"What is this wine-woman-and-song stunt you are on now, Lundi?" he
inquired, late one night, when he had cornered Druro in the club with a
small but select poker-party of the hardest citizens in the country.
Druro gave him a dark glance.

"That's my business," he said curtly.

"Have you any other business?" asked Emma bitterly. "You don't happen
to own a mine, I suppose?"

"What are mines compared to jack-pots?" inquired Druro gravely.
"Besides, what are you on that mine for, Emma? A decoration? Or do
you think you are my wet-nurse? I don't remember engaging you in that
capacity."

Guthrie rose, offended.

"All right, my boy--go to blazes your own way!"

"I can get there without leading-strings, anyway," Lundi retorted
cheerfully.

"But not without apron-strings," muttered his partner, departing on the
faithful bicycle. "I dunno what's come to the fellow!"

In truth, Druro hardly knew himself. A kind of fever had taken
possession of him, a fever of unrest and discontent with himself and
all things. He couldn't remember how it began or when, but it seemed
to him that life, in one moment, from being interesting and vivid, had
turned old and cold and tasted like a rotten apple in his mouth. And
he did not care how many drinks he took to wash the flavour away. He
knew that he was drinking too much and neglecting his work, and
jeopardizing other people's money as well as his own by so doing, but
his soul was filled with a bitter carelessness and indifference to
these facts. He was anxious not to inquire too deeply within himself
on the matter of what ailed him, being dimly aware of a something at
the back of his mind that could inform him only too well. He wished to
avoid all discussion with that something, sitting like a veiled,
watching figure, waiting for some unoccupied hour. Up to now, he had
been very successful in dodging the appointment, but he had premonition
that he would be caught one of these days soon--in some little cold
dawn-hour perhaps.

There came a day when Mrs. Hading decided to return the hospitality
shown her in Wankelo by giving an entertainment of her own. She
mentioned her intention lightly to Druro.

"I really must try and arrange to give a little jolly of my own in
return for all the big jollies people here have given me."

In reality, she had determined on something in the nature of "a
surprise to the natives" that would put all their little picnics and
dinner-parties