Brant waited, and after breakfast they walked down town together. It was a tonic autumn morning, with a crisp clean wind blowing fresh from the snow-capped peaks, and a marvellous clarity in the atmosphere that seemed to bring the nearer foothills within easy speaking distance. On such a morning it was good to be alive, and Brant said something to that effect--an assertion to which Antrim gave conditional assent. “Yes, if a fellow’s head could be as clear and bright as the morning and the atmosphere.” “A fellow shouldn’t roil his brains with muddy fire water, then.” “No; but I didn’t mean just that. That is only a consequence.” “A very unnecessary consequence in your case. You know you haven’t a peg of an excuse to hang your villainy on, Harry.” “I suppose I haven’t, when you get down to the marrow of the thing. A man never has a water-tight excuse for making several kinds of a donkey of himself. But I’d like to be allowed to say that it was the worst facer I have ever had. You see, I had been banking on a certain kind of happiness ever since Isabel and I used to go to school together; and then to have to give it up--well, it just knocked me out, that’s all.” “But you are not going to stay knocked out, and you are not going to give it up--unless you are a donkey sober as well as a donkey drunk.” “Oh, no; I’ve had my little fling, and I paid the piper’s bill last night. That settles the bottle imp. But as to the other, you don’t know Isabel.” “Of course; no one but your own sapient self could know her. How long is it since you have seen her?” “A week.” “No longer than that? Suffering humanity! You didn’t lose any time on the way down, did you? Are you far enough out to transplant a few little cuttings of advice?” Antrim nodded, and then qualified the nod. “I guess so; anyway, you have earned the right to tell me what I ought to do.” “_Bueno_; and this is what you are to do: Go over to Hollywood this evening, just as if nothing had happened. Keep your wits about you, and see if Isabel isn’t quite as glad to see you as you are to see her.” But Antrim’s mood was not optimistic. “I know; that is the way it looks to you. But, you see, I have known her all her life, and----” “And therefore you think you know it all. But you don’t. I have seen a good bit of the Langfords in the last few weeks, and if you haven’t a mortgage on the future of the younger daughter, no one else has.” Now it is one of the peculiarities of jealousy that it will come alive again and again long after there is reason to believe that it has been effectually killed. Antrim stole a swift side glance at his mentor, and there was a fine-lined frown between his level brows. “I wish I were as sure of that as you seem to be.” Brant looked up quickly. “Now, what fresh idiocy is this? You know well enough that however little she may seem to care for you, she doesn’t care anything for any one else.” “Do I?”