east: I was never more your friend than when I advise
the move now. I repeat: why don't you get married, at once?"

"Why? You know why, Darley. It's the old reason--the butcher, the baker,
and the candlestick maker. They still hold the fort."

"No, not for you--unless you let them. Forgive another broadside. If you
get pinched temporarily let a friend be of service. I'm not afraid to
trust you. Anyway I chance it. We all have to chance something for
happiness. Don't delay any longer, man, don't!"

"Don't?" Of a sudden Armstrong glanced up and met the other's look
steadily. "Don't?" he repeated. "Why do you say that, please?"

A second Roberts met the lifted questioning eyes.

"Because I meant it," he said. "Please don't ask me to say more."

"But I do ask it," pressed Armstrong, stubbornly. "You meant something
particular by that, something I have the right to know."

"Won't you consider what I suggested," asked Roberts in a low tone;
"merely consider it?"

"Perhaps after you tell me what you meant. Why 'don't,' please?"

On the cosy room fell silence,--the silence of midnight; the longest
silence of that interrupted understanding. For a long while Roberts stood
precisely as he was; he started walking, measuring the breadth of the
room and back again; something the watcher had never known him to do
before, never in the years of acquaintance, no matter what the
uncertainty or difficulty confronting. A second time he followed the
trail back and forth, until, watching him, the spectator felt at last
something like terror of the thing he had deliberately conjured and that
now was inevitably coming very near; for at last Roberts had halted, was
standing over him.

"In all the time that I've known you, Armstrong," said a voice, a new
voice, "you've asked my advice repeatedly, asked the reason for it,
insisted that I explain minutely, and disregarded it absolutely. I've
tried to be honest with you each time, tried to be of service; and still
you've disregarded. It's been the same to-night, the old, old story. I've
been dead in earnest, tried to be unselfish, and still you question and
doubt and insist." A second the voice halted, the speaker glancing down,
not analytically or whimsically, as usual, but of a sudden icy cold. "You
insist now, against my request, and once more I'm going to humor you. You
wish to know what I meant by 'don't' delay. I meant just this, man, just
this and no more: Chances for happiness come