“Say, how about dinner?”

“It isn’t ready yet,” Gilbert informed him.  Lucia took advantage of her husband’s question to move over toward the door.

“Why, good God, man, it’s nearly three o’clock!  We’re not on a hunger strike, are we?” And he laughed at his own dull witticism.

“I’ll see about it now,” Jones promised.

“Haven’t got a drink, have you, while we’re waiting?  Not that I need an appetizer!  And it’s damned hot, I know, to guzzle whiskey.”

“There’s nothing good in the place.  But I think the cook has some tequila.”

“Tequila?  What’s that, Jones?”

“It’s a Mexican drink.”

“Has it got a kick in it?” the other wanted to know.

“I never heard anybody complain,” Gilbert smiled.  “After two or three of ’em, I never saw anybody able to complain!”

He started toward the kitchen.

“What does it taste like?” said Pell, detaining him.

“Oh, sort of like gasoline with bichloride of mercury in it,” Jones answered his eager questioner.

“No wood alcohol?” suspiciously.  Pell was always looking out for himself.

“Oh, it’s safe enough, I assure you.  Would you like to try some of it?” Gilbert suggested.

Pell thought a moment—­but only a moment.  “I’ll try anything once, and anything to drink more than once—­if I’m alive the second time.”

His host smiled.  “I’ll get you some if there’s any left,” and went to the kitchen to see.  He couldn’t help wondering why a man like Morgan Pell, with so many responsibilities, should wish to drink tequila.

Left alone, there was that strange silence between Lucia and her husband which so often occurred nowadays.  A barrier was between them, none the less real because it was invisible.  She knew his moods so well, and she dreaded the things he might say, all his inhibitions gone, if he drank any of this deadly Mexican stuff.  She would have halted Gilbert had she dared; but she knew that any such action on her part would have aroused Pell the more, inflamed him to anger; and, like most women of fine breeding, she dreaded a scene more than anything in the world.  All that she said now was merely,

“I wish you wouldn’t do that.”

“Do what?” Pell asked, jerking out the two words in a high staccato.  He hated to be questioned, particularly by his wife.  His hands reached for the satchel he had brought in.

“Order a man around in his own house.”

“And why not, I’d like to know?” Pell inquired.  “Who’s he, anyhow, and what difference does it make?”

Lucia remained perfectly calm.  “Well, if you can’t see, of course—­”

“There’s no use your trying to tell me.  Is that what you were going to say?” His face showed his rage.

She did not answer.  That infuriated him all the more.

“I see what you mean!  But I don’t agree,” Pell pursued.  “This Jones person is nothing in my life.  And why I should be deprived of my liquor and forced to eat burnt beans three times a day, I can’t see.”  He emitted a sound that might have been designated a laugh.