After leaving Nina, Jack went to the club, where he found Geoffrey playing pool with half a dozen others, whose demeanor well indicated the number of times the lamp had been rubbed for the genius with the tray to appear. Geoffrey seemed to be in good-humor, but he gave Jack the idea of playing against time. He strode around the table rapidly as he took his shots, as if not caring whether he won or lost. The only effect the liquor seemed to have upon him was to make him grow fierce. Every movement of his long frame was made with a quick nervous energy, inspiriting enough to watch, but giving an impression of complete unrest. He was playing to stave off waking nightmares. Thoughts of his probable ruin on the following day came to him from time to time—like a vision of a death's head. The others with him noticed nothing different in him, but Jack, who was quietly smoking on one of the high seats near by, saw that he was in a more reckless mood than he had ever seen him before. He could not help smiling as his friend strode around the table in his shirt-sleeves, playing with a force that was almost ferocity and a haste apparently reckless but deadly in the precision that sense of power, skill, and alcohol gave him. After a while, in a pause, he spoke to Geoffrey, who at once divined that more trouble of some kind awaited him.
When they arrived at their chambers, Jack told him briefly of the journey with Nina for the purpose of getting married in Buffalo, and of what Nina had just said.
Geoffrey nodded; he was waiting for the something new that would affect himself—the something he was not prepared for.
"Is that all?" he asked sharply.
"No. That is not all," answered Jack gloomily.
"Go on, then."
"I don't feel as if I could go on," said Jack, not noticing the rough tone in which he was commanded to proceed. "But I suppose I must. The fact is, Geoffrey, I found out afterward that I was not married at all to her, and I never let her know until to-night."
"Is she dead, then?"
Geoffrey looked at him with his brow lowered, his eyes glittering. He felt like striking Jack.
"Gracious heavens, no! Why should she die?" cried Jack, startled from his gloom.