Page:Quiller-Couch--Old fires and profitable ghosts.djvu/65

Rh I had trained myself to look into your mind and anticipate its working. Don't I tell you that from the first you were the only real creature this world held for me? You were my only book, and I had to learn you: at first without fixed purpose, then deliberately. And when the time came I put into practice what I knew: just that and no more. My dear Reggie, you never had a chance."

"Elaine?" I muttered again.

"Elaine was the girl for you—or for me: just that again and no more."

"By George!" said I, letting out a laugh. "If I thought that!"

"What?"

"Why, that after ruining me, you have missed being happy!"

He sighed impatiently, and his eyes, though he kept them fastened on mine, seemed to be tiring. "I thought," he said, "I could time your intelligence over any fence. But to-night there's something wrong. Either I'm out of practice or your brain has been going to the deuce. What, man! You're shying at every bank! Is it drink, hey? Or hunger?"

"It might be a little of both," I answered. "But stay a moment and let me get things straight. I stood between you and Elaine—no, give me time—between you and your aims, whatever they were. Very well. You trod over me; or, rather, you pulled me up by the roots and pitched me into outer