Everybody's Magazine/The Satisfaction of Honor

by S. B. H. Hurst

 

Illustration: What feminine impulse, what whim had caused Mildred to sing the song that had meant more than any other to the professor of psychology in the days that had died?

^The Satisfaction of Honor

Laid in a Land Where They Play the Game Hard for Gain or a Woman's Smiles—Where There's Airways Tense Two-fisted Drama When Opponents in Love or Cards Clash

By S. B. H. Hurst

A Novelette
Illustrations by Mead Schaeffer

LESS than a quarter of a century ago these men and women were tangled in the web of circumstance of the “Old West,” where open gambling was regarded as a necessary adjunct to life, and where there prevailed a somewhat distorted idea of chivalry which was often manifested in action almost grotesque.

All these old friends have quit the game and cashed in. I hope they were winners, and that the great Dealer has none of their tabs in his drawer which they failed to pay.

They may have lacked somewhat of refinement, but they accepted their losses as cheerfully as they took their winnings. Never did I hear one of them whine or complain. Never did I hear one of them say that the game was not “on the square.”

 

A long room, furnished with the paraphernalia of Chance. Faces of men, flushed or strangely pallid. A tensed, strained atmosphere. Drink and the reek of it. Many lights. Tobacco smoke—fantastic incense upon the altar of the Goddess of Fortune. A drone of voices, broken sharply by the calls of the dealers.

“Craps and the money once!” His fat heaving cheerfully, A1 Bean announced the failure of a perspiring dice-thrower.

“Give 'em to me! I'm the baby that can roll 'em! That guy couldn't make a pass in a thousand years.”

The embarrassed failure parted with the dice, dejected as one caught in deadly sin; while the player who had so loudly announced himself doubled his bet and prepared to throw with the air of one to whom is revealed many mysteries.

“Seventeen, odd, red and the middle column!”

At the wheel, Bert Cummings mechanically raked in the winnings of the house and began to pay where the house had lost.

The gentleman whose short legs reached not the floor from his high stool loudly shook his big “chuck-a-luck” box while a slight argument rose among the strivers at the stud-poker table, and “Everybody deals!” echoed from where many played black jack. The noise of the “professor's” manipulation of the piano in the extraordinary theatre adjoining mingled oddly with the click of chips and the clink of money.

“Big Bill” Hinkman ran both these places, and the door connecting the gallery and the gambling-room was never closed. The ladies who charmed from the stage with their voices asked but the privilege of “running the boxes” in return for the expenditure of their art. These boxes were tiny rooms; their doors locked on the inside, and when their occupants became tired of watching the performance they could draw the heavy curtains. There were so many of the boxes that the place reminded one of some weirdly distorted honeycomb. From the drink sold in these boxes to their admirers the ladies received a percentage, and since there was a sufficiency of ladies, much drink was sold.

Into the private affairs of his artists, Hinkman did not probe, for it was not necessary. There was one exception—Mildred never “ran the boxes.” She had never even entered one of them. Occasionally she sang from the stage—when she felt inclined, and when she sang even the occupants of the boxes listened. The other women said that Hinkman had fallen in love with her voice, that she was “stuck up” and “had the nerve to pretend to be good,” and that she was “fool enough to hope that Bill would marry her some day.” Had Mildred spoken to one of the other women, Hinkman would have quarreled with her. For the love of this big, rough man for his mistress was akin to adoration.

The wheel turned; the dice rattled; the professor played; the struggle for gain and women's smiles went on.

AT the roulette-table stood a slightly built, delicate-looking man who did not require spectacles to suggest the studious. For such a one to be playing the wheel seemed strange, not merely because of his appearance—for men with one foot in the grave gamble—but because of his seeming indifference to the winning or losing of his bets. He appeared to have a fixed idea, from which he could not withdraw his thoughts. During one of the minutes when all interest in the game had left him, his number won. Cummings paid the bet, eying his customer curiously, but the winner made no move to take his money.

“Don't you want it?” The dealer's tone was friendly.

“Er—oh, of course!” Nervously he moved his money to the edge of the table.

“Damned booster!” A player at the pale man's elbow voiced this statement loudly. Cummings looked at him sharply, remained silent, and sent the ball round the wheel with a deft twist of his fingers. The man who had been called a booster smiled slightly, giving the majority of the players the impression that he had long lost all self-respect. For while being called a booster—one who is paid by the house to attract business by playing with money provided by the house—is in itself something of an insult, it was the tone of the individual who had voiced the word that would have roused the ordinary man. And one man was roused, but the latticework of emotions against which he reacted would fill a volume of inadequate description. He was a man with wide shoulders—a strange character, one who had not always been the “roughneck” he seemed. His glowing health and obvious strength made him noticeable. He looked across the table at another bull-necked individual—a man as strongly built but of a very different type.

“How about it, Casey?” he drawled.

“Aw; don't hit him!” Casey's grin revealed a mouth as wide as that of a codfish. “Don't hit him—it'll only make a mess for the poor janitor to clean up. Naw; just tickle the mean beast, Barney.”

The man called Barney looked a question at the dealer.

“He bought a dollar's worth of chips an hour ago, and he's been playing 'em one by one,” Cummings answered the question, his voice dry with contempt.

Barney grew rather red.

“And,” he drawled, “the mouthy little Shylock had the impertinence to—to—insult my friend Casey over there.”

Casey, in no wise annoyed at the mention of the well-known fact that he was a booster, continued to grin as one who anticipates great enjoyment, while the gorilla-like grip of the speaker began to close upon the right hand of him who had leveled the insult.

“Don't make a noise,” suggested Barney, when the face of his writhing victim indicated the limit of pain borne silently; “don't squeal, because, if you do, you'll disturb my artistic friend, the professor, at the musical instrument next door—and he has feelings, like my friend Casey, which I do not intend to have hurt.”

“Kee-rect!” Casey approved, while the other players appeared as uninterested as if the unfortunate squirmer were trying to entertain them and doing it very poorly.

“Yes”—Barney might have been speaking to a woman, so gentle was his voice—“yes; like all artists, the prof cannot tolerate rivalry. If you holler while I am escorting you to the outer portals of this place, he will believe that another musician has been hired by Bill, the boss. Then he will quit, and we be left musicless. If you don't believe me, ask Casey about it. But be polite when you call me a liar.”

The individual who had so readily insulted an apparently defenseless man was now hopping weird contortions on his knees. Lightening his grip somewhat, Barney commanded him to cash in, allowing him to struggle to his feet. The dealer made swift payment of a dollar and ten cents, which the victim's free hand grasped.

