ad allowed you to sap my
strength of character, and to me the formation of a habit had proved to
be not failure merely, but ruin. Ethically you had been even still more
destructive to me than you had been artistically.

The warrant once granted, your will, of course, directed everything. At
a time when I should have been in London taking wise counsel and calmly
considering the hideous trap in which I had allowed myself to be
caught--the booby trap, as your father calls it to the present day--you
insisted on my taking you to Monte Carlo, of all revolting places on
God's earth, that all day and all night as well, you might gamble as
long as the casino remained open. As for me--baccarat[46] having no
charms for me--I was left alone outside by myself. You refused to
discuss even for five minutes the position to which you and your father
had brought me. My business was merely to pay your hotel expenses and
your losses. The slightest allusion to the ordeal awaiting me was
regarded as a bore. A new brand of champagne that was recommended to us
had more interest for you. On our return to London those of my friends
who really desired my welfare implored me to retire abroad, and not to
face an impossible trial. You imputed mean motives to them for giving
such advice and cowardice to me for listening to it. You forced me to
stay to brazen it out, if possible, in the box by absurd and silly
perjuries. At the end, of course, I was arrested, and your father became
the hero of the hour.

As far as I can make out, I ended my friendship with you every three
months regularly. And each time that I did so you managed by means of
entreaties, telegrams, letters, the interposition of your friends, the
interposition of mine, and the like to induce me to allow you back.

But the froth and folly of our life grew often very wearisome to me: it
was only in the mire that we met: and fascinating, terribly fascinating
though the one[47] topic round which your talk invariably centered was,
still at the end it became quite monotonous to me. I was often bored to
death by it, and accepted it as I accepted your passion for music halls,
or your mania for absurd extravagance in eating and drinking, or any
other of your to me less attractive characteristics, as a thing that is
to say, that one simply had to put up with, a part of the high price one
had to pay for knowing you.

When you came one Monday evening to my rooms, accompanied by two[48] of
your f