"I'm slow to move in any game," Thornly replied. "I rather think it comes from my chess training. When a child begins that pastime, as you might say, in his cradle, with such a teacher as father, it's apt to influence his character."
"Exactly. Have a cigar, Dick; it's beastly lonely to puff alone."
"Thanks, no. I've smoked too much in my hut on the Hills. Being alone always drives me to a cigar."
The two men sat in the library at Bluff Head. A fire of driftwood crackled on the hearth and a stiff wind roared around the house.
"Of course we had no right to enter your studio,"—Mr. Devant spoke slowly between the puffs of smoke,—"except the right that says all is fair in love and war. I admit that I was shaking in my boots that day for fear you might come in upon us. Katharine was braver than I. You must own, Dick, that you hadn't treated the girl quite fair."
"I do not grant that, Mr. Devant. I think Katharine had no cause for complaint. Good Lord! a doctor's wife might quite as well feel herself aggrieved because her husband's dissecting room is closed to her."
"Come, now, Dick!" Devant threw his head back and laughed; "it's carrying the thing too far when you liken the Pimpernel to a disagreeably defunct subject."
"It all goes to the making of one's art; that is what I mean. It belongs to the art and need not be dragged into public to satisfy a woman's morbid curiosity."
"Or a man's?" The laugh was gone from the face of the older man.
"Or a man's, since you insist." Thornly looked into the depths of the rich glow upon the grate and took small heed of his companion's changed expression.