How long he stood there he hardly knew. Once Alec's dark face peered into the room, and disappeared as suddenly. At last there was a knock at the door.
"Come in," invited Sidwell, without moving. The door opened and closed, and Winston Hough stood inside. The big man gave one glance at the surroundings, saw the empty glass, and backed away. "Pardon my intrusion," he said with his hand on the knob.
Sidwell turned. "Intrusion--nothing!" He placed the decanter with glasses and a box of cigars on a convenient table. "Come and have a drink with me," and the liquor flowed until both glasses were nearly full.
Hough hesitated in a reluctance that was not feigned. He felt that discretion was the better part of valor, and that it would be well to escape while he could, even at the price of discourtesy.
"Really," he said, "I only dropped in to say hello. I--"
"Nonsense!" interrupted Sidwell. "You must think I'm as innocent as a new-born lamb. Come over here and sit down."
Hough hesitated, but yielded.
Sidwell lifted his glass. "Here's to--whatever the trouble may be that brought you here. People don't visit me for pleasure, or unless they have nowhere else to go. Drink deep!"
They drank; and then Sidwell looking at Hough said, "Well, what is it this time? Going to reform again, or something of that kind, are you?"
Hough did not attempt evasion. He knew it would be useless. "No," he said; "to tell you the truth, I'm lonesome--beastly lonesome."
Sidwell smiled. "Ah, I thought so. But why, pray? Aren't you a married man with an ark of refuge always waiting?"
Hough made a grimace. "Yes, that's just the trouble. I'm too much married, too thoroughly domesticated."
The other looked blank. "I fail to understand. Certainly you and Elise haven't at last--"
"No, no; not that." Hough repelled the suggestion with a gesture as though it were a tangible object. "Elise left to-day to spend a month with her uncle up in northern Wisconsin, and I can't get out of town for a week. I feel as I fancy a small bird feels when it has fallen out of the nest while its mother is away. The bottom seems to have dropped out of town and left me stranded."
The host observed his guest humorously--a bit maliciously. "It is good for you, you complacent benedict," he remarked unsympathetically. "You can understand now the normal state of mind of bachelors. Perhaps after a few more days you'll have been tortured enough to retract the argument you made to me about matrimony. I repeat, it's poetic justice, and good for a man now and then to have a dose of his own medicine."