“Ye're takin' shingles off the house, Barney me boy,” Casey chuckled. “Don't you see he's quittin' a winner?”

“I know,” Barney's tone was sorrowful, “but I'm the helpless instrument of fate. If, by some odd chance, you happen to have ten cents about you, Casey—I mean ten cents which are not the rightful property of Bill Hinkman—then, I beg of you, toss the dime to Bert and ease my guilty conscience.”

“I'll do it—for you.” And Casey gravely handed a dime to the grinning Cummings, while the players laughed.

At the door, Barney released his shivering victim.

“Never insult a poor devil because he looks too sick to hit you. If you had said what you said to either Casey or myself, we would have patted you on the back and laughed. Go—and think it over.”

NO MAN but the one he had protected watched Barney's return to the wheel. The recent happening, with all its appeal to brutality, had evoked only casual glances here and there from among the absorbed worshipers of the God of the Chances.

“We gents has to protect ourselves.” Casey grinned widely at his fellow booster, teasing Barney by advertising the latter's reason for being there, unable to miss the opportunity of joshing his friend.

“We?” Barney grinned back at him. “We? Why, you're so darned lazy that you'd only grunt if some tough kicked you on the back of the neck!” At which atrocious libel, Casey only grinned the more widely.

Rather vaguely, not sure of the right attitude to take, it seemed, the pale weakling smiled his thanks, but Barney relieved him of the unpleasant task of words. For sympathy is a sometimes strange reaction; often the cry of an injured dog disturbs one more than the wail of a suffering human. Commandingly, as was his habit, a trace of contempt barely suppressed,

“Cash in—come and have a quiet drink,” said Barney, and, with the trick of men born to command, he smiled slightly. Casey stared across the table and Barney's smile became a laugh. “Going to leave you, roughneck—craps is a less exhausting game.”

“All right, my old college chum!” Casey retorted. Then, to the dealer, “You didn't know me and him went to college together, didja?” Cummings, with his mechanical nonchalance, sent the ball upon its uncertain journey, answering gravely:

“Sure! Only got to take one look at you two to know that—and the name of the college, too!”

“Yes?”

“Yes; but you was too tough, and got throwed out. University of the Second Chance, they calls it. Walla Walla is the pen's proper name, though. Most guys goes straight after leavin' there, but—but you two got a job here!” Casey's chest heaved with appreciation.

“Double green and nobody on it!” Cummings droned the ball's arrival, and swept chips and money from the table. “Casey's favorite number. He says green was his college colors. The stripes molded on him!”

“Why are you taking up with the little guy?” Barney's interest in the weakling was rousing Casey's jealousy.

“Oh—don't know exactly—he's a good talker and knows a lot.”

“Why don't he know enough to keep out of here—where his sort don't belong?”

“He hasn't told me why he comes here.”

“Hasn't told you? Say—are you crazy, too? Wotinell would he come here for if it wasn't to play the wheel?”

Barney frowned slightly. He was beginning to be annoyed at having become interested in the weakling. He was conscious of a puzzle which, after all, did not concern him. He answered Casey raspingly.

“Say—who's crazy now? Can't you see that sick-looking guy don't play the wheel? He makes a few bets, all right, but most of the time he just stands there—dreaming about some damned thing— If he wasn't such a delicate-looking guy, I'd think he'd either killed a man or wanted to.”

MORE than a week had passed since Barney had escorted the impolite roulette player from the table, and during that time he had spent as many hours with his protégé as with his friend Casey. And Casey liked being deserted as little as he understood the reason for it.

“Then why don't you ask him what's the matter? You hang round him just as if he'd hired you to beat up any guy that speaks to him. If he's such a pet of yours, why don't he tell you why he's such a scared little skunk? I'd make him tell—if there's anything—which there ain't.”

Again Barney frowned. It was impossible to tell Casey that his roughneckism was mostly external—as impossible as it would be to risk hurting the weakling's feelings with personal questions. But Casey was not handicapped by any such refinements. And the weakling, in his timid way, was walking toward the “club-room,” where the two boosters were sitting.

This “club-room” was a recess, furnished with a few chairs and a table upon which reposed some ancient magazines. It was almost always deserted. Compared with the glare of light about the gambling-tables, the gloom of the place held a certain restfulness. Not until he crossed the curtained threshold did the weakling know the place was occupied. He hesitated, but Casey hailed him.

“Come on in, you—we want to ask you something.”

The weakling obeyed mechanically. Barney shifted restlessly in his chair. He wanted to silence Casey, but he liked the man far too well to quarrel with him. He was curious, too, to hear what reply the weakling would make to Casey's blunt questioning.

“Have a seat. Me and Barney has been wonderin' about you. You don't come here to gamble, and you ain't man enough to take care of yourself. Are you writin' a fool book, or what's your little game? You ain't even told Barney your name, and he's too darned soft to ask you. If you was a girl——”

“Cut it out, Casey!”

Casey's wide mouth became a just visible line. For some tense moments there was silence in the club-room, while the noise from without surged like waves. Casey had turned slightly pale; Barney was even paler. Casey's growing impulse was to manhandle the weakling, but he somehow controlled it and, studiously avoiding his friend's eye, went on quietly:

“Why don't you tell us what's troublin' you? Us is your friends. Neither him or me ever refused to go down the line for a friend.”

“It seemed too much to ask.” The weakling did not look at Casey.

“What did?”

“I did not have my problem solved—not entirely, that is—until yesterday. I will admit that I wanted to confide in Mr. Hilliard days ago, but I was somewhat diffident. But now the time seems near, I will require some help. You were kind enough to say you were my friends—will you help me?” There was a sort of dignity about the man—a dignity, however, heavily drenched with pathos.

“Help you? Sure we will!” Casey's hand went to a ready, if light, pocket; but Barney Hilliard shook his head at him.

“I don't believe it's that,” he said gruffly.

“No?” Casey, having sampled the content of his pocket, seemed relieved.

“No. He's going to tell us all about it—now.”

Silence. It was difficult. But the urge for revenge broke through diffidence, helped materially by craving for sympathy, half hypnotized by long dwelling upon great sorrow. The cultured voice broke the silence; the man's eyes focused upon pictures not hanging upon the walls.

“I am going through with it. Five years ago I was professor of psychology at the University of—it does not matter. I was the youngest man ever to hold that chair. I was young enough to fall in love—I am thirty-three now. I fell in love with a girl who attended my lectures. We were married. She believed she despised muscle and admired brains. She was mistaken. Many women make the same mistake. They discover their mistake after marrying the brains. She left me without saying good-by.”

