"Tell me about it," he said quietly, and before he knew what was happening, Beresford found himself telling the story of his encounter with Lola in St. James's Street and what had ensued.
"And now," he concluded bitterly, "she's dropped me, dropped me into the bottomless pit of" He look across at Tallis, the picture of hopeless despair.
"I'm beginning to think you were right," he said. "I ought not to have tried to drag you back."
Beresford shrugged his shoulders.
"And now, what's the next move?"
"The deluge," replied Beresford with a short laugh that caused Tallis to look at him narrowly. "I've just been taking stock of my finances. There's exactly eleven pounds four shillings and threepence. I put it off day after day, and it's come as a bit of a shock. Still," he added reminiscently, "there was Folkestone."
"I'm not sure, young fellow, that I ought not to hand you over to the nearest policeman as a dangerous lunatic," said Tallis. "What the devil's going to be the outcome of this business I'm hanged if I know." His tone was not so flippant as his words.
"The outcome, my dear Æsculapius, is that for once in my life I have had a rattling good time."
"And now?"
"There's always that little tube of morphia tablets that I brought home from France," he said with a laugh.
"So that's the present state of the temperamental
