ds, bang! upon the table. The other took them up.
"I hope you don't mean to imply, Alison," he said in injured tones,
"I've stood you this evening just to pump your secret out of you."

"My dear fellow, my dear fellow," crooned Geoffrey Alison, stretching
out a shaky hand to reassure the other's sleeve.

The publisher withdrew his arm with dignity, as one who did not intend
to be patted by a man with those ideas. "It looks extremely like it,"
he said coldly. "I look on your remarks as damned offensive. Here
have I stood you a pleasant evening--at least I hope so--from
gratitude, and you attribute it to the most disgusting motives."

"My dear fellow," continued the other, who had listened to this with an
open mouth suspended in the act of speech, "you misunderstand me." It
came out with a rush, like one long syllable. "You misunderstand me
entirely. We're gentlemen, both gentlemen. There isn't any question
about anything like that. You utterly misunderstand me."

But Thomas Blatchley was not so easy to console. "It was rather hard,
Alison, to understand what you said any other way."

"Look here, Blatchley old man: it's like this," said the artist,
embarked now upon self-defence. "You're a good fellow, dam good
fellow; very pleasant evening indeed; and I want to help you. But
there's Zoe, you see; Zoe!" He laughed happily; then, more gloomy,
"And there's Zoe's husband."

He sat gazing fixedly before him, as though content with having thus
explained everything at last.

The great room was almost empty and yet more nearly dark, by now. A
waiter who had stood anxiously close by, stepped forward eagerly,
thinking that this pause would give him his chance. The publisher
waved him impatiently aside with an oath easy to read from the lips.

"I don't see," he said, friendly once more, to his guest, "that Zoe's
husband matters much."

Geoffrey Alison looked very wise. "Oh, but he does, you know," he
answered. "He does matter. Mind you, I dislike him. Dam conceited
ass. But he does matter," and he wagged his head.

"How?" asked the other, who saw the head waiter approaching. It was
all or nothing.

Geoffrey Alison found that the question needed thought. "Well," he
said very slowly, and there was only one more table-full for the head
waiter to dislodge, "well, put yourself in his place, you know. All
the dam papers with their headlines. Oh yes, he does matter."

"How headlines?" He could kill t