“Right!  Well, then, as I say, these beggars change identities.  They’re as like as pins; and to all appearances one chap’s the other chap—­and the other chap’s the first chap.  See?”

Loder laughed.  The newly quickened interest was enhanced by treading on dangerous ground.

“Well, they change for a lark, of course, but there’s one fact they both overlook.  They’re men, you know, and they forget these little things!” He laughed delightedly.  “They overlook the fact that one of ’em has got a wife!”

There was a crash of music from the orchestra.  Loder sat straighter in his seat; he was conscious that the blood had rushed into his face.

“Oh, indeed?” he said, quickly.  “One of them had a wife?”

“Exactly!” Again Kaine chuckled.  “And the point of the joke is that the wife is the least larky person under the sun.  See?”

A second hot wave passed over Loder’s face; a sense of mental disgust filled him.  This, then, was the wonderful garden seen from another stand-point!  He looked from Lillian, graceful, sceptical, and shallow, to the young girl beside him, so frankly modern in her appreciation of life.  This, then, was love as seen by the eyes of the world—­the world that accepts, judges, and condemns in a slang phrase or two!  Very slowly the blood receded from his face.

“And the end of the story?” he asked, in a strained voice.

“The end?  Oh, usual end, of course.  Chap makes a mess of things and the bubble bursts.”

“And the end of the wife?”

“The end of the wife?” Lillian broke in, with a little laugh.  “Why, the end of all stupid people who, instead of going through life with a lot of delightfully human stumbles, come just one big cropper.  She naturally ends in the divorce court!”

They all laughed boisterously.  Then laughter, story, and denouement were all drowned in a tumultuous crash of music.  The orchestra ceased; there was a slight hum of applause; and the curtain rose on the second act of the comedy.

XXXI

A few minutes before the curtain fell on the second act of ‘Other Men’s Shoes’ Loder rose from his seat and made his apologies to Lillian.

At any other moment he might have pondered over her manner of accepting them—­the easy indifference with which she let him go.  But vastly keener issues were claiming his attention, issues whose results were wide and black.

He left the theatre, and, refusing the overtures of cabmen, set himself to walk to Chilcote’s house.  His face was hard and emotionless as he hurried forward, but the chaos in his mind found expression in the unevenness of his pace.  To a strong man the confronting of difficulties is never alarming and is often fraught with inspiration; but this applies essentially to the difficulties evolved through the weakness, the folly, or the force of another; when they arise from within the matter is of another character.  It is in presence of his own soul—­and in that presence alone —­that a man may truly measure himself.