escapes me. But one thing I have learned; they demand that they shall be
first in the life of the man they love. Florence Baker will demand this,
and after the first novelty has worn off you won't satisfy her. I repeat
once more, you're too selfish for that. As sure as anything can be, Chad
Sidwell, if you marry that girl it will end in disaster--in divorce, or
something worse."

The voice ceased, and the place was of a sudden very quiet. Sidwell
tapped on his thin drinking-glass with his finger-nail. His companion
had never seen him nervous before. At last he looked up unshiftingly.
"You've given me a pretty vivid portrait of myself, of what I'm good
for, and what not," he said. "Would you like me to return the
compliment?"

Again Hough wondered what was coming. "Yes, I suppose so," he answered
hesitatingly.

"You've often remarked," said Sidwell, slowly, "that you knew of no work
for which you were especially adapted. I think I could fit you out
exactly to your liking. Just get a position as guard to a lake of
brimstone in the infernal regions."

Hough laughed, but Sidwell did not. "I fancy," he continued
monotonously, "I see you now, a long needle-pointed spear in your hands,
jabbing back the poor sinners who tried to crawl out."

"Chad!" interrupted the other reproachfully. "Chad!" But Sidwell did not
stop.

"You'd stand well back, so that the sulphur fumes wouldn't irritate your
own nostrils, and so that when the bubbles from the boiling broke they
wouldn't spatter you, and with the finest kind of intuition and the most
delicate aim you'd select the tenderest place in your intended victim's
anatomy for your spear-point." He smiled ironically at the picture.
"Gad! you'd be a howling success there, old man!"

An expression of genuine contrition formed on Hough's jolly face. "I'm
dead sorry I hurt you, Chad," he said, "but you asked me to be frank."

"You certainly were frank," rejoined the other bluntly.

"What I said, though, was true," reiterated Hough.

Sidwell leaned a bit forward, his face, handsome in spite of its
shadings of discontent, clear in the light.

"Perhaps," he went on. "The trouble with you is that you don't give me
credit for a single redeeming virtue. No one in this world is wholly
good or wholly bad. You forget that I'm a human being, with natural
feelings and desires. You make me out a sort of machine, cunningly
constructed for a certain work. You limit my life to that work alone.