"It's too late to kill him," said Devonshire, as Pendleton entered the room, "but if I were Lorraine, I should get me a good hefty raw-hide and beat him within an inch of his life, paying particular attention to his handsome face. When I was through with him there wouldn't be much beauty left, I can tell you." "But can Lorraine do it--has he the strength?" asked Smithers. "In such a case the rightness of his cause would give him strength," Devonshire returned--"and any decent chap who was handy would lend him assistance if it was needed." "The trouble is with Lorraine himself, I think," Carstairs remarked. "It isn't that he hasn't the nerve, but that he hasn't the determination, the stability, the something essential in the man who _does_. I fancy he has changed his mind on the subject of what to do in this matter as often as he has changed his clothes. He is a queer compound--none other like him." "And yet he is a mighty attractive fellow at times," Smithers observed.--"It wasn't until this Amherst affair that he revealed anything particularly vacillating." "He never before had occasion to reveal it," Devonshire explained. "The trial came--and he wasn't equal to it. Some of us might not be equal to it either, if we were in similar case. It's a mighty difficult case, my friends. Moreover, Lorraine has done the decent thing now--he is anxious for a reconciliation." "It's decent, after a fashion," Smithers agreed--"it would be decenter if he first followed your notion and beat up Amherst--beat him until he couldn't walk; half killing would be about right, to my mind." "This is all very well by way of discussion but what by way of prophecy?" said Carstairs. "I'll lay a bottle of wine that Lorraine doesn't do a damn thing." "So will I," Smithers agreed. "That is why Amherst has the courage to come back. He despises the man he has wronged." "He may be fooled," said Devonshire. "I trust he will be," Carstairs remarked--"but I doubt mightily." "You hear what they are saying, Pendleton?" Cameron asked, with a jerk of his head toward the other table. "I hear," said Pendleton. "Have you seen Lorraine today?" "No--only talked with him over the telephone." "He hasn't heard of Amherst's return?" "He didn't mention it." "The evening papers will likely have it." "I suppose so--I didn't know of it until I came up here--where it's the event of the day." "You can't much blame them--knowing all the circumstances and the parties as club-mates do." "What do _you_ think Lorraine will do--anything?" asked Cameron. Pendleton carefully knocked the ashes from his cigarette and studied the bare coal a moment. "I think," said he slowly, "that it would be just as well for Amherst to keep out of Lorraine's way." "You do?" said Cameron quietly. "Why?"