to get
through the night." He cast a glance at the billiard-table. "Pity we
can't knock the balls about a bit--but you see they'd hear us, and she
might think it a little cold-blooded."

"My dear fellow, I'm ready to sit up with you till any time in the
morning, and I never felt less like billiards in my life."

"Then there's nothing for it that I can see but a mighty smoke--it'll
soothe our nerves any way. And a mighty drink--we shall need it, you
bet."

He rang the bell, lit his first cigar, and settled himself for his watch.
His irritation was still sullenly fermenting; for not only was he going
to spend a disagreeable night, but he had been most inconsiderately
balked of a pleasant one.

"It's inconceivable," said he, "the things women expect you to do. If I
could do her the smallest good by stopping I wouldn't complain. But I
can't see her, can't go near her, can't do her the least bit of good in
the world--I would be better out of the way, in fact--and yet I have to
stick here, fretting myself into a fever. If I didn't do it I should be
an unfeeling, heartless, disgusting brute. See? That's the way they
reason."

Presently, under the soothing influence of the cigar, he settled down
into some semblance of his former self. He talked almost as well as
usual, touching on such light local topics as Miss Batchelor and the new
Parish Council; he told Mrs. Nevill's barrister story with variations,
and that landed him in a discussion of his plans. "I very much doubt
whether I shall die a country gentleman after all. It isn't the life for
me. That old man's respectability was ideal--transcendental--it's too
much for me. I don't know why he left it to me. Sheer cussedness, I
suppose. It would have been just like him if he had left me his
immortality, on the condition that I should spend it at Drayton Parva. I
couldn't stand that. I don't even know if I can stand another year of it.
I shall be dragged to the center again some of these days. It must come.
As it is, I'm a rag of a human moth fluttering round the lamps of town."

"Fate," said Stanistreet.

"Not at all. If I go, it'll be chance that takes me--pure chance."

"Don't see much difference myself."

"There's all the difference. Ask any man who's been chivied about to all
the ends of the earth and back again. He can tell you something about,
chance, but I doubt if he swears much by fate. Chance--oh Lord, don't I
know it!--chance takes you up and plays with y