"Well, who has been getting mixed up with them?"
"No one in particular that I know of! I simply made a remark."
"Oh, I see."
There was a faint sneer in Feathers' voice, and his eyes looked grim; he knew that if he waited Chris would presently explode again, and he was right.
"Marriage," said Chris, with the air of one who has suddenly lighted upon a great and original discovery, "is a damned awful gamble, and that's a fact."
Feathers stopped to knock the ashes from his pipe against a wooden post.
"It's not compulsory, anyway," he said quietly. "After all, men marry to please themselves."
"Or to please someone else," said Chris with a growl.
There was a little silence.
"Or for money," said Feathers deliberately.