“That’s not the way I look at it,” Sue answered mournfully.  “To me it makes all the difference in the world how food is served, not to mention how it is cooked.  Do you ever have anything but bacon and eggs at that dreadful place of yours?”

“Bless your heart, yes!  I don’t deny myself good food, child—­get that out of your mind.  Why, just night before last Jennings and I had an oyster roast, on the half-shell, over the coals in my fireplace.  My word, but they were good!  If Webb can give us anything better than that to-night he’ll surprise me.”

“Who is Jennings?  A laundryman or a policeman?”

“Neither.  Jennings is a clerk in the office of a great wholesale hardware house.  He was down on his luck, a while back, but he’s pulled out of his trouble.  When his wife’s called out of town, as she often is by the old people back home, he keeps me company.  He’s particularly fond of roasted oysters, is Jennings, since a certain night when I introduced them to his unaccustomed palate.  It’s great fun to see him devour them.”

Sue shook her head again.  She could seem to do little else these days, being in a perpetual state of wonder and regret over that which she could not understand—­quite as her brother had said.  He sent her away an hour before luncheon time, telling her that he would follow when he had attended to certain matters in which she could not help.  Having put her into her car, he waved a cheery hand at her as she drove away, and returned to his apartment.  He lingered a little at the lift to ask after the welfare of the young man who operated it, whom he had known in past days; but presently he was in his library again with the door locked behind him.  And here for a brief space business was suspended.

Before the big leather chair he fell upon his knees, burying his head in his arms.

“Oh, good Father,’” said Brown, just above his breath, “only Thou canst help me through this thing.  It’s even harder than I thought it would be.  I want the old life, I want the old love—­my heart is weak within me at the thought of giving them up....  I know the temptation comes not from without but from within.  It’s my own weak self that is my enemy, not the lure of the life I’m giving up....  Give me strength—­fighting strength....  Help me—­’not to give in while I can stand and see.’”

Presently he rose to his feet.  He was pale, but in his face showed the renewed strength of purpose he had asked for.  He set about the task of packing the few things he meant to take with him, working with a certain unhurried efficiency which accomplished no small amount in that hour before luncheon.  Then he descended to find his sister’s car waiting for him, and was whirled away.

XIII

BROWN’S TRIAL BY FLOOD

At nine o’clock that night, feeling a little as if he were in some sort of familiar dream, Brown, wearing evening dress for the first time in more than a year, sat looking about him.  He was at Mrs. Brainard’s right hand, in the post of the guest of honour, for Mrs. Brainard was playing hostess for her bachelor friend, Webb Atchison, in the apartment of the princely up-town hotel which was his more or less permanent home.