"Not at all. If I go, it'll be chance that takes me—pure chance."
"Don't see much difference myself."
"There's all the difference. Ask any man who's been chivied about to all the ends of the earth and back again. He can tell you something about, chance, but I doubt if he swears much by fate. Chance—oh Lord, don't I know it!—chance takes you up and plays with you, pleases you or teases you, and drops you when she's tired of you. Like—some ladies of our acquaintance, and you're none the worse for it, not you! Fate looks devilish well after you, loves you or hates you, and in either case sticks to you and ruins you. Like your wife. To complete the little allegory, you can have as many chances as you like, but only one fate. Needless to say, though my chances have been many and charming, I naturally prefer my—fate."
Tyson was a master of the graceful art of symbolism, and Stanistreet had caught the trick from him. At the present moment he would have given a great deal to know how much of all this was a mere playing with words.
There was a sound of hurrying feet in the room upstairs, and the two men held their breath. Tyson was the first to recover.
"Good God, Stanistreet, how white you are! I wish I hadn't let you in for this. I'm not in the least nervous myself, you know. She's all right. Thompson says so. I'm awfully sorry for the poor little soul, but if you come to think of it, it's the most natural and ordinary thing in the world."
But Stanistreet's thoughts were back in yesterday. He could see nothing, think of nothing but the little figure going through the doorway, and laughing as it went.
"Do you mind not talking about it?" said he.
Tyson sat quiet for a while, except when some obscure movement overhead roused him from his philosophic calm. Towards midnight Mrs. Wilcox came to the door and spoke to him for a minute. After that he became thoughtful. "I don't quite like the look of it," said he; "he's sent for Baker of Drayton—I suppose it means that the idiot has just sense enough not to trust his own judgment. But I don't like it."
By the time he had struck another attitude, lit another cigar, and gulped down another tumbler of whiskey-and-soda, philosophic calm gave way to philosophic doubt. "I don't know who has the management of these things, but what I want to know is—why do they make women like that? Is it justice? Is it even common decency? What do you think?"