At that time, except for the dull surprise, the episode did not seem to affect him particularly.  So many things had been accumulating, so many matters had been menacing him, that one cloud more among the dark, ominous masses gathering made no deeper impression than slight surprise.

For a while he stood motionless, hands in his trousers’ pockets, head lowered; then, as somebody entered the farther door, he turned instinctively and stepped into a private card room, closing the polished mahogany door.  The door opened a moment later and Delancy Grandcourt walked in.

“Hello,” he said briefly.  Dysart, by the window, looked around at him without any expression whatever.

“Have you heard about Klawber?” asked Delancy.  “They’re calling the extra.”

Dysart looked out of the window.  “That’s fast work,” he said.

Grandcourt stood for a while in silence, then seated himself, saying: 

“He ought to have lived and tried to make good.”

“He couldn’t.”

“He ought to have tried.  What’s the good of lying down that way?”

“I don’t know.  I guess he was tired.”

“That doesn’t relieve his creditors.”

“No, but it relieves Klawber.”

Grandcourt said:  “You always view things from that side, don’t you?”

“What side?”

“That of personal convenience.”

“Yes.  Why not?”

“I don’t know.  Where is it landing you?”

“I haven’t gone into that very thoroughly.”  There was a trace of irritation in Dysart’s voice; he passed one hand over his forehead; it was icy, and the hair on it damp.  “What the devil do you want of me, anyway?” he asked.

“Nothing....  I have never wanted anything of you, have I?”

Dysart walked the width of the room, then the length of it, then came and stood by the table, resting on it with one thin hand, in which his damp handkerchief was crushed to a wad.

“What is it you’ve got to say, Delancy?  Is it about that loan?”

“No.  Have you heard a word out of me about it?”

“You’ve been devilish glum.  Good God, I don’t blame you; I ought not to have touched it; I must have been crazy to let you try to help me——­”

“It was my affair.  What I choose to do concerns myself,” said Grandcourt, his heavy, troubled face turning redder.  “And, Jack, I understand that my father is making things disagreeable for you.  I’ve told him not to; and you mustn’t let it worry you, because what I had was my own and what I did with it my own business.”

“Anyway,” observed Dysart, after a moment’s reflection, “your family is wealthy.”

A darker flush stained Grandcourt’s face; and Dysart’s misinterpretation of his philosophy almost stung him into fierce retort; but as his heavy lips unclosed in anger, his eyes fell on Dysart’s ravaged face, and he sat silent, his personal feelings merged in an evergrowing anxiety.