The voice lost something of its lecture-room tone. The professor of psychology was perilously near succumbing to emotions he had often discussed learnedly and somewhat contemptuously.

“Yes—she went away—without a word—just like they do in plays and books of fiction. You can both understand—my— And neither of you is capable of greater feeling, stronger passion than I am. She would not have run away from either of you.”

“She'd have been dragged back by the hair of her head if she had,” growled Casey, red of face. “A guy's wife is——”

“Let him finish,” Barney interrupted.

“And then,” the professor of psychology continued, slowly and less evenly, “then she met a man who—who— Well, I find it helps me to plan on my revenge when I play the wheel. Because I am going to have my revenge. It will taste very sweet after this waiting. And I want you two to come with me and see me take it.”

His frail body shook with agony now, and the two powerful men reacted like wounded gorillas.

“You shall have it! You've a right to kill the swine, anyway—to kill 'em both!” The quiet had left Barney.

“Kill 'em both!” Casey echoed fiercely.

“I cannot kill. I do not desire to kill. Besides, to kill a man is to end his troubles, his pain. I want a far more cruel revenge than killing him—and revenge must be cruel to be complete. A man unable to think can kill, but I, with the brains she despised, have found a way to make them both suffer hell. Yet I need your help—your fighting help—at least, it seems so.”

“Where is he?” Casey pressed.

The weakling paused. Over and over again he had repeated to himself the words he was now to utter aloud—this to gain control, to prevent his voice rising in a shriek when he said those words. And now he answered, as if he were telling the time of day,

“Mildred is my wife, and Hinkman is—” But the professor of psychology had overestimated his fortitude, and Barney, with swift understanding, hustled Casey into the gambling-room while the weakling sought to recover what manliness he might.

Casey, dumb with the surprise of the revelation, stared at his friend, open-mouthed; but Barney, no less astounded but fond of carrying off difficult situations with cynical speech, drawled:

“Friend of my declining years, what think ye? If we do not more or less boost, we are liable to be urged to seek other—er—vocations.”

AND now incidents, puzzling during the past week, began to make for solution of the greater problem in the mind of Barney. He had wondered why he could not persuade the weakling to go with him into the adjoining theatre. Now he knew that the ex-professor feared that Mildred might make one of her rare visits to the place and recognize him. Therefore, she did not know her husband was in the same town. It followed, then, that Hinkman would not know the husband if he saw him. Barney knew that Hinkman adored Mildred. The subject of her husband would be tabu between them. Consequently, Hinkman would not even possess an inadequate description of the weakling. The ex-professor must have reasoned all this out. But how had he trailed his wife?

It helped him to plan his revenge to play the wheel! Barney did not believe this obvious lie. The man craved his wife, and the wheel allowed him an excuse—to himself—to be as near her as he could get without her being aware of his nearness. God, how the poor devil must have suffered! No wonder he forgot his bets.

And neither Hinkman nor Mildred guessed what was coming. But what could such a weakling cause to come—that would count?

But Casey, after the manner of his type, could dwell but a little while upon any problem. Novelty interested; study bored. However, a sudden happening in the gambling-room would have affected any one.

“Hello!” Casey began to move rapidly. “Bert's got another spell!” They pushed roughly through the crowd gathering to stare at Cummings, the dealer, whose saturated handkerchief weakly tried to stem the hemorrhage. Dying of tuberculosis, his will and an attitude of jest toward life had kept him at work. An excited booster from the stud-table had sprinted to Hinkman's private quarters, and, as many hands helped to carry away the man who had for the last time called the winning number and who would not jest overlong, Hinkman strode into the room. He stood, a huge man, not fat. His face might have been carved out of teak-wood with an ax by an inartistic savage. Yet there was a quality in that face, in addition to great strength. He made no fuss over Cummings, but the few men and women who really knew Hinkman could have told you that the dealer would lack nothing, and that he could have quit long before and still drawn his five dollars a shift. As the bearers carried their burden through the door and the gamblers returned to their places, Hinkman spoke, his deep voice unmoved.

“Take the wheel, Barney.” And turned on his heel and went back to Mildred.

AT THE terse command, Barney had stiffened with anger when normally the promotion would have pleased him. For promotion it was, with more pay; and it effectually precluded the possibility of his again being a booster in that house, since the booster's connection with the house is not supposed to be known to the patrons. And Barney loathed the booster's job.

Hitherto on good terms with “the boss,” his curious sympathy with the weakling, allied with the latter's confession, now surged through him as intense hatred of Hinkman. Fanning this flame was his knowledge that behind it all was that animal antagonism toward the successful male which hypercritically finds ethical expression. Men curse the man who “breaks up another man's home,” when nine out of ten of them, given the courage and opportunity, would have done exactly the same thing! Besides, Hinkman had not taken Mildred away from the weakling, and it was not unlikely that the repression of the feeling of self-contempt in the late occupant of the chair of psychology had allowed the urge for revenge to take its place. So, Barney stood, swayed between his mental appreciation of the situation and the atavism within him which had so often dragged him down to hell. The atavism, as usual, won.

“Run the wheel a minute, will you, Casey?” His rage made a parody of his drawl, his voice sounded uncouth. Casey stared at his friend. For a booster to run the wheel, and thus advertise his position—even if it were generally known—was sacrilege. And Hinkman would not tolerate such.

“Then,” Barney added, sneering, “let the damned thing run itself—I'm busy.”

Casey did not answer. With his disconcerting scowl he subdued a few grins among those waiting to play, and twirled the ball round toward its destiny with as debonair a skill as that of Cummings. Barney returned to the weak if disturbing intrusion into his weird life.

“Well, what are you going to do?” he asked, vainly struggling to bring his voice back to normal, his question implying many things. The weakling stared, fascinated by the heat of a rage he had so often tried to kindle in himself. “I'll tell you, then, mister man of science. You may think it'll be a gorilla fighting an elephant, but it won't—because the gorilla don't know enough to hit the elephant just below where its ribs meet—if elephants have such places. What I mean is that I am going to Hinkman's rooms. When I get there, there'll be a lovely scrap. You don't need to see it if your stomach's weak. She's liable to be there. After it's over, I'll take Casey's tip and drag her out of there by the hair of her head. I won't hurt her, of course. Then I'll see the two of you on the boat for Seattle. A hell of a Cupid, I am! You'll have the rest of your life to tame her into loving her lawful husband. At any rate, you'll have her.”

