"At times, when I can rise above the immediate injustice and cruelty which pursue me," he went on, "I glory in my martyrdom. I range myself alongside those heroes of literature and art, who, because they were ahead of the age in which they lived, were scorned and repudiated by their contemporaries; but they found their revenge in the worship of succeeding generations. My time will come just as theirs did. It must--I tell you it must. I know that. I am safe of eventual recognition; but I want it now, while I am alive, while I can glut myself with the joy of it. I want to see the men who lord it over me, just because they have influence and money, who affect to despise me because they are green with envy and fear of me, brought to their knees, flattened so that I can wipe my boots on them. And--and"--he looked full at Dominic Iglesias, spreading out both hands across the narrow table, his pale prominent eyes blood-shot, his face working--"I want to see someone else--a woman--brought to her knees also. I want to make her feel what she has lost--curse her!--and have her come back whining." "And if she did come back," Iglesias asked, almost sternly, "what would you do? Forgive her?" De Courcy Smyth's hands dropped with a queer little thud on the table. "I don't know. I suppose so. If she wanted to she could always get round me." Then he turned on Iglesias with hysterical violence. "But what do you know? Why do you ask that? Are you among her patrons? I trusted you. I believed you were a gentleman in feeling--and it is a dirty trick to get me in here and fill me up with food and liquor, when you must have seen my nerves were all to pieces, and then spring this upon me. Oh! hell!" he cried, "is there no comfort anywhere? Is everyone a traitor?" And seeing his utter abjectness, Iglesias' heart went out to the unhappy man in immense and unqualified pity. "I am grieved," he said gently, "if I have pained you unnecessarily. But truly I have sprung nothing upon you. How could I do so? I know nothing whatever of your circumstances save that which you yourself have told me during the last hour." "Then why did you ask that question about--about her?" "Because," Dominic answered, "I am ready to fight for you, in as far as you will allow me to do so; but I do not fight against women." "You must have had uncommonly little experience of them then," Smyth answered with a sneer. To this observation Mr. Iglesias deemed it superfluous to make any answer. A silence followed. The restaurant was empty, but for the waiters, who stood in a little knot about the door amusing themselves by watching the movement of the street. Looking round to make sure no one was within hearing, Smyth rose unsteadily to his feet. "You meant what you said just now, Mr. Iglesias--that you were ready to fight for me?" he asked ungently yet cringingly. "Certainly I meant it," Dominic replied, "the proviso I have made being respected."