in his life without cheating. Keep out of his way;
keep out of the way of all men who prefer to deal only two hands." And
with this advice Warrington stepped out into the hallway and shut the
door rudely.

The youth walked over to the mirror and straightened his collar and
tie. "Rum go, that. Narrow squeak. Surly beggar, even if he did do
me a good turn. I shan't have to pay that rotter, Craig, now. That's
something."

"Pay the purser and get a box of cigars," Warrington directed James.
"Never mind about the wine. I shan't want it now."

James went out upon the errands immediately. Warrington dropped down
in the creaky rocking-chair, the only one in the boarding-house. He
stared at the worn and faded carpet. How dingy everything looked!
What a sordid rut he had been content to lie in! Chance: to throw this
man across his path when he had almost forgotten him, forgotten that he
had sworn to break the man's neck over his knees! In the very next
room! And he had permitted him to go unharmed simply because his mind
was full of a girl he would never see again after to-morrow. What was
the rascal doing over here? What had caused him to forsake the easy
pluckings of Broadway in exchange for a dog's life on packet-boats, in
squalid boarding-houses like this one, and in dismal billiard-halls?
Wire-tapper, racing-tout, stool-pigeon, a cheater at cards, blackmailer
and trafficker in baser things; in the next room, and he had let him go
unharmed. Vermin. Pah! He was glad. The very touch of the man's
collar had left a sense of defilement upon his hands. Ten years ago
and thirteen thousand miles away. In the next room. He laughed
unpleasantly. Chivalric fool, silly Don Quixote, sentimental dreamer,
to have made a hash of his life in this manner!

He leaned toward the window-sill and opened the cage. Rajah walked
out, muttering.

When it was possible, Elsa preferred to walk. She was young and strong
and active; and she went along with a swinging stride that made obvious
a serene confidence in her ability to take care of herself. She was,
in many respects, a remarkable young woman. She had been pampered, she
had been given her head; and still she was unspoiled. What the
unknowing called wilfulness was simply natural independence, which she
asserted whenever occasion demanded it.

Tongas cut into her nerves, the stuffy gharry made her head ache, and
the springless phaetons which abound in the East