The weakling had risen from the one deep chair of the club-room. To Barney's surprise, the man faced him.

Like the breaking string of a violin—born of God only knows what hours of lonely hell, came the words:

“I don't want her, Barney!”

Barney sneered; a curse—one tremendous, meaning-filled word—escaped him.

“No; you understand.” The weakling, himself misunderstanding, hastened to explain: “I am not trying to be unselfish. It's my revenge!”

“Please”—the drawl had returned, drenched heavily with sarcasm—“please elucidate. You see, I am merely a human being who will never even see the angels, let alone sit at their feet and learn—er—correct behavior in—er—certain distressing situations. But don't imagine that I am jealous.”

“I am going to get even.” The professor was being lost in the tortured man.

“All right; suit yourself—but—but I'm going to lick Bill Hinkman or he's going to kill me!”

“You are not!” The words hit Barney like a bullet, unexpected.

“And who, if I may be permitted to ask, who is going to stop me?”

“I am.”

“Well”—and Barney's sneer was neither pretty nor becoming—“well, be as gentle as you can. You wouldn't hurt me, would you?”

The weakling actually smiled, and, as sure of himself as when lecturing to a class,

“Don't forget, Mr, Hilliard, that you were not born the—er—the sort of person you so carefully simulate.”

“Be good enough to quit stirring up my past. And get whatever is there off your chest—if you've anything to get.”

“What would you do if in my place?”

“In your place—me?” If Barney had ever been a gentleman, he now showed no trace of it, “Why, if—oh, don't be a damned fool!”

“So! And if you condescended ever to fall in love with a woman—the sublime, as it were, descending to the ridiculous—if such an accident occurred, she would at once bow down and worship you. Further, she would never cease to love you. In fact, she could not. It would be a perversion of natural law if she did. Such miracles do not happen. The lady would never even think of another man—she could not! She simply could not, could she?”

The professor stood his ground. He had watched the anger flame into agony in Barney's eyes, and had risked the blow or whatever reaction came. But he knew that he had science behind his words, his knowledge of the man he had studied.

For in Barney's life there existed one sacred thing—one memory which had the power to bow his head. He bowed it now. He was walking down the corridor of the past, staring with aching eyes at the pictures on its walls. He was in the temple of his religion, in the sanctuary of his goddess. Anger was not permitted in that place. Automatically, he discarded his weapons at the entrance. The pictures merged into one, and the face, the smile brought a tightness to his throat. Barney Hilliard, more or less roughneck, turned to stare dimly at the distant faro layout. For full three minutes he did not speak. The weakling waited expectantly. Then,

“Tell me what you wish to do, and, if you want me, I will help you.”

“Thank you. And, if you conveniently can arrange it, I think it will be well to have Mr. Casey there, too.”

“When?”

“Immediately.”

“The wheel”—Barney managed his drawl—“the unfortunate wheel of fortune—whatever will become of it?”

“Will you go with me now—to Hinkman?”

“And I am not to start anything?”

“Please do not.”

“Oh, very well! Let's hike.” And Barney strode to the roulette-table, the professor of psychology following.

“Casey, there's a minister waiting to interview us. He wants a new curate. Shake the stigma of the wheel from your dissolute fingers and come with me.”

Casey merely beckoned the employee of the house who officiated at the poker-table.

“Close up,” he commanded. “Hinkman says the wheel pays more than the rake-off at poker. Run the wheel till I come back.”

And before the astounded man could voice his objection, Casey had followed Barney and the weakling.

TO THE cynical Barney, that walk along the long, empty passage brought pleasurable anticipation of the coming explosion, but an inability to imagine the weakling as the fuse leading to it. For what could the poor devil do—or, rather, try to do? The David-and-Goliath business was more theoretical than actual. Oh, well, he could take care of the little——

Barney Hilliard paused in his stride, and, behind him, the others stopped. Intent upon the coming drama, the change from strident jangle to softened melody, the effort of the “professor” at the piano to be really a musician, simple as was the time, had not been noticed. But now they stopped. Even Casey found the emotions somewhat unearthly,

“Answer me a question, love, I pray;
My heart for thee is pining day by day——”

That voice had power to make the beer-slingers stop in their tracks and silently stand between tables while customers forgot to empty their glasses. It was heard but rarely, but even the most calloused spirits drew from it a touch of that agonizing ecstasy which music has the power to bring to humanity from the divine.

Illustration: Hinkman felt certain that he had the better hand. Over him surged a desire to break the professor and have done. He could not lose. The husband had only two small pairs.

“Hold me close, as you were wont to do.”

Casey had stepped to Barney's side. Neither man felt that he cared to turn his head to where the ex-professor of psychology stood alone.

““Whisper once again the story old,
The dearest, sweetest story ever told!”

Barney gripped Casey's wrist. In the dim light of the passage they looked at nothing. Their feelings were those of a strong man at his mother's funeral. That this song, with all its appeal, its tender asking of intimate memory should be heard now—this was terrible. The emotions of the professor of psychology, who had so bravely lied when he told Barney that he did not want Mildred— There are no words!

“Tell me that you love me!”

Something must be done, but neither Casey nor Barney felt capable of doing anything. They might wait until the song was ended. Yes; that appeared to be the only thing to do. But in what shape would the unhappy weakling be by that time?

“Nice song, but we have something more important to do than stand listening.” There was never a tremble in the voice of the weakling saying this, and, with a deep feeling of thankfulness, Barney believed that the professor had failed to recognize the voice of his wife. Had Barney thought for a second, he would have seen the folly of this belief. But he was like a man drowning and clutching at straws, a sea of emotion surging all about.

So they went on, drinking in every note, every word—Barney again in the lead, his pantheresque stride making no sound. Anger born of sympathy—and other emotions—was coming back. He was even annoyed at allowing himself to be so affected by the song. And what could the weakling do? Nothing. He, Hilliard, must do whatever there was to be done. Justice! Yes; he would hold a sort of court. Casey should be the jury. He grinned.

“For that's the sweetest story ever told!”

“The hell it is!” Again fighting to control his emotion, Barney reached the open door of Hinkman's room. What he saw roused in him cynical amusement, gratified his anger. He lifted an imperative hand, and his companions stopped just outside the radius of the light shining through the door.

