ment entered into appeared to be of a quality that sacrificed the desire of each for the sake of the other, or so at least it passed in their minds. Archie stifled the snigger of his inward laughter, and thought how clear was his duty to save his father, even at this late day, from falling wholly into the pit he had digged, while to his father the compact represented itself as an effort to save Archie from the path he had begun to tread. But, even as they agreed on their abstemious proceedings, there occurred to the minds of both of them a vague, luminous thought, like the flash of summer lightning far away which might move nearer.…
Once again Archie was seized with the ironic mockery that all the time had quaked like a quick-sand below his seriousness.
"I haven't had my cocktail yet, father," he said. "I'll drink success to our scheme. You've had yours, you know. Our plan dates from now, when I've had mine. After that—no more."
His father's eyes followed him as he mixed the gin and vermouth.
"Well, upon my word, Archie," he said, "you ought to ask me to have a drink with you."
Archie somehow clung to the fact that his father had had a cocktail and that he had not.
"Have another by all means," he said, "and I'll have two. But do be fair, father."
And once again the horrible sordidness of these proceedings struck, as it seemed, his worse self, that part of himself that had all those weeks been uninspired by Martin. Martin was all love and tolerance: he gave no directions on such infinitesimal subjects as cocktails or whiskies. He, outside the material plane, was concerned only with the motive, the spiritual aspiration, with love and all its ineffable indulgences.
Jessie was leaving for town early next morning, and
