Lothian's laugh as he said this was quite vague and silly. His hand strayed out towards the decanter of whiskey. His face was half anxious, half pleased, wholly pitiable and weak. His laugh ended in a sort of bleat, which he realised in a moment and coughed to obscure. There was a splash and gurgle as he pressed the trigger of the syphon. Intense disgust and contempt succeeded Toftrees' first amazement. So this, after all the fuss, was Gilbert Lothian! The man had talked like a provincial yokel, and then fawned upon him with his sickly, uninvited confidences. He was drunk. There was no doubt about that. He must have come there drunk, or nearly so. The last half hour had depressed the balance, brought out what was hidden, revealed the fellow's state. "If it hadn't been for my dear wife!"--the tout! How utterly disgusting it was! Toftrees had never been drunk in his life except at a bump-supper at B.N.C.--his college--nearly fifteen years ago.--The shocking form of coming to the Amberleys' like this!--He was horribly upset and a little frightened, too. He remembered where he was--such a thing was an incredible profanation _here_! . . . He heard a quiet vibrant voice speaking. He looked up. Gilbert Lothian was leaning back in his chair, holding a newly-lighted cigarette in a steady hand. His face was absolutely composed. There was not the slightest hint that it had been bloated and unsteady the minute before. Intellect and strength--STRENGTH! that was the incredible thing--lay calmly over it. The skin, surely it _had_ been oddly blotched? was of an even, healthy-seeming tint. A conversation between the Poet and his host had obviously been in progress for several minutes. Toftrees realised that he had been lost in his own thoughts for some time--if indeed this scene was real at all and he himself were sober! ". . . I don't think," Lothian was saying with precision, and a certain high air which sat well upon him--"I don't think that you quite see it in all its bearings. There must be a rough and ready standard for ordinary work-a-day life--that I grant. But when you penetrate to the springs of action----" "When you do that," Amberley interrupted, "naturally, rough and ready standards fall to pieces. Still we have to live by them. Few of us are competent to manipulate the more delicate machinery! But your conclusion is--?" "--That hypocrisy is the most misunderstood and distorted word in our mother tongue. The man whom fools call hypocrite may yet be entirely sincere. Lofty assertions, the proclamation of high ideals and noble thoughts may at the same time be allied with startling moral failure!" Amberley shook his head. "It's specious," he replied, "and it's doubtless highly comforting for the startling moral failure. But I find a difficulty in adjusting my obstinate mind to the point of view."