Jessie dropped lobster and knife and ran to him with frightened eyes.

“What’s the matter, Bob, are you ill?”

“Not at all, dear.”

“Then what’s the matter with you?”

“Nothing.”

Hearken, brethren.  When She-who-has-a-right-to-ask interrogates you concerning a change she finds in your mood answer her thus:  Tell her that you, in a sudden rage, have murdered your grandmother; tell her that you have robbed orphans and that remorse has stricken you; tell her your fortune is swept away; that you are beset by enemies, by bunions, by any kind of malevolent fate; but do not, if peace and happiness are worth as much as a grain of mustard seed to you—­do not answer her “Nothing.”

Jessie went back to the lobster in silence.  She cast looks of darkest suspicion at Bob.  He had never acted that way before.

When dinner was on the table she set out the bottle of Scotch and the glasses.  Bob declined.

“Tell you the truth, Jess,” he said.  “I’ve cut out the drink.  Help yourself, of course.  If you don’t mind I’ll try some of the seltzer straight.”

“You’ve stopped drinking?” she said, looking at him steadily and unsmilingly.  “What for?”

“It wasn’t doing me any good,” said Bob.  “Don’t you approve of the idea?”

Jessie raised her eyebrows and one shoulder slightly.

“Entirely,” she said with a sculptured smile.  “I could not conscientiously advise any one to drink or smoke, or whistle on Sunday.”

The meal was finished almost in silence.  Bob tried to make talk, but his efforts lacked the stimulus of previous evenings.  He felt miserable, and once or twice his eye wandered toward the bottle, but each time the scathing words of his bibulous friend sounded in his ear, and his mouth set with determination.

Jessie felt the change deeply.  The essence of their lives seemed to have departed suddenly.  The restless fever, the false gayety, the unnatural excitement of the shoddy Bohemia in which they had lived had dropped away in the space of the popping of a cork.  She stole curious and forlorn glances at the dejected Bob, who bore the guilty look of at least a wife-beater or a family tyrant.

After dinner the colored maid who came in daily to perform such chores cleared away the things.  Jessie, with an unreadable countenance, brought back the bottle of Scotch and the glasses and a bowl of cracked ice and set them on the table.

“May I ask,” she said, with some of the ice in her tones, “whether I am to be included in your sudden spasm of goodness?  If not, I’ll make one for myself.  It’s rather chilly this evening, for some reason.”

“Oh, come now, Jess,” said Bob good-naturedly, “don’t be too rough on me.  Help yourself, by all means.  There’s no danger of your overdoing it.  But I thought there was with me; and that’s why I quit.  Have yours, and then let’s get out the banjo and try over that new quickstep.”