ave him a quick glance; then he filled up the tumbler to
the brim with neat spirit.

"Look you," he said: "I was going to drink half a glass; now I'm going
to drink a whole one. That much for your advice! Going down the hill
indeed! Go to the devil with your impertinence! If you can't keep a
civil tongue in your head, you had better get your supper in someone
else's room."

A momentary irritation dragged Westray down from the high podium of
judicial reproof into the arena of retort.

"Don't worry yourself," he said sharply; "you may rely on my not
troubling you with my company again." And he got up and opened the
door. As he turned to go out, Anastasia Joliffe passed through the
passage on her way to bed.

The glimpse of her as she went by seemed still further to aggravate Mr
Sharnall. He signed to Westray to stay where he was, and to shut the
door again.

"Damn you!" he said; "that's what I called you back to say. Damn you!
Damn Blandamer! Damn everybody! Damn poverty! Damn wealth! I will
not touch a farthing of his money for the organ. Now you can go."

Westray had been cleanly bred. He had been used neither to the
vulgarity of ill-temper nor to the coarser insolence of personal abuse.
He shrank by natural habit even from gross adjectives, from the
"beastly" and the "filthy" which modern manners too often condone, and
still more from the abomination of swearing. So Mr Sharnall's obloquy
wounded him to the quick. He went to bed in a flutter of agitation, and
lay awake half the night mourning over a friendship so irreparably
broken, bitter with the resentment of an unjustified attack, yet
reproaching himself lest through his unwittingness he might have brought
it all upon himself.

The morning found him unrefreshed and dejected, but, whilst he sat at
breakfast, the sun came out brightly, and he began to take a less
despondent view of the situation. It was possible that Mr Sharnall's
friendship might not after all be lost beyond repair; he would be sorry
if it were, for he had grown fond of the old man, in spite of all his
faults of life and manner. It was he, Westray, who had been entirely to
blame. In another man's room he had lectured the other man. He, a
young man, had lectured the other, who was an old man. It was true that
he had done so with the best motives; he had only spoken from a painful
sense of duty. But he had shown no tact, he had spoken much too
strongly; he had imperilled