“Twenty-seven.”
“Twenty-seven! I should have thought– What a hard life you must have had!”
“Hard work? Well, I suppose Panama did do for me some. But it wasn’t so much that. Few fellows could hit up the pace I’ve set and come out at all.”
“I do not understand.”
“Just what you might expect of a fellow in my fix–all kinds of gamble and drink and–the rest of it.”
Miss Leslie looked away, visibly distressed. She had not been reared after the French method. Young as she was, she had fluttered at will about the borders of the garden of vice, knowing well that the gaudy blossoms were lures to entice one into the pitfall. Yet never before had she caught so clear a glimpse of the slimy depths.
“That’s it!” growled Blake. “Throw me down cold, just because I’m square enough to tell you straight out. You make me tired! I’m not one of the work-ox sort, that can chew the cud all the year round, and cork the blood out of their brains. I’ve got to cut loose from the infernal grind once in a while, and barring a chance now and then at opera, there’s never been anything but a spree–”
“Oh, but that’s so dreadfully shocking, Mr. Blake!”
“And then like all the other little hypocrites, you’ll go and marry one of those swell dudes who’s made that sort of thing his business, and everybody knows it, but it’s all politely understood to’ve been done sub rosa, so it’s all right, because he knows how to part his name in the middle and–”
“Please, please stop, Mr. Blake! You don’t know how cruel you are!”