It seemed, however, that the fates were against him. He was in a nervous, irritable mood, caused by his abstention from the poison which had become almost a necessity to him, and the significant glances of the two men maddened him. Had they met him in the right spirit, it is possible that the affair, which did not reflect credit upon any of them, might have been dismissed as an idle joke. As we have seen, however, they had taunted him, they had aroused him to anger; these men whom he regarded as his inferiors had assumed an air of superiority, and this in the present state of his nerves was more than he could bear. He had ordered whisky, and after that his good resolutions went by the board. Radford Leicester would have died rather than have confessed himself beaten. Thus do great issues often rest upon unimportant events. After he had gone a silence fell between the two young men for some time. "I wish we hadn't been such fools, Sprague," said Purvis presently. "What do you mean?" "I mean that we are as bad as he is, perhaps worse. We at least were sober." "Yes, I know; but who would have thought that he would stand by his guns?" "We know what he is. I believe if we had been wise to-night he might have been led to give it up. But now nothing will move him." "Well, it may teach Miss Castlemaine a lesson," said Sprague, whose pride had not yet recovered from the wound which her refusal had made; "but there--it's all right. It'll never come to anything. For that matter, if anything serious came of it, I would tell her the whole history of the joke." "No, you wouldn't." "Why?" "Because you dare not. Because she would despise us all to our last day, because she would never speak to us again. You know the kind of girl she is." Sprague was silent. "Is it a dinner-party which Mr. Castlemaine is giving, or is Leicester invited in a friendly way, I wonder?" he said presently. "Evidently a friendly invitation, seeing Mr. Castlemaine has written the letter with his own hand." "Was it true that you told Mr. Castlemaine the truth about him?" Purvis looked uncomfortable.