"Don't pretend!" he cried. "You've heard of the case of John Alden. What's been worked once may go again. I'm not entirely blind."
Mr. Weil, with pained eyes, begged his friend to explain.
"Tell me this," shouted Roseleaf. "Do you love that girl, yourself?"
Unprepared for the question, Archie shrank as from a flash of lightning, and could not reply.
"I know you do!" came the next sentence, sharply. "And I know that it is owing to the inroads you have made—not only with her but with her father—that I have been pushed out. Well, go ahead. I've no objection. Only don't come here every day, with your cock and bull stories of pleading my cause, for I've had enough of them!"
The novelist turned aside, and Mr. Weil, too hurt to say a word, arose and silently left the room. His brain whirled so that he was actually giddy. Not knowing where else to turn he went to see Mr. Gouger, to whom he unbosomed the result of his call.
"Don't be too serious about it," said Gouger, soothingly. "It's a good thing for the lad to get his sluggish blood stirred a little. In a day or two he'll be all right. That novel of his is coming on grandly!"
Weil was in no mood to talk about novels, and finding that he could get no consolation of the kind he craved, he soon left the office. The critic laughed silently to himself at the idea of the biter having at last been bitten, and then took his way to Roseleaf's rooms.
No answer being returned to his knock, he opened the door and entered. At first he thought the place was vacant, but presently he espied a still form on the bed. The novelist was stretched out in an attitude which at first suggested death rather than sleep, and alarmed the visitor not a little. Investigation, however, showed that he was simply in a tired sleep, worn out with worry and restless nights.