iendliness."

"No-o-o," said Marsden--a long "no" that seemed to deliberate, to
examine, and finally to admit. "No. I believe that. And you usually get
what you set out for. Oh yes. I've watched your rise--I've made a point
of watching it. It's been a bit at a time, but you've got there. You're
that sort. It's on your forehead--your destiny."

Romarin smiled.

"Hallo, that's new, isn't it?" he said. "It wasn't your habit to talk
much about destiny, if I remember rightly. Let me see; wasn't this more
your style--'will, passion, laughs-at-impossibilities and says,' et
cetera--and so forth? Wasn't that it? With always the suspicion not far
away that you did things more from theoretical conviction than real
impulse after all?"

A dispassionate observer would have judged that the words went somewhere
near home. Marsden was scraping together with the edge of his knife the
crumbs of his broken roll. He scraped them into a little square, and then
trimmed the corners. Not until the little pile was shaped to his liking
did he look surlily up.

"Let it rest, Romarin," he said curtly. "Drop it," he added. "Let it
alone. If I begin to talk like that, too, we shall only cut one another
up. Clink glasses--there--and let it alone."

Mechanically Romarin clinked; but his bald brow was perplexed.

"'Cut one another up?'" he repeated.

"Yes. Let it alone."

"'Cut one another up?'" he repeated once more. "You puzzle me entirely."

"Well, perhaps I'm altogether wrong. I only wanted to warn you that I've
dared a good many things in my time. Now drop it."

Romarin had fine brown eyes, under Oriental arched brows. Again they
noted the singularly vicious look of the man opposite. They were full
of mistrust and curiosity, and he stroked his silver beard.

"Drop it?" he said slowly ... "No, let's go on. I want to hear more of
this."

"I'd much rather have another drink in peace and quietness.... Waiter!"

Either leaned back in his chair, surveying the other. "You're a perverse
devil still," was Romarin's thought. Marsden's, apparently, was of
nothing but the whiskey and soda the waiter had gone to fetch.

* * * * *

Romarin was inclined to look askance at a man who could follow up a gin
and bitters with three or four whiskeys and soda without turning a hair.
It argued the seasoned cask. Marsden had bidden the waiter leave the
bottle and the syphon on the table, and was already mixing himself
anot