“Oh, tell me that your heart to me is true,
Repeat for me the story ever new;
Whisper once again the story old,
The dearest, sweetest story ever told.
Tell me that you love me——”

Pealing like an anthem of angels from that stage of dirty jests and lewd actions, sweeping it as the clean breath of heaven might sweep plague from earth, it reached Bill Hinkman, as it was meant to do, sitting close to his open door, the better to hear it. It was his rapt expression that had amused Barney, who knew quite well that Hinkman saw nothing but the dream-face of Mildred, heard nothing but the song. For it was Hinkman's favorite song, and he had asked Mildred to sing it, begging the pleasure with an almost Lancelot-like courtesy. But before Mildred had gone down to the stage, he had, in a few well-chosen words, explained to the “professor” just what unhappiness would befall him should he fail of correct accompaniment. And now Barney, staring through the door, saw Hinkman's harsh face lighted, as one may see a bleak, cold Cape Horn sea touched for a moment by a stray beam of the sun and glorified.

“Whisper softly, sweetly as of old.
Tell me that you love me—
For that's the sweetest story ever told!”

Then the fighting instinct told Barney that Hinkman was at his weakest. Now, if ever, was the moment for the weakling to tackle him. He was dreaming. In all the world he saw nothing but Mildred. It was the moment for her husband to make his appearance, seeking revenge!

ALL the best in Hinkman was surging into the pictures of his dream. Yes—as she had suggested—he would sell out, give up this dirty way of making money. Then they would go far away, where no one knew them—where there were flowers, mountains—no noise—where they could live and love and— No conventions, few scruples, little of ethics had hampered Bill Hinkman's climb of life; but now, through the radiance of his vision crept a shadow, dimming the joy of that longed-for future with Mildred. He knew life, and the gambler in him reacted to the “hunch.” Yes; bury themselves as they might, in some way their story would out. And then? Then the long-necked creatures who were not fit to breathe the same air as Mildred would speak of her as “a wicked woman.” And what if there were any—Hinkman actually shivered. Then he smiled sternly. After all, she was the woman. Only the impossibility of marriage stood between their happiness and “respectability.” The rottenness of custom! And those swine who dared to speak so of his—of his girl would surely and swiftly find out what sort of man he was.

HIS grip grew tighter upon the arms of his chair. But—what about Mildred? How would she feel? Here, braving it, it was bad enough. To get away from all this, to be known as man and wife, and then to be— How could Mildred bear that? Even now she was smiling through tears. If that other happened, she would wither like a flower——

“For that's the sweetest story ever told!”

“Strange as it may seem, there is a gentleman here who wishes to see you.” In his angry effort to be sarcastic, Barney drawled overmuch. The intended effect of the words was lost. Hinkman was merely irritated by the interruption. The implied insult never reached his consciousness. Wakened from his dream, he heard in Barney only an intruder who announced a visitor—some matter of business which could wait. All the world should wait when Mildred sang! Then, as he lifted his cold, level gave, about to say that he was too busy to see any one, it came to him that, as a messenger, Barney was distinctly out of place.

“Who told you to leave the wheel?”

Barney did not answer. He grinned nastily. Hinkman, sensing what was behind that grin, shifted in his chair—getting ready for action. Then he repeated his question.

“Who gave you permission to leave the wheel, Hilliard?”

The answer came like the strike of an angry cobra.

“Mildred's husband!”

The song was ended, with the theatre roaring for an encore. The patrons of the place would keep Mildred singing on that stage all night if she were willing, but she seldom responded to applause. To-night, however, she whimsically leaned over to the adoring “professor” and asked a question. He nodded, swallowed a glass of whisky, and began to touch the keys with an unwonted gentleness.

“After years of life together,
After fair and stormy weather—”

Hinkman glared at the frail, anemic creature who stood before him, surprised slightly at the little man's lack of fear and not troubling to rise from his chair. He knew, of course, that Mildred's husband was living. Beyond that he knew nothing. He had been content to love the girl from the beginning—from the day she came to the theatre, without knowing the reputation of the place, to earn a living with her voice. Yet, in some way, he knew quite well that here was the man—that Barney was not, for some weird reason of his own, running a bluff on him. Casey and his friend stood at the door. Hinkman's glare was replaced by a slight bewilderment. A husband seeking his wife's lover should not come this way. He could understand why—as he thought—the weakling had brought along the two husky employees of the house. But the rest was not according to Hinkman's conception of the Hoyle of the matter. He found himself suppressing a certain uneasiness. Thus, the silence began to seem heavy to the four men—their silence, as through the terrible situation Mildred's lovely voice, so ignorant of the looming horror, pulsed its glorious way.

“Counsel asked and wisdom given.
After mutual prayers to heaven.
Are the bonds eternal set
To retain us strangers yet?”

What feminine impulse, what whim had caused Mildred to sing that song? She had obliged Hinkman with his favorite, and now she sang the song that had meant more than any other to the professor of psychology in the days that had died. For a second the weakling forgot his surroundings. He wished he had been a poet, even if poetry did make emotional fools of people. Then he realized how emotion was taking charge of him, and pulled himself up with the rein of logic. But that song, as it had done during the brief while when he had tried to yield himself to the only god, Love, was searching every core of his soul. Yet he did not pause to think how it was that, facing Hinkman, the wonder of his wife's voice woke in him a hatred both new and pleasurable.

“—why ever met
If forever strangers yet?”

Softly, at the touch of the “professor's” fingers, the pathetic air came into the room. Then Mildred's glorious voice soared and throbbed in the final words:

“Strangers yet?”

“I wish to play a game with you, Mr. Hinkman.”

Hinkman sneered brutally,

“Got a gun?” The big face expressed only contempt.

Barney, whose latent cruelty was causing him to enjoy the situation, and whose egoism hated to allow him to remain silent, answered:

“No, he ain't. Never had one in his hand in his life.”

Hinkman's face hardened.

“I might have known, Hilliard—you're behind all this, eh? What's the idea?”

Barney, whose quick brain was solving the riddle, did not answer. As if he had not heard the question, he began to fill his pipe.

HAD Hinkman met the weakling in any situation but this, he would have brushed past him as if he were not worth notice. But this was altogether different. The gambler sensed a motive. The strongest man who ever lived could hardly have avoided some emotion—to such a “disorderly situation” it is well-nigh impossible to make orderly response, hence emotion. And sex was the stage-director!

Slowly, however, Hinkman found “naturalness” toward a man so weak that he lacked nerve to shoot, even to procure the only apparent means of obtaining revenge. No gun, and the body of an ill-grown boy! Again he spoke to Barney.

“Then what does he want here?” Hinkman laughed harshly. “Does he think I'll give up Mildred because he's a polite little guy that says, 'Please'? Does the poor little runt think she'd go with him, anyhow?”

