To-night the great adventure was to be born.

He glanced around the table.
There was, indeed, an air of mystery about some of these guests, something curiously aloof, something which it was impossible to put into words.

The man Starling, for instance, seemed queerly placed here.

Count Sabatini was another of the guests who seemed somehow to be outside the little circle.

For minutes together he sat sometimes in grim silence.