“If I’m not happy I’m—I’m content—content to be doing something—the least little bit—to urge things forward.” “And I can say the same. If I look well, as you put it, that’s the reason. And so long as that’s the reason other things can—wait.” She added, quickly: “I must go now or I shall be late. I’m speaking to the women at the Mary Chilton Club, and I’m overdue.” She had actually passed on when I stopped her to say, “What do you mean by the indirect method?” She called back over her shoulder, “Ask Stephen.” And I asked him that night. Having heard him come into his room between eight and nine o’clock, I marched in boldly, bearding him without beating about the bush. “I say, old Stephen, what have you been saying to Regina about me?” His hat had been thrown on the table; his arms were outstretched in the act of taking off his overcoat. He repeated my question as if he didn’t understand it. “What have I been saying to Regina about you? Why, nothing—much.” “Nothing much; that means something. What the deuce do you mean by the indirect method?” “I haven’t spoken of an indirect method.” “No; but she has!” “Oh, I see.” “Then if you see, tell me what it is.” He finished the arrested act of taking off his coat, after which he hung it up in a closet, doing the same with his hat. The minute’s delay allowed time for the storm-clouds to gather on his face, and all the passions of a gloomy-hearted nature to concentrate in a hot, thundery silence. “Is this a bit of bluff, Frank?” “Bluff be hanged! I’m ready to speak out frankly.” The storm-clouds were torn with a flash like a streak of lightning. “Then why didn’t you come to me like a man instead of sending that sneaking old beast—” “Hold on, Stephen. What sneaking old beast have I sent?” “He wouldn’t have come unless you had set him on me. You needn’t tell me that.” “What the deuce are you talking about?” “You know what I’m talking about. There hasn’t been a day since you came back that I haven’t had a hint.” He was not a man to whom anger came easily; he began to choke, to strangle with the effort to get his indignation out. “I’d have given him the toe of my boot long ago if—if—if—if”—the words positively shivered on his lips—“if—if—if I hadn’t wanted to see how far you’d go; and, by God! I’ve—I’ve had enough of it!” “Enough of what, Stephen?” I endeavored to ask, quietly. He knocked his knuckles on the table with a force that almost made them bleed. “My name is Cantyre—do you understand?” “Yes, I understand. But tell me, what is it you’ve had enough of?” “I’ve had enough of your damned diplomatic slyness in setting that old reptile on me!” I am not quick tempered. The tolerance born of a too painful knowledge of my own shortcomings obliges me to be slow to wrath. But when anger does get hold of me it works a change like that of a powerful chemical agent suddenly infused into the blood.