He did not say it with braggadocio, and yet it seemed incongruous, after the glimpse she had had of the man.
"Why?" she said, laying her two hands impulsively on his arm and with every instinct of her feminine nature sending him a message of sympathy.
"It's such a long story!" he said slowly. Then, with a last return of the Saxon's fear of sentimentality: "If I were sober I wouldn't tell you!"
"You're not—"
"Drunk? Yes! For ten days," he said—"in my way! There's nothing to fear; never gets the best of me! When it does—crack! It'll be over in a second!"
"But why?" she asked helplessly.
"Why not?" he said fiercely. "All I care about is a good fight, and, by George, it is a fight, a real sensation. You can't understand, but it's so! To have your temples beating like trip-hammers, to fight the mists out of your eyes—a great brute like this whipping back and forth, shaking you off. One slip, a hundredth of a second, and then to beat it all, to master it. God! it's gorgeous!"
Suddenly, with an attempt at evasion, he drew back.
"You know, I had a mind once. I reason things out now—I see straight! Do you know how I figure it out? This way! What earthly use am I in the world? What earthly use is a cuss who is given forty thousand a year, without earning it, and told to amuse himself? None! By George! Sometimes I believe dissipation is nature's way of getting rid of us! And she's right, too; the sooner it's over, the more chance for some one real to come along!"
"Are you serious?"