"But I sent you a reply wire?"
"Oh, yes--that's all right! But reply wires don't always clinch business. Yours arrived last night."
"I wonder if it was ever delivered!" grumbled Gwent--"It was addressed to the Plaza Hotel--not to a hut on a hill!"
Seaton laughed.
"You've heard all about it I see! But the hut on the hill is a 'dependence' of the Plaza--a sort of annex where dying men are put away to die peaceably--"
"YOU are not a dying man!" said Gwent, very meaningly--"And I can't make out why you pretend to be one!"
Again Seaton laughed.
"I'm not pretending!--my dear Gwent, we're all dying men! One may die a little faster than another, but it's all the same sort of 'rot, and rot, and thereby hangs a tale!' What's the news in Washington?"
They walked up the hill slowly, side by side.
"Not startling"--answered Gwent--then paused--and repeated--"Not startling--there's nothing startling nowadays--though some folks made a very good show of being startled when my nephew Jack shot himself."
Seaton stopped in his walk.
"Shot himself? That lad? Was he insane?"
"Of course!--according to the coroner. Everybody is called 'insane' who gets out of the world when it's too difficult to live in. Some people would call it sane. I call it just--cowardice! Jack had lost his last chance, you see. Morgana Royal threw him over."
Seaton paced along with a velvet-footed stride like a tiger on a trail.
"Had she led him on?"
"Rather! She leads all men 'on'--or they think she does. She led YOU on at one time!"
Seaton turned upon him with a quick, savage movement.
"Never! I saw through her from the first! She could never make a fool of ME!"
Sam Gwent gave a short cough, expressing incredulity.
"Well! Washington thought you were the favoured 'catch' and envied your luck! Certainly she showed a great preference for you--"
"Can't you talk of something else?" interposed Seaton, impatiently.
Gwent gave him an amused side-glance.
"Why, of course I can!" he responded--"But I thought I'd tell you about Jack--"
"I'm sorry!" said Seaton, hastily, conscious that he had been lacking in sympathy--"He was your heir, I believe?"
"Yes,--he might have been, had he kept a bit straighter"--said Gwent--"But heirs are no good anywhere or anyhow. They only spend what they inherit and waste the honest work of a life-time. Is that your prize palace?"