“Eck-xactly. Twelve, maybe fifteen years ago, a little recklessness. A little overheating of the blood. Perhaps after a dinner like this. The poison lies dormant; a snake asleep. Harms no one. Not himself; not another. Until—something here”—he tapped the thick black curls over the base of his brain. “All that ruddy strength, that lusty good-humor passing on courageously—for he is a brave man, Eyre—to slow torture and—and the end. Grim, eh?”
Banneker reached for a drink. “How long?” he asked.
“As for that, he is very strong. It might be slow. One prays not.”
“At any rate, that little reptile, Ives, shan’t have his profit of it.” Banneker rose and, disdaining even the diplomacy of an excuse, drew Ely Ives aside.
“That bet of yours was a joke, Ives,” he prescribed.
Ives studied him in silence, wishing that he had watched, through the dinner, how much drink he took.
“A joke?” he asked coolly. “I don’t understand you.”
“Try,” advised Banneker with earnestness. “I happen to have read that luetic diagnosis, myself. A joke, Ives, so far as the two hundred goes.”
“What do you expect me to do?” asked the other.
“Tear up the check, when it comes. Make what explanation your ingenuity can devise. That’s your affair. But don’t cash that check, Ives. For if you do—I dislike to threaten—”