"Yes, thank you!... Harry," said he, as he poured the Scotch and slowly shot in the carbonated water, "it may be impertinent, it is _damned_ impertinent, but you'll not misunderstand me--sometimes a friend's impertinence is a proof of his friendship.--What I want to say, old man, is this:" He pushed back his glass and looked at the other thoughtfully a moment. "Why don't you make it up with Stephanie?" "For the simplest of reasons, Devereux," Lorraine responded. "She won't make it up." "She won't make it up!" Warwick marvelled. "Have you tried her?" Lorraine nodded. "Before my accident--and later at the Hospital," he said. "It was respectfully declined." "She surely doesn't mean it! She would be a--it would be most extraordinary." "Stephanie's an extraordinary woman. Moreover, I can't blame her. She can't forget, I think, the day of her return and my denial of her before them all on this very piazza." "You were a fool!" exclaimed Devereux pithily. "You're putting it mildly!" Lorraine admitted--"but--oh, well--she came so suddenly, so absolutely unexpectedly that I acted before I thought." "I can understand, but--Stephanie can't." "Stephanie can't--and she won't. She won't accept any excuse. She says that if I'd been a proper sort of husband Amherst wouldn't have had a chance." "Which is peculiar reasoning," Devereux commented:--"If you don't guard me, you're to blame if I go wrong." "Woman is an exotic--an eccentric!" quoted Lorraine. "She is. Do you need any further demonstration to prove it? And are you not going to try to persuade her?" Devereux demanded. "I am, indeed." "That's right, Lorraine--don't give up! You started wrong, very wrong--end right. Stephanie's worth it--despite the past." "The past be damned!" Lorraine exclaimed. "I've forgot it--buried it. So far as she is concerned, it never existed. But----" he brought his fist down on the table till the glasses jumped and rattled--"it's another thing with Amherst!--it's another thing with Amherst! Sometime, Devereux, sometime----" he ended with a gesture. "I know how you feel, old man," said Warwick soothingly, "and I reckon I'd feel like you do; but Amherst is gone, and I don't imagine will be back for years--if ever. You just forget him. If you had done something at the time the law would have been lenient--but not now. Moreover, it will only renew the scandal and react upon Stephanie. Oh! I know it's hard to let him go--but it's the wise course now.--If only you _had_ broken his head at the time, or filled him full of lead! Now your opportunity is gone, and you must put the idea away from you."