He threw a letter to Purvis as he spoke.
"Am I to read it?"
"Else why did I give it you?"
Purvis opened the letter and read it. It was an invitation to Mr. Castlemaine's to dinner.
"Are you going?" asked Purvis.
"Of course I am. Do you think I am going to let such an opportunity slip? Oh, you need not be afraid to show it to Sprague. It is not an invitation to a drawing-room meeting, it is only to a dinner."
"Well, that means nothing," said Sprague.
"No? I think it proves my statements to the hilt. That invitation would not have come from John Castlemaine without his daughter's consent—perhaps it was at her instigation. And yet she knows that I am—well—all you've described me to be. I am an atheist, I've thrown copybook morals overboard, I am a hard drinker. But what then? I conform to the conventions; no man has ever seen me drunk; but more than all that, I am mentioned as one who is going to have a brilliant career. Hence the invitation."
"An invitation to dinner means nothing," urged Sprague.
"Hence the invitation, and hence the future justification of my statements," he persisted. "Good-night, my friends, I am sorry I cannot stay longer."