Again Barney made no answer. It was, as he now saw it, the professor's deal. Let him have the cards!

But even Barney did not realize that the weakling controlled the situation, that he would not say a word or make a move which he had not previously calculated in reactions.

“For me to be polite, Mr. Hinkman, is as natural as it is for some men to be otherwise. I am going to play a game with you!”

“Game nothing!” Hinkman appeared to be about to get out of the chair. “Get to hell out of here—the three of you! Hilliard, you and Casey are fired. As for you, you poor thing, I won't waste any time on you—get out of here, quick, along with the two down-and-outs you hired to take care of you. How do you like playing nursemaid, Hilliard?”

“How does it feel to be scared stiff—as you are now?” Barney taunted, not stirring.

“Scared?” Hinkman looked more ugly than frightened.

“Sure thing! You're afraid the little fellow might beat you at your own game.”

“You see, Mr. Hinkman”—the tone of the lecture-room seemed effortless—“I am going to play you for your most precious possession.”

There was no trace of affectation in Hinkman's answering laugh.

“Hilliard”—he became sarcastic—“why did you feed this poor pup with dime-novel stuff? Get him a rubber pacifier. Or is it a girl? So—you read a book to him, did you? All about two men playing cards for the woman. But”—he addressed the husband—“she's not yours to play for. You can't gamble with another man's money.” He flushed with pride. “And Mildred's mine—I won her from you!”

“She is not yours, and you know it!”

“I've listened long enough.” Hinkman looked past Barney. In a few moments Mildred would come through that door. “I told you to get out of here. I've been good-natured, but I'm through.” His voice rose above the conversational tone he had hitherto used.

“I see that my reasoning was, as usual, correct.” The weakling spoke very quietly. “I felt very sure that you did not love my wife, Mr. Hinkman—not in the clean, decent way men love their wives when they are men. You know what I mean.”

Hinkman's arms stiffened into bars of iron as he gripped the chair. With the spring of some great cat, Barney was at the side of the professor, Casey with him. But the weakling was unmoved—unless a slight smile indicated emotion.

“I think you quite understand, Mr. Hinkman.”

“You've got him going,” Barney sneered with pleasure. “You gave him the straight of it. And he knows it!”

Hinkman relaxed. His face cleared, and his manner told that he felt calm, at peace with himself.

“Do you really believe”—his tone became gentle—“that I give a damn what Mildred's husband thinks about my love, when she knows?”

The professor had waited for this.

“Then you cannot refuse to play me—when you hear my terms. They are”—the psychologist paused and pulled a large envelope out of his coat pocket—“in this.” He tapped the envelope with his slight forefinger. “Here are affidavits, drawn up for me by my lawyer, and properly witnessed. He explained to me that, under British law, my wife would have to prove both cruelty and adultery on my part in order to obtain a divorce. These papers admit my adultery and my cruelty. It would not be necessary to have me in court. I understand, Mr. Hinkman, that you play stud-poker very well. I have recently studied the game carefully. I will play you at stud, 'freeze- out,' with one hundred chips a side. I am quite sure that I will win; but if I lose, these papers become your property. I also agree to leave town at once, and never to come within a thousand miles of either your wife, as she would become, I presume, or yourself again. If I did, you would have your remedy. But I shall not lose. I am not superstitious, but I am sure I shall beat you. If, on the contrary, you lose—and you will—my wife leaves this place and this town to-night—with me. And you never see one another again. Is that satisfactory to you?”

“And what”—the rich contralto broke musicwise in the room—“and what is this important conference? Settling the great affairs of great nations?”

SHE had entered rapidly, and the tone of the professor's low voice had escaped her. Hinkman's face contracted. Barney and Casey turned slightly, and she smiled in a friendly way at both. The psychologist remained standing stiffly, his back to her, and she did not recognize him. He would be the last man she could expect to meet there. She went by Casey, put her arms round Hinkman's neck and kissed his lips. Blushing slightly, and looking toward one she believed to be a stranger, half impishly, half shyly, she saw that the “stranger” was her husband. She turned very pale and leaned—almost fell—against Hinkman, who put his arm about her.

“What is—he—here for? Do you know who he is?”

“He's here to try to get even, I guess.” Hinkman appeared to have full control of himself.

“Get even—how—what do you mean?”

“Oh, I suppose he thinks he's got a right to it—to revenge. Guess any man would.”

“But how? He can't fight with you.” The pride came back into her voice.

How closely the psychologist had succeeded in adjusting himself to the situation—thus inhibiting emotion—was something remarkable. His voice again found the correct moment, and there was no emotion heard in it.

“My stake is the packet of papers which will guarantee the possibility of your marriage. Yours is—separation from what you hold most dear.”

“How could you keep us apart, even if you did won?” Hinkman masked all feeling under a casual manner. The psychologist actually laughed.

“I will take care of that. And I will drink in every moment of your separation with a joy that will never be sated. That you two are miles apart while craving one another, that your agony of love-yearning increases day by day, that death and even your anthropomorphic hell would be a paradise compared with your separation, if you were burning together—all this, and more that my science tells me, will be my revenge upon you.”

“How could you keep us apart?” Hinkman sneered.

“If you possessed my despised brains, you would not ask that question.” The professor still spoke as from a rostrum. “I am not merely rich, I am wealthy—now. A matter of a legacy,” he added, as if in explanation to his wife. “These two gentlemen—he indicated Casey and Barney—“or others of my friends, if they do not wish, at a salary of a thousand dollars a month each will guard her. If you, Hinkman, dared to enter the state of Washington, you would be arrested. I would spend a million dollars hounding you—a British subject lecherously attempting to steal the wife of an American citizen. The lady would by that time be in some padded cell in a private lunatic asylum—or any other sort of punishment I decided upon. My despised brains—are my inferences—mere inferences of the power I could invoke, and will, to keep you two apart——”

“Don't have anything to do with him!” cried Mildred, for the first time in her life afraid of her husband.

Hinkman glanced at the sneering Barney and the scowling Casey. That the psychologist had convinced him of his ability to hold his revenge if he won the game was obvious. For the weakling was impressive in his calmly cruel determination.

“Don't play!” Mildred, who had been making a tremendous effort to hold herself, to imitate the poise of her lover, now threw her arms about him, sobbing. “Don't play! What do we care?” The tears streaming, she released Hinkman, lifting her head proudly, as if before the world. “Wife! Your revenge! The revenge of a worm! Why, I would rather be Bill's mistress for an hour than the wife of any other man forever. I would rather die of leprosy than touch your hand again. Stand farther away!”

