"Why did you bring them to me?" asked Jimmy. "They are nothing to me."
Anthony Ditchburn cleared his throat for an oration "I bring them," he said, "in the faint hope that it may be my privilege to bring together two young people who are most unhappily estranged. I am an old man, and the world has not used me well; but I would like to think"—Anthony got out a doubtful handkerchief, and dabbed at his eyes—"I would really like to think, as I go down the desolate hill of life, that I have done such a thing as this. You live apart—why? You refuse to see her—again, why?"
"Give me the letters." Jimmy held out his hand for them; snatched them from the hand of the old man, and flung them into a corner. "Sit down," he said roughly, "and listen to what I have to say."
Again it seemed as though he must talk to someone; again it seemed that this old man, derelict though he was, would serve as well as any other. Ditchburn was not particularly interested, because he saw, in the attitude of the younger man, his own chances slipping away; this was not the man who would be likely to reward the ambassador in such a business as this. But he sat down, and listened with something of an air of attention; also, he seized the opportunity to replenish his glass.
"I was a happy man before I married—before I was tricked into marriage," he said. "I might have married in such a fashion as would have gained for me a real helpmate; someone who understood me—someone who would have lifted me up—inspired me. But circumstances I can't explain prevented that; she went (I mean the woman I really loved) into the arms of another man. They were married last week, and that finished me—did for me completely."
"There seems to have been a blunder somewhere certainly," broke in Anthony, a little helplessly.
"Blunder? I should think there has been a blunder," cried Jimmy, with a laugh. "I set out so well; I meant to do such big things; and here, for ever hung round my neck like a millstone, are a wife and child who are nothing to me, and can be nothing. She drags me down, and keeps me down; my work is not what it was; it will never be anything again. I can't write; I can't think; I fly to that"—he flung out a hand towards the bottle on the table—"and so get some relief. That's poor Jimmy Larrance—who married a woman out of pity!"
Anthony Ditchburn coughed again, and shook his head; it seemed the only thing he could do. "Sad—inexpressibly sad," he murmured.
"Sad, indeed," said Jimmy. "But what does it matter? Already people are beginning to say that the work I've done lately—such as it is—isn't what it was; the grip has gone out of it. They begin to hint at failure; and you know how I started a year or two ago—eh?"
"I know—I remember well," murmured Anthony, with another melancholy shake of the head.