White hesitated a moment, and then drained his glass, and threw it into the fireplace with a crash. We all looked a little surprised, I think, but no one offered any comment. Van Bult and Littell laughed and drank the toast. I did not altogether fancy the spirit of the thing, and quietly replaced my glass on the table, but Davis openly declared that he did not like the toast and would not drink it. This seemed to incense White, who by this time was very plainly showing the effects of the liquor he had taken, and he told Davis not to be a fool; that it ill became him to pose as a paragon of virtue.
Davis made no answer, and Littell, after a moment's awkward silence, suggested our going. We said good-night to White, who seemed to recover himself for the moment and murmured some apologies, mainly addressed to Davis, for his ill-humor. He also asked the latter, who lived in the same house, to remain with him for a while.
As we were going out, he called after me that he wanted to come to my office the next day to talk to me about something, to which I acceded. Littell delayed a moment for a last word with him, and then joined Van Bult and myself on the sidewalk and we walked together toward Fifth Avenue.
Van Bult was the first to speak:
"What is the matter with White?" he said; "he does not seem like himself."
"He has probably some trifling matter on his mind," I suggested, "the seriousness of which he morbidly exaggerates. He is a nervous fellow anyhow, and has several times hinted to me that he wanted to make a confidant of me about something. I am inclined to believe," I continued, expressing a thought I had entertained before, "that he feels he has been guilty of an injustice to his cousin, Winters, in taking the bulk of his uncle's fortune, and suffers some remorse when he sees the poor fellow going to the bad. For that matter, however," I concluded, "he would have gone there anyhow, and all the faster for a little money."
"It may be there is a woman in the case," said Littell; "it seems to me I have heard of an entanglement of some sort."
"So they say," I answered, "but I don't see why an affair of that sort should give him cause for much worry."
"Well, whatever it is," said Van Bult, "he had better pull himself together and go away for a change. One of you fellows suggest it to him, you know him better than I do. He may give you an opportunity to-morrow, Dallas," he continued, "if he goes to see you as he said he would."
By this time we had reached Fifth Avenue, where our ways separated, Van Bult living on Washington Square, Littell at the Terrace Hotel, at Fifth Avenue and Fifty-ninth Street, and I, as I have said, at the Crescent Club, on Madison Square. We stood, however, talking for a few minutes, and while doing so Benton passed us, going east toward Broadway. Van Bult stopped him to ask how his master was. The man said he had dismissed him soon after we left, and had thrown himself down on the sofa without undressing, and had apparently gone to sleep.