“What’s up now?” I cried.  “Has Harry Basset lost?” Ned was always deep on the turf, and I could think of nothing else that would cut him up so much.

“D——­n Harry Basset!  I say, Charley, haven’t you some brandy?”

“Too hot for brandy to-night,” I said:  “take some of this,” pushing him a bottle.

“Stuff!” and he looked at it contemptuously.  “If you can’t treat a poor devil more like a man when he comes, he will go;” and he rose with a jerk.

“Sit down, old fellow! or rather go to that closet and get what you want—­enough there for a night or two.”

He looked the worse for hard drink already, but of course I could not refuse him if he wanted it.  It is true politeness, if your friend wants to commit suicide, to sharpen the razor for him and ask no questions.  I leaned back while he mixed a glass with seltzer and drank it greedily.  Finally, when he looked more composed, I said, “I want to ask you a question, Ned.”  I thought of Blanche Furnaval’s strange conduct on seeing Ned before me, and resolved to ask him if he could explain it.  “I believe you know something about the queer ways of women.  Can you tell—­”

“Look here, Charley,” he broke out savagely:  “I want one thing understood.  You are always teasing and bothering about the women; and as you have not got a piece of flesh as big as a pea for a heart, you will never understand anything about them; so, if you don’t want to set me crazy, just let that subject down while I am here.”

“It’s a woman, then,” I said, forgetting in my surprise to be angry.  “Cheer up, old boy!  You will soon get over it:  no woman’s worth it.”

“Not to you, perhaps, but it may be the contrary with me,” he answered moodily.

There was a long silence.  I smoked, he drank:  at last I broke it by saying unconsciously, “She is a dear little thing.”  My thoughts had reverted to Eva.

“Ah, you saw it?” cried Ned eagerly.  “Then I can talk to you about it.  You may well say she is a dear little thing.  She is an angel—­too good for a fellow like me.  But the poor child dotes on me:  that is the hardest part of the cursed thing.  How she laid her head on my shoulder and cried, and said she did not want to marry that other fellow, d——­n him!  It almost broke my heart,” he continued dejectedly, “and it is not of the stuff that breaks easily.  I told her I would take her off and we would run for it, though Heaven knows what we should do afterward.  Sometimes it seems as if I could not bear it.  I wish I could strangle Todd:  that would be some comfort.”

“What makes you so savage against old Todd?”

“Don’t you know he and Eva are engaged?  All owing to the interference of that old Stunner.  What business was it of hers, I wonder?  And poor Eva disliking him as she does, and so unhappy about it, and I can’t help her!  My cursed luck, always;” and Ned heaved a brandy-and-seltzer sigh.