“Let it rest, Romarin,” he said curtly.  “Drop it,” he added.  “Let it alone.  If I begin to talk like that, too, we shall only cut one another up.  Clink glasses—­there—­and let it alone.”

Mechanically Romarin clinked; but his bald brow was perplexed.

“‘Cut one another up?’” he repeated.

“Yes.  Let it alone.”

“‘Cut one another up?’” he repeated once more.  “You puzzle me entirely.”

“Well, perhaps I’m altogether wrong.  I only wanted to warn you that I’ve dared a good many things in my time.  Now drop it.”

Romarin had fine brown eyes, under Oriental arched brows.  Again they noted the singularly vicious look of the man opposite.  They were full of mistrust and curiosity, and he stroked his silver beard.

“Drop it?” he said slowly ...  “No, let’s go on.  I want to hear more of this.”

“I’d much rather have another drink in peace and quietness....  Waiter!”

Either leaned back in his chair, surveying the other.  “You’re a perverse devil still,” was Romarin’s thought.  Marsden’s, apparently, was of nothing but the whiskey and soda the waiter had gone to fetch.

* * * * *

Romarin was inclined to look askance at a man who could follow up a gin and bitters with three or four whiskeys and soda without turning a hair.  It argued the seasoned cask.  Marsden had bidden the waiter leave the bottle and the syphon on the table, and was already mixing himself another stiff peg.

“Well,” he said, “since you will have it so—­to the old days.”

“To the old days,” said Romarin, watching him gulp it down.

“Queer, looking back across all that time at ’em, isn’t it?  How do you feel about it?”

“In a mixed kind of way, I think; the usual thing:  pleasure and regret mingled.”

“Oh, you have regrets, have you?”

“For certain things, yes.  Not, let me say, my turn-up with you, Marsden,” he laughed.  “That’s why I chose the old place—­” he gave a glance round at its glittering newness.  “Do you happen to remember what all that was about?  I’ve only the vaguest idea.”

Marsden gave him a long look.  “That all?” he asked.

“Oh, I remember in a sort of way.  That ‘Romantic’ soap-bubble of yours was really at the bottom of it, I suspect.  Tell me,” he smiled, “did you really suppose Life could be lived on those mad lines you used to lay down?”

“My life,” said Marsden calmly, “has been.”

“Not literally.”

“Literally.”

“You mean to say that you haven’t outgrown that?”

“I hope not.”

Romarin had thrown up his handsome head.  “Well, well!” he murmured incredulously.

“Why ’well, well’?” Marsden demanded....  “But, of course, you never did and never will know what I meant.”

“By Romance? ...  No, I can’t say that I did; but as I conceived it, it was something that began in appetite and ended in diabetes.”