"Known what?" said Crabbe in loud, dictatorial, dangerous tones, all shiftiness gone. "That I was a gentleman, eh? Well, gentle is as gentle does, I suppose, and I've never scored anywhere, so here I am, here I am, Ringfield (bringing his hand down on the table) that's your name, I believe—and I've not worn so badly all these years. From Oxford to Manitoba; then robbed and ruined by a shark of a farming agent, damn him, down here to this wilderness and hole of a Quebec Province for a change. For keeps, I imagine."
He went round the table and poured out some whisky, drank it off raw, and still Ringfield did not understand. He thought this was the sober phase, the other, the drunken one, and feeling his way, ventured on general topics.
"Well, I'm here too by a curious twist of circumstances. I'm a 'varsity' man—Toronto, you know—and might look for something different from St. Ignace."
"You're a what?" cried the other. "O Lord!" and a strange kind of rude contempt filled the rich cadences with which he spoke, so different from the surly repression of his ordinary tone.
"O I see!" he drawled presently. "I'm an Oxford man myself—worse luck—and much good it's done me; hope you've benefited more thereby. What disgusting rot, Ringfield, filling us up with Horace and Virgil, and then sending us out to a land like this! I'm the youngest of five; there was nothing left for me at home, and then there was fuss about a woman—there always is."
"Is there?" echoed the other sweetly, determined not to be annoyed. "Don't lay everything at their door. Our mothers, Crabbe, our sisters——"
The Englishman suddenly ran amuck, as it were.
"In God's name, Ringfield, drop that! I can see you know nothing about it, nothing about life or women—God, Ringfield, women are the Devil! If I thought you'd listen and not preach——"
The other's hand, which had been lifted in horror and deprecation, came down again.
"I don't care to listen," he said, "but I can gather your meaning—all the same! Don't take any more of that vile stuff, you'll make yourself drunk. Here——" and then, with sudden fury, the preacher grabbed the bottle, threw it out of the window among the debris of rotting fruit and rusty cans and faced the Englishman.