"You wanted money by this time. I was a solicitor--your old college
friend--and you came to me. I knew you would come, as surely as I knew
you would not fire that pistol just now. For years I had trained myself
to look into your mind and anticipate its working. Don't I tell you
that from the first you were the only real creature this world held for
me? You were my only book, and I had to learn you: at first without
fixed purpose, then deliberately. And when the time came I put into
practice what I knew: just that and no more. My dear Reggie, you never
had a chance."
"Elaine?" I muttered again.
"Elaine was the girl for you--or for me: just that again and no more."
"By George!" said I, letting out a laugh. "If I thought that!"
"What?"
"Why, that after ruining me, you have missed being happy!"
He sighed impatiently, and his eyes, though he kept them fastened on
mine, seemed to be tiring. "I thought," he said, "I could time your
intelligence over any fence. But to-night there's something wrong.
Either I'm out of practice or your brain has been going to the deuce.
What, man! You're shying at every bank! Is it drink, hey? Or hunger?"
"It might be a little of both," I answered. "But stay a moment and let
me get things straight. I stood between you and Elaine--no, give me
time--between you and your aims, whatever they were. Very well.
You trod over me; or, rather, you pulled me up by the roots and pitched
me into outer darkness to rot. And now it seems that, after all, you
are not content. In the devil's name, why?"
"Why? Oh, cannot you see? . . . Take a look at these mirrors again--
our world, I tell you. See--you and I--you and I--always you and I!
Man, I pitched you into darkness as you say, and then I woke and knew
the truth--that you were necessary to me."
"Hey?"
"_I can't do without you!_" It broke from him in a cry. "So help me
God, Reggie, it is the truth!"
I stared in his face for half a minute maybe, and broke out laughing.
"Jeshurun waxed fat and--turned sentimental! A nice copy-book job you
make of it, too!"
"_Oh, send my brother back to me--
I cannot play alone!_"
"Perhaps you'd like me to buy a broom and hire the crossing in Lennox
Gardens? Then you'd be able to contemplate me all day long, and nourish
your fine fat soul with delicate eating. Pah! You make me sick."
"It's the truth," said he quietly.
"It may be. To me it looks a sight more like _foie gras_. Can't do
without me, can't you? Well, I can jolly well do without you, and I'm
going to."
"I warn you," he said: "I have done you an injury or two in my time, but
by George if I stand up and let you shoot me--well, I hate you badly
enough, but I won't let you do it without fair warning."
"I'll risk it anyway," said I.
"Very well." He stood up, and folded his arms. "Shoot, then, and be
hanged!"