I’ve taught the Frenchman who represents the Paris Temps how to play poker, and he threatens to become my Frankenstein, who will eventually devour me.”  Hillars laughed, and it sounded like the laughter of other days.  “Jack, I think you will do me good.  Stay with me and keep me away from the bottle if you can.  No man drinks for pure love of liquor.  My father never loved it, and God knows what he was trying to forget.  For that’s the substance of it all, to forget.  When you start out to the point of forgetfulness, you must keep it up; regret comes back threefold with soberness.  It seems silly and weak for a man who has been buffeted as I have, who is supposed to gather wisdom and philosophy as a snowball gathers snow as it rolls down hill, to try to drown regret and disappointment in liquor.  A man never knows how weak he is till he meets the one woman and she will have none of him.”

And somehow I got closer to Hillars, spiritually.  There were two of us, so it seemed, only I was stronger, or else my passion did not burn so furiously as his.

The apartments occupied by Dan were all a bachelor could wish for.  The walls were covered with photographs, original drawings, beer steins, pipes, a slipper here, a fan there, and books and books and books.  I felt at home at once.

I watched Hillars as he moved about the room, tidying up things a bit, and I noticed now more than ever how changed he was.  His face had grown thin, his hair was slightly worn at the crown and temples, and there were dark circles under his eyes.  Yet, for all these signs of dissipation, he was still a remarkably handsome man.  Though not so robust as when I last saw him, his form was yet elegant.  In the old days we had called him Adonis, and Donie had clung to him long after the Cambridge time.

“Now,” said he, when we had lighted our pipes, “I’ll tell you why I’m going to the dogs.  I’ve got to tell it to some one or go daft; and I can’t say that I’m not daft as it is.”

“It is a woman,” said I, after reflection, “who causes a man to drink, to lose all ambition.”

“It is.”

“It is a woman,” I went on, holding the amber stem of my pipe before the light which gleamed golden through the transparent gum, “who causes a man to pull up stakes and prospect for new claims, to leave the new country for the old.”

“It is a woman indeed,” he replied.  He was gazing at me with a new interest.  “If the woman had accepted him, he would not have been here.”

“No, he would not,” said I.

“In either case, yours or mine.”

“In either case.  Go on with your story; there’s nothing more to add to mine.”

Some time passed, and nothing but the breathing of the pipes was heard.  Now and then I would poke away at the ashes in my pipe bowl, and Dan would do the same.

“Have you a picture of her?” I asked, reaching for some fresh tobacco.