added, with a sidelong glance at Plank's
stolid face; "I don't want to push the mourners too hard ... Well, I'll
see about it ... And if it's the thing to do, and the time to do it"--he
turned on Plank with his boisterous and misleading laugh and clapped
him on the shoulder--"it will be done, as sure as snobs are snobs; and
that's the surest thing you ever bet on. Here's to them!" and he emptied
his glass and fell back into his chair, wheezing and sucking at his
unlighted cigar.

"I want to say," began Plank, speaking the more slowly because he was
deeply in earnest, "that all this you are doing for me is very handsome
of you, Mortimer. I'd like to say--to convey to you something of how I
feel about the way you and Mrs. Mortimer--"

"Oh, Leila has done it all."

"Mrs. Mortimer is very kind, and you have been so, too. I--I wish there
was something--some way to--to--"

"To what?" asked Mortimer so bluntly that Plank flushed up and
stammered:

"To be--to do a--to show my gratitude."

"How? You're scarcely in a position to do anything for us," said
Mortimer, brutally staring him out of countenance.

"I know it," said Plank, the painful flush deepening.

Mortimer, fussing and growling over his cigar, was nevertheless
stealthily intent on the game which had so long absorbed him. His
wits, clogged, dulled by excesses, were now aroused to a sort of gross
activity through the menace of necessity. At last Plank had given him an
opening. He recognised his chance.

"There's one thing," he said deliberately, "that I won't stand for, and
that's any vulgar misconception on your part of my friendship for you.
Do you follow me?"

"I don't misunderstand it," protested Plank, angry and astonished; "I
don't--"

"--As though," continued Mortimer menacingly, "I were one of those needy
social tipsters, one of those shabby, pandering touts who--"

"For Heaven's sake, Mortimer, don't talk like that! I had no
intention--"

"--One of those contemptible, parasitic leeches," persisted Mortimer,
getting redder and hoarser, "who live on men like you. Confound you,
Plank, what the devil do you mean by it?"

"Mortimer, are you crazy, to talk to me like that?"

"No, I'm not, but you must be! I've a mind to drop the whole cursed
business! I've every inclination to drop it! If you haven't horse-sense
enough--if you haven't innate delicacy sufficient to keep you from
making such a break--"

"I didn't! It wasn't a break, Mortimer. I wo