me. I suppose I was a cad. Certainly I was a God-damned fool. When I saw her come grinning at me I must have let her see what I thought of her. I’d had enough whisky to make me reckless. And no woman could ever forgive that, I know. I told her to get out at once, and when she didn’t, I did the unpardonable thing. I went down to the office. The manager happened to be there, and I swore at him and the clerks for allowing a woman to go up to my rooms, and I told him to go and get her out. He didn’t know who it was, and he went.
“No man in his senses would have behaved as I did, and of course I deserved to pay. Well, I don’t know what passed between the manager and Mrs. Golden, but when I tell you that Golden was one of the owners of the hotel, a little fact I did not know, you will see things. As I thought about it afterwards, I saw that being the kind of thing she was she could not trust me. So her idea was to get in first and do it quickly. What she told her husband I don’t know. Anyway I went off in blissful ignorance with the Australian the next day, and was away nearly a month and then I left him to go on to Dunedin while I went back to Christchurch. As we had been wandering about in the wilds I had heard nothing. I was met by the hotel manager who told me he was very sorry, but I could not stay in the hotel. I’ve never been so staggered in my life. I hunted up a journalist and wormed the whole story out of him. I suppose you know it. It was that I lured Mrs. Golden to my rooms when I was drunk, that I behaved disgustingly and practically assaulted her, and that I had been blackballed out of my club in consequence.
“Well, dear, I couldn’t take it in, not at all. Of course one hears that things like this happen. But to see myself the monster that rumour was painting me, well, it made me feel queer. I thought I was going mad. I told my
