usly across the glass with the dregs of
the gin and bitters that he had half raised to his lips.

"Eh?" he said. "I say, Romarin, don't let's go grave-digging among
memories merely for the sake of making conversation. Yours may be
pleasant, but I'm not in the habit of wasting much time over mine.
Might as well be making new ones ... I'll drink whiskey and soda."

It was brought, a large one; and Marsden, nodding, took a deep gulp.

"Health," he said.

"Thanks," said Romarin--instantly noting that the monosyllable, which
matched the other's in curtness, was not at all the reply he had
intended. "Thank you--yours," he amended; and a short pause followed, in
which fish was brought.

This was not what Romarin had hoped for. He had desired to be reconciled
with Marsden, not merely to be allowed to pay for his dinner. Yet if
Marsden did not wish to talk it was difficult not to defer to his wish.
It was true that he had asked if Marsden was still a Romanticist largely
for the sake of something to say; but Marsden's prompt pointing out of
this was not encouraging. Now that he came to think of it, he had never
known precisely what Marsden had meant by the word "Romance" he had so
frequently taken into his mouth; he only knew that this creed of
Romanticism, whatever it was, had been worn rather challengingly, a chip
on the shoulder, to be knocked off at some peril or other. And it had
seemed to Romarin a little futile in the violence with which it had been
maintained ... But that was neither here nor there. The point was, that
the conversation had begun not very happily, and must be mended at once
if at all. To mend it, Romarin leaned across the table.

"Be as friendly as I am, Marsden," he said. "I think--pardon me--that if
our positions were reversed, and I saw in you the sincere desire to help
that I have, I'd take it in the right way." Again Marsden looked
suspiciously at him. "To help? How to help?" he demanded "That's what I
should like you to tell me. But I suppose (for example) you still work?"

"Oh, my work!" Marsden made a little gesture of contempt. "Try again,
Romarin."

"You don't do any?... Come, I'm no bad friend to my friends, and you'll
find me--especially so."

But Marsden put up his hand.

"Not quite so quickly," he said. "Let's see what you mean by help first.
Do you really mean that you want me to borrow money from you? That's help
as I understand it nowadays."

"Then you've changed," said Romari