“You weren't asked to buy chips in this game,” said Casey bluntly.

“You Judas!” she answered.

“That's enough!” Hinkman rose to his feet. “If your husband was as big a man as me, and I refused to fight him, what would you say?”

“You couldn't refuse—you are no coward!” she answered.

“Then I play with him.”

“What?” she screamed.

He put an arm about her very gently.

“You don't understand, sweetheart. Not now—but you would later on. He came here and gave me a chance at my own game—the game I play best. It's like offering to fight me with bare hands. Don't you see, dear? You say, 'Don't play with him,' just as you might say, 'Don't fight with him,' if he was big enough to fight. Then, after a bit, you would think it over. And if I refused to fight, if I did as you asked, you would begin to despise me, and end by hating me. Don't you see?”

“Hate—you!” she breathed.

“You cannot see it now, but you would. A man who won't fight for his woman hasn't any right to have a woman to fight for.”

“But our love's a sure thing!” she broke in.

“All the more reason for me to make it sure—to protect you. A wedding-ring's the best armor-plate ever invented. I am going to play this game.”

“You shall not!”

“Excuse me, gentlemen.” He was the suave gambler again. “Come, sweetheart!” And he led Mildred into the other room.

HE WAS back almost immediately, his face impassive. He removed his coat, turned up his shirt-sleeves.

“There's cigars and drinks on the side-board, gentlemen. Anything you fancy before we begin to play, tell me and I'll send for it.” He hung his coat over the back of the chair, turned the card-table until the cracks in it ran between his opponent and himself. Both Barney and Casey lighted cigars; the opponents did not. No man took a drink.

“Turn the key in the door—will you, Casey? And, Hilliard, there's a dozen packs of cards in that drawer, the seals not broken. Pick one out, if you will, and take out the joker. Even if you were not here to watch, you know I'll play square. Will you count us out a hundred chips apiece? Professor, will forty whites, eight reds and two blues suit you?”

The psychologist bowed and took his seat opposite the gambler. Barney, self-appointed referee, selected a new pack of cards and counted out the chips.

“This game,” he drawled “is stud-poker, straights and flushes counting, if you get 'em. Freeze-out with a hundred apiece. The man losing all his chips loses the—er—the game.”

“All right,” said Hinkman calmly.

“Let her go, then!” And Barney placed himself behind the professor against the wall, Casey standing beside him.

As they cut for deal, Barney could not avoid admiring Hinkman's attitude. He also admired the man's intelligence. Hinkman knew that, if he had refused to play, his two employees, or one of them, would have handled him so that there would have been but little for Mildred to caress. But had this probability influenced him? Was it not more likely that his great love had roused his own soul to greatness? With a shock, Barney realized that Hinkman was a bigger man than himself.

For a rare moment, Barney felt curiously ashamed of himself, and most unhappy as a consequence. To defeat his wife's lover—at his own game—that had been the weak but still atavistic urge behind the professor's actions. With his money, he could have hired men to cripple Hinkman, to do almost anything. No idea of fairness, per se, had prevented his doing this. Nothing but the craving of a weakling to be, as it were, a man, and win—as a man—to defeat his successful rival! And the weakling knew a joy in this which he had never found in logical action. Poker may be termed “a continuous adjustment of the individual to a rapidly changing environment,” and he who can best do this is less disturbed, less emotional, more likely to win. Yet, of the many who play at poker, few there are who do not lose that desirable calm.

Hinkman knew this empirically, and he counted upon it. The psychologist had studied stud-poker carefully—with mathematical care, probably. But he lacked experience. He had never played for a big stake—at any rate, it was unlikely that he had done so. And now he was playing an artist for the one great stake of life! And neither man could buy any more chips. Once the hundred of either was lost, his opponent became the winner. It might take hours to end the game, for if a man were reduced to one chip he would get a show-down; and in many a freeze-out game such a one has eventually won out.

But, Hinkman figured, there was bound to come a deal when both the professor and himself would hold big—when the professor would overplay his hand. This was especially likely to happen after some hours of strain. Hinkman had seen it occur many times. In fact, most players lose through this very weakness, this lack of “cold nerve.” Hinkman himself would play exactly as if the hundred chips meant merely the price of the drinks—he would come as near to this height of art as is possible. But how could the other attain this? Impossible! Even if he had had the training, his urge for revenge, surging behind that polite exterior, would fool him. Hinkman would play like a chess-player on the defensive, waiting for his opponent to miscalculate—aggressively waiting for that deal when the psychologist would overbet his hand at a time Hinkman had him beaten.

Both Barney and Casey had reasoned the same way, and both wished they had warned the professor before playing. Now it could not be done. Both men played with extreme care. The bets on every card dealt were made after much thought.

AT THE close of the fourth hour of playing, Hinkman leaned back in his seat and lighted the first cigar he had smoked since Mildred sang. He seemed comfortable and confident, for he had detected during the last few minutes an uneasiness the psychologist seemed unable to control. The strain appeared to be breaking him. Such a physically weak man, one unaccustomed to contest, was bound to go under. As the gambler watched his opponent, he felt curiously sympathetic. After all, it must be hell to be weak—so weak that a woman would leave a man for that reason. Hinkman felt a pang of unpleasant shame, although reason told him he was hardly blamable—the professor was so delicate.

The professor was dealing. He anteed one white chip, which left him with one chip less than Hinkman—for, after much fluctuation, the game had settled back into dead evenness. The psychologist dealt his opponent a card—face down upon the table. He dealt himself one similarly. Then he dealt Hinkman a card face up—the king of hearts—and himself the seven of spades. It was Hinkman's bet, his being the highest card in sight. The gambler looked at his “hole-card,” and saw the king of clubs. Two kings “back to back”—above the average hand in stud-poker.

Indifferently Hinkman bet a white chip, which the professor saw. Dealing again, he gave the gambler the ten of spades, himself the seven of hearts. The professor bet five chips tentatively, or as if he doubted that Hinkman would call.

Hinkman simulated hesitation. It seemed obvious enough that the professor had bet on his pair of sevens believing the gambler held nothing better than a king high, and Hinkman traded on this for all it was worth. To have raised would have been idiotic—equivalent to admitting that he held two kings, since to begin a bluff in such a situation would be poor poker. Finally, after a full minute of apparent thought—so well simulated that even Casey and Barney believed that Hinkman was foolishly playing a “hunch,” hoping to draw another king with which to beat the professor's pair of sevens—he called the bet. Again the professor dealt, giving Hinkman the king of diamonds, to himself the four of spades.

