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"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
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