The contact raised Lightbody from revery.  He drew back, shocked at the ways through which his thoughts had wandered.

“No, no, Jim,” he said.  “No, you mustn’t, nothing like that—­not at such a time.”

“You’re right,” said De Gollyer, instantly masked in gravity.  “You’re quite right.  Still, we are looking things in the face—­planning for the future.  Of course it’s a delicate question, terrifically delicate.  I’m almost afraid to put it to you.  Come, now, how shall I express it—­delicately?  It’s this way.  Fifteen thousand a year divided by one is fifteen thousand, isn’t it; but fifteen thousand a year divided by two, may mean—­” He straightened up, heels clicking, throwing out his elbows slightly and lifting his chin from the high, white stockade on which it reposed.  “Come, now, we’re men of the world, aren’t we?  Now, as a matter of fact how much of that fifteen thousand a year came back to you?”

“My dear Jim,” said Lightbody, feeling that generosity should be his part, “a woman, a modern woman, a New York woman, you just said it—­takes—­takes—­”

“Twelve thousand—­thirteen thousand?”

“Oh, come!  Nonsense,” said Lightbody, growing quite angry.  “Besides, I don’t—­”

“Yes, yes, I know,” said De Gollyer, interrupting him, now with fresh confidence.  “All the same your whiskies have gone off, dear boy—­they’ve gone off, and your cigars are bad, very bad.  Little things, but they show.”

A pencil lay before him.  Lightbody, without knowing what he did, took it up and mechanically on an unwritten sheet jotted down $15,000, drawing the dollar sign with a careful, almost caressing stroke.  The sheet was the back of his wife’s letter, but he did not notice it.

De Gollyer, looking over his shoulder, exclaimed: 

“Quite right.  Fifteen thousand, divided by one.”

“It will make a difference,” said Lightbody slowly.  Over his face passed an expression such as comes but once in a lifetime; a look defying analysis; a look that sweeps back over the past and challenges the future and always retains the secret of its judgment.

De Gollyer, drawing back slowly, allowed him a moment before saying: 

“And no alimony!”

“What?”

“Free and no alimony, my boy!”

“No alimony?” said Lightbody, surprised at this new reasoning.

“A woman who runs away gets no alimony,” said De Gollyer loudly.  “Not here, not in the effete East!”

“I hadn’t thought of that, either,” said Lightbody, who, despite himself, could not repress a smile.

De Gollyer, irritated perhaps that he should have been duped into sympathy, ran on with a little vindictiveness.

“Of course that means nothing to you, dear boy.  You were happy, ideally happy!  You adored her, didn’t you?”

He paused and then, receiving no reply, continued: 

“But you see, if you hadn’t been so devilish lucky, so seraphically happy all these years, you might find a certain humor in the situation, mightn’t you?  Still, look it in the face, what have you lost, what have you left?  There is something in that.  Fifteen thousand a year, liberty and no alimony.”