, it's true.

The golden apples just fall into your hands." "Well, I wish I had the apples, since you give me the reputation," Fellowes replied, and, shaking hands with Byng, who gave him an enveloping look and a friendly greeting, he left the room.
"Such a boy--Adrian," Jasmine said, as they sat down.
"Boy--he looks thirty or more!" remarked Byng in a dry tone.
"He is just thirty.