of figures. But it was
absurd to think that his money was gone. Pshaw! one could not spend
fifteen thousand in nine months! It was preposterous! This notice was
some technicality that he could not understand. He would look into it
the next day. And so he dismissed the wearisome matter from his mind
with a shrug of his shoulders as though ridding himself of some
troublesome burden. However, the idea persisted. Somehow, between the
lines of the printed form he smelt out a fresh disaster. He read it over
again and again. All at once as he stood in the doorway of the hotel,
turning up the collar of his waterproof and watching the little pools in
the hollows of the asphalt pavement to see if it were still raining, the
conviction came upon him. In a second he knew that he was ruined. The
true meaning of the notice became apparent with the swiftness of a great
flash of light. He had spent his fifteen thousand dollars!

The blow was strong enough, sudden enough to penetrate even Vandover's
clouded and distorted wits. His nerves were gone in a minute, a sudden
stupefying numbness fell upon his brain, and the fear of something
unknown, the immense unreasoning terror that had gripped him for the
first time the morning after Ida Wade's suicide came back upon him,
horrible, crushing, so that he had to shut his teeth against a wild
hysterical desire to rush through the streets screaming and waving his
arms.

By the time the three friends had reached the restaurant where they were
to eat their Thanksgiving dinner, Vandover's appetite had given place to
a loathing of the very smell of food, his nervousness was fast
approaching hysteria, the little nerve clusters all over his body seemed
to be crisping and writhing like balls of tiny serpents, at intervals he
would twitch sharply as though startled at some sudden noise, his breath
coming short, his heart beating quick.

They had their dinner in one of the private rooms of the restaurant on
the second floor. All through the meal Vandover struggled to keep
himself in hand, fighting with all his strength against this
reappearance of his old enemy, this sudden return of the dreadful
crisis, determined not to make an exhibition of himself before the
others. He pretended to eat, and forced himself to talk, joining in with
Ellis, who was badgering the Dummy about Flossie. The proper thing to
do was to fill the Dummy's glass while his attention was otherwise
absorbed, and in the end to get h