The gambler had in sight two kings and a ten. In the hole, which nobody but himself had seen, another king—three kings, equal in stud to probably four kings in draw.

The professor had two sevens and a four in sight. What he had in the hole was, of course, unknown to any one but himself.

It was a cinch for Hinkman anyway, so far, and it did not seem that the dealing of the fifth and last card would alter matters. Hinkman bet five chips, hoping the professor would foolishly stay.

For a long time the professor stared at his pair of sevens, and across the table at Hinkman's pair of kings. He tapped with his fingers upon the table nervously. At length, with sudden decision, he called the bet. Then he dealt the last two cards—a six to Hinkman, a four to himself.

WHAT followed seemed obvious enough to the other three men. Nervous strain had filched the psychologist's judgment. Excitedly he pushed every chip he still possessed into the center of the table. Barney almost groaned.

Of course, the two pairs in sight on the professor's side were better than Hinkman's pair of kings, and the latter had not manifested the possession of anything better. But, of course, there were many chances of Hinkman's beating two pairs. The professor had also bet his hand badly. If two pairs were the better hand, that fact would be known to his opponent—indeed, to him alone. To bet every last chip this way showed lack of thought. Two pairs seemed big, and unless the hole-card helped Hinkman, two pairs were big. If that happened to be the case, if the two pairs were best, why waste energy? Hinkman would not call unless he could beat two pairs. It appeared that the breaking nerve of the professor had tricked him into betting only upon the cards in sight, without consideration of what Hinkman had in the hole. And many a beginner will bet on two pairs in such a rushing, thoughtless way, especially when he sees nothing but two kings, one pair, out against him.

Hinkman was thrilled. The long-expected had happened. His opponent had excitedly bet on his two pairs, bet every chip he possessed, giving Hinkman all the advantage of position, and with three kings in his hand. The nerve of the professor had slipped. Hinkman had seen this happen often. But he appeared to think.

There was the possibility of the professor's holding a full hand—either three sevens and a pair of fours, or three fours and a pair of sevens. But, apart from the fact that full hands are exceedingly rare in stud, the professor had not played as if he held any such monster. Why had he not raised Hinkman's bet when the latter bet on his pair of kings in sight? If the psychologist had a full hand now, he must have had a pair of kings beaten then. And, altogether apart from logic, Hinkman had a hunch his three kings were good, and he felt that the other had bet on his two pairs like an excited girl. Still, the stake was tremendous. If the professor actually held a full hand, then, if Hinkman called, he lost Mildred. Was it worth while, considering what he had in the pot? Against this was that hand of three kings, and the almost certainty it was good.

Besides, one of them had to win, and it seemed to Hinkman that he would be hardly likely to have a better chance of breaking his opponent than the present one. Everything said he had the better hand, even the extraordinary bet the professor had made on his last card drawn. Surely, if he had filled, he would not have bet in that frantic way. He would have bet light, hoping, even if such a hope seemed unlikely of realization, for a chance to raise. Hinkman felt certain that he had the better hand. Over him surged a desire to call the bet, to break the professor and have done.

In that moment, Big Bill Hinkman ceased to be the best stud-player in the town. To be able to marry Mildred! To make her happy! That divorce. Those papers. But for the presence of Casey and Barney, Hinkman would not have hesitated—now—forcibly to possess himself of those papers. All the suave calm left him. He wanted Mildred—as his wife. He even began to have visions of a scheme for getting her back, even if he lost. But he could not lose. The husband had only two small pairs.

“I call you. I got three kings!” And Hinkman pushed all his remaining chips to the center of the table with one hand and turned over his buried king with the other.

Casey gasped slightly; Barney contained himself. The game was over.

While Hinkman had been thinking over that last bet, the professor had sedulously kept his eyes half closed, his head bent. Now, slowly and terribly, his head drooped still lower, while Hinkman, who had the right to reach across the table and turn the other's hole-card, sat still, watching, glowing with victory. He was sure that his three kings had beaten the professor's two pairs, but the strain of waiting for confirmation was something few men could have stood.

Still the professor's head drooped. For one instant Barney had the impression that he was lost in thought; but he dismissed the idea with contempt. And then the little man raised a hand that trembled like a leaf in a gale.

“Poor devil!” thought Barney. “And he's sore with himself for losing in such a damn-fool way.”

AT THAT instant the door opened and Mildred came into the room. Apparently she had sensed the crisis and had been unable to stay away. The professor raised his pale face and glanced at her. Then he looked at his cards. Mildred glided to Hinkman's side and put her arms about him. The big man's self-restraint broke in a growl.

“Well, what you got? Show your hand—I paid to see it!”

Barney started forward, but Casey remained quiet. Mildred saw the three kings and smiled. The professor rose to his feet.

“Well?” And now Hinkman seemed amused, his tone sarcastic.

“You won, of course, dear,” murmured Mildred.

At that the professor turned over his hole-card. It was the four of hearts! He had a full hand, and Hinkman was beaten!

“O my God!”

The woman's scream voiced the emotions of three of the men. The fourth, the slight professor, laughed.

“'You won, of course, dear!'” he mocked.

“That'll do—you!” Hinkman growled menacingly. “You win—now, what you going to do about it? But keep your mouth shut!”

But Mildred could find no such anger-relief. Before the men could guess her intention, she had flung herself at the feet of her husband, sobbing hysterically.

“Don't, don't, don't take me away! See! See, I'm praying to you. I'll do anything. I'll——”

But Hinkman had thrown aside his chair, his face flaming. Whether he meant to lift Mildred from her humiliating position or whether he meant to manhandle the professor was never known. Barney and Casey flung at him like a couple of wolves, holding him in spite of his truly gigantic struggles.

Mildred's beautiful head sobbed above the feet of the professor. Heavy gasping told of the men's dying struggle. The professor raised a hand that no longer trembled.

“Every repetition of the postulate vitiates the argument,” he drawled ironically, “and infantile minds invariably believe their own assumptions before they get half-way through their discussions. You seem to forget that I came here to get my revenge. I had planned what seemed the sweetest revenge. I have won—but I never even dared hope for such a revenge as this!” And he pointed to the weeping Mildred, a contemptuous finger directed toward the bowed head.

Again the professor laughed mockingly, and Barney would have taken an oath the man was actually happy. Then he flung the divorce papers upon the table carelessly, as if they had no value. He walked to the door without another look at the people in the room, turned the key, and went out of their lives forever.