"If you ever see me again, you'll see me sober."
Mr. Lamotte uttered a skeptical laugh and turned away. The train was there, and it bore cityward the gentlemanly Mr. Lamotte, and the half-inebriated loafer, Brooks.
CHAPTER XXIV.
A DAY OF GLOOM.
All that day, or what remained of it after his father's departure, and the almost simultaneous withdrawal of the private detective, Frank Lamotte passed in an uneasy reverie. He had much at stake; and, now that the crisis of his fortunes was so near at hand, he began to review his ground, and every word, look, and tone of Constance Wardour, as he recalled them, one by one, was to him a fresh puzzle.
Six months ago, Frank Lamotte would have scoffed at the suggestion of a refusal even from the proud Constance. Now, somehow, he had lost his self-confidence. Again and again he imagined the words that he would say, and the words he hoped, that she would answer. Then, as he forced himself to face the possibility of defeat, the veins upon his temples swelled out, his teeth clenched, and one of those "attacks," to which he was subject, and against which Doctor Heath had warned him, seemed imminent. Again and again he gazed, with proud satisfaction, upon his reflected image, in the full length drawing-room mirror, and turned away, vowing himself a fitting mate for any woman. Again and again, when the image of his own physical perfections had ceased to dazzle his vision, his heart sank within him, and a dismal foreboding put his courage to flight.