"Yes, but the more I look at it the stranger it seems. I don't know, however, that it is so strange after all. He is simply a chivalrous crank of the South, and we must humor him. But I'll be glad when all this nonsense is over." DeGolyer sat in his room, smoking his pipe. He looked at his reflection in the mirror, and said: "Oh, what a liar you are! But your day for truth is coming." CHAPTER XXXIII. THE TIME WAS DRAWING NEAR. One morning, when DeGolyer called at the hospital, young Witherspoon said to him: "You are Hank, and I'm Henry." And this was the first indication that his mind was regaining its health. Every day George Witherspoon would ask: "Well, how's your peculiar friend getting along?" And one evening, when he made this inquiry, DeGolyer answered: "He is so much pleased that he doesn't think it will take him quite three months to decide." "Good enough, but why doesn't he decide now?" "Because it would hardly be in keeping with his peculiar methods. I haven't questioned him, but occasionally he drops a hint that leads me to believe that he's satisfied." DeGolyer was once tempted to tell Richmond and McGlenn that he was feeling his way through a part that had been put upon him, but with this impulse came a restraining thought--the play was not yet done. They were at luncheon, and McGlenn had declared that DeGolyer was sometimes strangely inconsistent. "I admit that I am, John, and with an explanation I could make you stare at me." "Then let us have the explanation. Man was made to stare as well as to mourn." "No, not now; but it will come one of these days, though perhaps not directly from me." "Ah, you have killed a mysterious lion and made a riddle; but where is the honey you found in the carcass? Give us the explanation." "Not now. But one of these bleak Chicago days you and Richmond will sit in the club, watch the whirling snow and discuss me, and you both will say that you always thought there was something strange about me." "And we do," McGlenn replied. "Here's a millionaire's son, and he has chosen toil instead of ease. Isn't that an anomaly, and isn't such an anomaly a strange thing? But will the outcome of that vague something cause us to hold you at a cooler length from us--will that 'I told you so' result in your banishment? Shall we send a Roger Williams over the hills?" "John, what are you trying to get at?" Richmond asked. McGlenn looked serenely at him. "Have you devoured your usual quota of pickles? If so, writhe in your misery until I have dined." "I writhe, not with what I have eaten, but at what I see. Is there a more distressing sight than an epicure--or a gourmand, rather--with a ragged purse?" "Oh, yes; a stuffer, a glutton without a purse." Richmond laughed. "Hunger may force a man to apparent gluttony," he said, "and a sandbagger may have taken his purse; and all on his part is honesty. But there is pretense--which I hold is not honest--in an effort to be an epicure."