“Ah?  You know?  Yes; I have had such a case in my legal practice.  Died of an—­an error.  He made a mistake—­in a bottle, which he purchased for that purpose.  But this one—­he elects to live and face it—­”

“Does he know it?”

“Obviously.  One can see the dread in his eyes.  Some of his friends know it—­and his family, I am told.  But he does not know this interesting little experiment of our friend.  Profitable, too, eh?  One wonders how he came to suspect.  A medical man, though; a keen eye.  Of course.”

“Damn him,” said Banneker quietly.  “General paralysis?”

“Eck-xactly.  Twelve, maybe fifteen years ago, a little recklessness.  A little overheating of the blood.  Perhaps after a dinner like this.  The poison lies dormant; a snake asleep.  Harms no one.  Not himself; not another.  Until—­something here”—­he tapped the thick black curls over the base of his brain.  “All that ruddy strength, that lusty good-humor passing on courageously—­for he is a brave man, Eyre—­to slow torture and—­and the end.  Grim, eh?”

Banneker reached for a drink.  “How long?” he asked.

“As for that, he is very strong.  It might be slow.  One prays not.”

“At any rate, that little reptile, Ives, shan’t have his profit of it.”  Banneker rose and, disdaining even the diplomacy of an excuse, drew Ely Ives aside.

“That bet of yours was a joke, Ives,” he prescribed.

Ives studied him in silence, wishing that he had watched, through the dinner, how much drink he took.

“A joke?” he asked coolly.  “I don’t understand you.”

“Try,” advised Banneker with earnestness.  “I happen to have read that luetic diagnosis, myself.  A joke, Ives, so far as the two hundred goes.”

“What do you expect me to do?” asked the other.

“Tear up the check, when it comes.  Make what explanation your ingenuity can devise.  That’s your affair.  But don’t cash that check, Ives.  For if you do—­I dislike to threaten—­”

“You don’t need to threaten me, Mr. Banneker,” interrupted Ives eagerly.  “If you think it wasn’t a fair bet, your word is enough for me.  That goes.  It’s off.  I think just that of you.  I’m a friend of yours, as I hope to prove to you some day.  I don’t lay this up against you; not for a minute.”

Not trusting himself to make answer to this proffer, Banneker turned away to find his host and make his adieus.  As he left, he saw Delavan Eyre, flushed but composed, sipping a liqueur and listening with courteous appearance of appreciation to a vapid and slobbering story of one of the racing magnates.  A debauchee, a cumberer of the earth, useless, selfish, scandalous of life—­and Banneker, looking at him with pitiful eyes, paid his unstinted tribute to the calm and high courage of the man.