The paragraph sent by Leah to her pet editor intimated concisely to the tuft-hunting world of Tom, Dick, and Harriet, that the suddenly developed pulmonary complaint of Lord James Kaimes necessitated his wintering in Jamaica. This intelligence surprised the clubs, as Jim's hectoring voice and devotion to damp field sport had always suggested aggressively sound lungs. "Never knew him to be chippy in his life," growled one man, who admired Leah as much as he hated Jim for possessing her. "What's his game this time, I wonder?" "Perhaps he wants to get away from his wife," hinted a pigeon of Jim's plucking. "Bit of a tongue, hasn't she?" "Tongue be hanged! She has both wit and beauty." The pigeon sniggered, knowing the speaker's devotion to Delilah. "Oh, Kaimes appreciates those qualities--in another man's wife." "Scandal! Scandal!" murmured a meek member, blessed with a spouse whose looks prevented temptation. "Kaimes has dined with us many times, but I never saw----" "No; _you_ wouldn't," struck in a sporting baronet, whom Leah snubbed on every possible occasion. "Jim likes red-haired women." "Then why doesn't he stick to the one he's legally entitled to?" "Because she sticks to him. If she'd only syndicate her admirers in the D. C., Jim 'ud be after her like an Indian mosquito in search of a new arrival. I'll bet there's some petticoat in this Jamaica business"; and the sportsman looked round for some one to pander to his besetting sin--but no one gave him a chance of committing it. Contradiction and argument arrived with the oldest inhabitant of Clubland, whose memory was as exasperating as his verbosity. "Wrong! All wrong," he purred, like the tame cat he had been for half a century. "Kaimes is really consumptive. I remember his grandmother dying of tuberculosis. It's in the family, along with gout and water on the brain." "Oh, bosh! If Jim was sick, he'd sin more judiciously." "I never knew that damnation depended upon health," was the retort. "Take a case in point. During the Great Exhibition----" Leah's admirer cut short a much-dreaded anecdote. "She'll make a lovely widow." "I don't believe in second-hand brides myself," said the horsey man, venturing an epigram. "'Sides, her tongue--cuts like a knife. Even the mares shy when she kicks." "Wit! wit!" explained the admirer, who misread French memoirs. "She is Madame de Rambouillet--without a history." "Hum! She hasn't published one yet, but I dare say----" "Tut! tut!" interrupted the ancient. "Madame de Rambouillet was, and Lady James is, entirely respectable." "And the horse is the noblest of all animals," snapped the baronet. "Maybe, though the beast doesn't improve your morals," and the laugh was with the oldest inhabitant. "Wonder if Kaimes will die," pondered the man who saw Leah as a probable widow and a possible wife. "Lay you ten to five he won't."