"You're a good chap, Kendricks," he declared. "I'll come along, with pleasure. I shall have enough solitude later on. But listen, before we go—listen, David, to a speech after your own heart."
Julien stood quite still for a moment. His pale face seemed suddenly whiter, his eyes were full of fire.
"David," he said, "if ever the time comes in the future when I find that a woman is beginning to claim a minute of my thoughts, a single one of my emotions, to govern the slightest throb of my pulses, I'll take her by the throat and I'll throw her out of what's left of my life as I would a rat that had crept into my room. I've done with them. Curse all women!"
There was a silence. Kendricks leaned over to the fireplace and knocked his pipe against the hearth. Then he suddenly paused.
"What's that?" he asked abruptly.
There was a soft knocking at the outside door.
CHAPTER IV
A BUNCH OF VIOLETS
Kendricks rose slowly to his feet. Julien was looking toward the door with a frown upon his face. While they stood there the knocking was repeated, still soft but a little more insistent. Julien hesitated no longer.
"I think," Kendricks said dryly, "that you had better see who is there."