"When we fought—?"
"Yes, when we fought, here!… Oh no, oh no! I've lived, I tell you, every moment! Not a title, not a degree, but I've lived such a life as you never dreamed of—!"
"Thank God—"
But suddenly Marsden's voice, which had risen, dropped again. He began to shake with interior chuckles. They were the old, old chuckles, and they filled Romarin with a hatred hardly to be borne. The sound of the animal's voice had begun it, and his every word, look, movement, gesture, since they had entered the restaurant, had added to it. And he was now chuckling, chuckling, shaking with chuckles, as if some monstrous tit-bit still remained to be told. Already Romarin had tossed aside his napkin, beckoned to the waiter, and said, "M'sieu dines with me…."
"Ho ho ho ho!" came the drunken sounds. "It's a long time since M'sieu dined here with his old friend Romarin! Do you remember the last time? Do you remember it? Pif, pan! Two smacks across the table, Romarin—oh, you got it in very well!—and then, brrrrr! quick! Back with the tables—all the fellows round—Farquharson for me and Smith for you, and then to it, Romarin!… And you really don't remember what it was all about?…"
Romarin had remembered. His face was not the face of the philosophic master of Life now.
"You said she shouldn't—little Pattie Hines you know—you said she shouldn't—"
Romarin sprang half from his chair, and brought his fist down on the table.
"And by Heaven, she didn't! At least that's one thing you haven't done!"
Marsden too had risen unsteadily.