He lighted it carefully when it was brought to him and leaned back in his chair.
“Jack,” he said, “I’ve got to hold myself in hand—if I start off on the jag now, it will be a dangerous one. Have you noticed that I’ve been practising strict abstinence since Colston left?”
Prescott, not knowing how to regard his ironic calmness, said nothing, and Jernyngham continued:
“It’s a bitter pill. I was very fond of her once, and there’s not much consolation in reflecting that she’ll probably scare the fellow out of his wits the first time she breaks out in one of her rages.” Then his voice grew regretful. “Ellice’s far from perfect, but she’s much too good for him.”
Remembering that it was on the woman’s account his friend had remained on the prairie, Prescott made a venture:
“Since she has gone, it’s a pity she didn’t go a few weeks earlier.”
“That doesn’t count,” declared Jernyngham. “She has cause to blame me as much for marrying her—one must try to be just. I thought of her when I determined to stay, but my own weaknesses played as big a part in deciding me.”
He sat silent a while, and then indicated his surroundings with a contemptuous sweep of his hand—the dirty sidewalk strewn with cigar ends and banana peelings, the straggling houses with their cracked board walls and ugly square fronts, the rutted street down which drifted clouds of dust.
“Jack,” he said, “I’m very sick of all this, and I can’t face the lonely homestead now Ellice’s gone. I must have a change and something to brace me; something that has a keener bite than drink. Think I’ll take a haulage job on the new railroad, where there ought to be rough and risky work, and I’ll leave this place to-night. Come across with me to Morant’s, and I’ll see what I can borrow on the land.”
The sudden unreasoning decision was characteristic of him, but Prescott expostulated.