The edge had gone out of the play-boy’s voice and there was a faint smile at the bottom of his eyes when he said: “But, according to the way you stack things up, I am just as much of a false alarm as you are. Heaven knows, I’ve waded fully as deep in the mud as you have in the mire.” “No; there is a difference. I know it now. Whatever you have done, you have contrived somehow, in some way, to keep your soul out of the mud. Flout the idea if you want to, but I know. I’ve lived with you for something better than a year and know what I’m talking about.” Another interval of silence, and at the end of it Bromley got upon his feet. “You are off?” said Philip, without looking up. “Yes, I must go. I’m train-tired and perishing for a bath. You’re not meaning to run away from Denver, are you?” “Oh, no; I suppose not. There is nowhere to run to.” At the door Bromley paused with his hand on the knob. “Just one other word, Phil--and you may throw a chair at me if it bites too hard: you’re no gambler. I mean you can’t hold your own against the crooks and short-card men.” “You are right. I have learned my lesson out of that book this early in the game. Anything else?” Bromley pointed to the half-empty bottle on the bookcase. “That stuff is never much of a friend, and it is always a pretty bad enemy. I wouldn’t trust it too far, if I were you. There is always a morning after to follow the night before.” “Yes; I have learned that, too. I am learning a good many things these days. I guess I had it coming to me. Are you going? Well, good-night.” After Bromley had gone, Philip heaved himself wearily out of the deep chair and began to pace the floor with his head down and his hands locked behind him. Two weeks of mad, unbridled rebellion against all the inhibitions had left him weak and shattered in mind and body. Twice in the circling round of the room he reached for the bottle on the bookcase, and once he took it up and started to draw the cork. He knew that a swallow or two of the liquor would steady the twittering nerves, temporarily, at least; and that if he should drink enough of it, he could go to bed and sleep. But the good fighting strength which had been his up to that fatal Monday evening a fortnight in the past, broken and spent though it was, strove to make itself felt. Had it already come to this, that he could no longer go to sleep without first drugging himself with whiskey? If two short weeks of indulgence had thus far maimed and crippled him, how long could he hope to delay the descent into the lowest gutter of degradation? “No, by God!” he exclaimed finally. “No more of it to-night--not if I have to lie awake in hell till daylight!” And, such is the strength derivable from even a partial resistance to temptation, he went to bed and slept the clock around. XX