"Look here, Tom," he began, doggedly, "before you begin, I wish to tell you that it is useless. Nothing that you can say will change me in the slightest. I've made up my mind; and my decision is unalterable."
"Irrevocable, is the word."
"As you will…. I'm sorry if the course I choose doesn't seem right to you—to the world—sometimes even to myself—and I'll confess to you that it doesn't—But, right, or wrong, it's the only one for me, and I must take it—must, whether I will or not. So, if you've come for a cigar and a chat, well and good. But if for anything else, go and avoid trouble."
"I'm looking for trouble," returned Blake, quietly. He advanced to the table and leaned against it. "Jack," he exclaimed, "you're a damned fool. There was some excuse for the others. Parmalee was a kid—Rogers an old fool—Van Dam—well, absinthe and asininity account for him. And they fell to their fooldom without warning to guard them or precedent to shield them. But you—open-eyed, knowing everything—forewarned and forearmed,—walk fatuously to your doom as one sheep follows another over a precipice. I swear I can't even yet believe that it isn't all a dream. I keep pinching myself and saying to myself that in the morning I'll wake up and go around and tell old Jack all about it as being a good joke. It's an uncanny, filthy sort of a nightmare as it stands, however." He turned to the other; Schuyler was striding up and down the room. "Old man," he pleaded, quietly, "what's the answer?"
Schuyler stopped in his walk. Looking at Blake, he remarked:
"You've never loved. You couldn't know."
"Never loved!" cried Blake, scornfully. "Couldn't know! Hell! You make me tired! What do you mean by debauching and degrading a good, pure word like love by applying it to this snaky, bestial fascination of yours. You're a fool!"
Schuyler advanced upon him, threateningly.
"Don't you call me that, too," he said, tensely.
Blake paid no heed.