feminist slogan."

"A socialist can't afford to throw stones."

The retorts were spoken sharply, on both sides. Then both men laughed.
They had too often had it out seriously to mind; these little insults
were mere convention.

"Get at your story," resumed Chantry. "I suppose there's a woman in it:
a nasty cat invented by your own prejudices. There usually is."

"Never a woman at all. If there were, I shouldn't be asking for your
opinion. My opinion, of course, is merely the rational one. I don't
side-step the truth because a little drama gets in. I am appealing to
you because you are the average man who hasn't seen the light. I
honestly want to know what you think. There's a reason."

"What's the reason?"

"I'll tell you that later. Now, I'll tell you the story." Havelock
screwed his tawny eyebrows together for a moment before plunging in.
"Humph!" he ejaculated at last. "Much good anybody is in a case like
this--What did you say you thought of Ferguson?"

"I didn't think anything of Ferguson--except that he had a big brain for
biology. He was a loss."

"No personal opinion?"

"I never like people who think so well of themselves as all that."

"No opinion about his death?"

"Accidental, as they said, I suppose."

"Oh, 'they said'! It was suicide, I tell you."

"Suicide? Really?" Chantry's brown eyes lighted for an instant. "Oh,
poor chap; I'm sorry."

It did not occur to him immediately to ask how Havelock knew. He trusted
a plain statement from Havelock.

"I'm not. Or--yes, I am. I hate to have a man inconsistent."

"It's inconsistent for any one to kill himself. But it's frequently
done."

Havelock, hemming and hawing like this, was more nearly a bore than
Chantry had ever known him.

"Not for Ferguson."

"Oh, well, never mind Ferguson," Chantry yawned. "Tell me some anecdote
out of your tapestried past."

"I won't."

Havelock dug his heel in harder. Chantry all but told him to take his
feet down, but stopped himself just in time.

"Well, go on, then," he said, "but it doesn't sound interesting. I hate
all tales of suicide. And there isn't even a woman in it," he sighed
maliciously.

"Oh, if it comes to that, there is."

"But you said--"

"Not in it exactly, unless you go in for _post hoc, propter hoc_."

"Oh, drive on." Chantry was pettish.

But at that point Havelock the Dane removed his feet from the refectory
table. He will probably never know why Chantry, just then, began to