"I wouldn't dare tell you now, for fear you might banish me; but some day, when I have persuaded myself that I am more sure of attaining it, I will tell you."
[CHAPTER VI.]
"Leith, what are you doing?"
Leith Pierrepont sat beside the window of the bachelor apartment which he and Olney Winthrop had taken together. It was a handsome apartment, fitted up with one reception-room, in which no one by chance was ever received, a library the delight of a man's heart, two bedrooms, a dining-room in which the breakfasts and dinners, if they wanted them, were served by the caterer in the house, and a bath-room, perhaps the most sumptuous and pretentious room in the apartment.
It was in the library that they were now, Winthrop stretched at full length upon a huge couch, large enough for two to lie upon in comfort without interference one with the other, a pile of pillows under his head that might have satisfied a woman, and a meerschaum in his mouth that was as black as ebony and quite as well polished. His hands were clasped under his head, and his eyes were turned with great interest to his chum, who, as has already been said, sat beside the window with a cigar between his lips and a book in his hand.
Occasionally the cigar was rolled from side to side of the man's handsome mouth, the eyes were thrown ceilingward, where they remained for a moment or two, then returned with interest to the book.
It was after half a dozen of these performances that Olney Winthrop put his question, which had to be repeated the second time before it attracted the attention of the individual to whom it was addressed.
"Leith, what are you doing?"