The moment had come which could no longer be evaded.  Lightbody rose, turned, met the lurking malice in De Gollyer’s eyes with the blank indecision screen of his own, and, turning on his heel, went to a little closet in the wall, and bore back a decanter and glasses.

“This is not what we serve on the table,” he said irrelevantly.  “It’s whisky.”

De Gollyer poured out his drink and looked at Lightbody en connoisseur.

“You’ve gone off—­old—­six years.  You were the smartest of the old crowd, too.  You certainly have gone off.”

Lightbody listened, with his eyes in his glass.

“Jack, you’re middle-aged—­you’ve gone off—­badly.  It’s hit you hard.”

There was a moment’s silence and then Lightbody spoke quietly: 

“Jim!”

“What is it, old boy?”

“Do you want to know the truth?”

“Come—­out with it!”

Lightbody struggled a moment, all the hesitation showing in his lips.  Then he said, slowly shaking his head, never lifting his eyes, speaking as though to another: 

“Jim, I’ve had a hell of a time!”

“Impossible!”

“Yes.”

He lifted his glass until he felt its touch against his lips and gradually set it down.  “Why, Jim, in six years I’ve loved her so that I’ve never done anything I wanted to do, gone anywhere I wanted to go, drank anything I’ve wanted to drink, saw anything I wanted to see, wore anything I wanted to wear, smoked anything I wanted to smoke, read anything I wanted to read, or dined any one I wanted to dine!  Jim, it certainly has been a domestic time!”

“Good God!  I can’t believe it!” ejaculated De Gollyer, too astounded to indulge his sense of humor.

All at once a little fury seemed to seize Lightbody.  His voice rose and his gestures became indignant.

“Married!  I’ve been married to a policeman.  Why, Jim, do you know what I’ve spent on myself, really spent?  Not two thousand, not one thousand, not five hundred dollars a year.  I’ve been poorer than my own clerk.  I’d hate to tell you what I paid for cigars and whisky.  Everything went to her, everything!  And Jim—­” he turned suddenly with a significant glance—­“such a temper!”

“A temper?  No, impossible, not that!”

“Not violent—­oh, no—­but firm—­smiling, you know, but irresistible.”

He drew a long breath charged with bitter memories and said between his teeth, rebelling:  “I always agreed.”

“Can it be?  Is it possible?” commented De Gollyer, carefully mastering his expression.

Lightbody, on the new subject of his wrongs, now began to explode with wrath.

“And there’s one thing more—­one thing that hurts!  You know what she eloped in?  She eloped in a hat, a big red hat, three white feathers—­one hundred and seventy-five dollars.  I gave up a winter suit to get it.”

He strode over to the grotesquely large hat-box on the slender table, and struck it with his fist.