Douglas was embarrassed—­vaguely uneasy.  The memory of Rice’s words came flooding back to him.  Whatever else was true, this man’s sufferings were real indeed.  To him she had never been anything but a most charming benefactor.  In a momentary fit of introspection he told himself, then, that her sex had scarcely ever troubled him.

“I think I know, Mr. Drexley,” he said, “why you have spoken to me like this, and I can assure you that I am grateful.  If Emily de Reuss is what you say, I am very sorry, for I have never received anything but kindness from her.  So far as regards anything else, I do not think that I am in any sort of danger.  I will confess to you that I am ambitious.  I have not the slightest intention of falling a victim to Emily de Reuss, or any other woman.”

Drexley took up his cigar and relit it.

“You speak,” he said, “exactly as I should have done years ago.  Yet you are fortunate—­so far.”

“With regard to next Thursday,” Douglas added, “I could not go, in any case, as I have an engagement.”

“I may tell her that?” Drexley said, looking at him keenly.  “I may tell her that you cannot come on Thursday because you have an engagement?”

“Certainly.  You may add, if you like, that I have drifted so far into Bohemianism that I am not a fit subject for social civilities.  She was very kind to me indeed, and if ever she wishes me to go and see her I will go, of course.  But fashionable life, as a whole, has no attractions for me.  I am happier where I am.”

Drexley stood up and held out his hand.

“I congratulate you,” he said.  “Don’t think I’m an absolute driveller, but don’t forget what I’ve said, if even at present the need for a warning doesn’t exist.  I’m one of her literary proteges, you see—­and there have been others—­and I am what you see me.”

Douglas hesitated.

“Surely with you,” he said, “it isn’t too late?”

Drexley looked up.  There was the dull hopelessness of despair in his bloodshot eyes.  Douglas, who had never seen anything like it before, felt an unaccountable sense of depression sweep in upon him.

“I am her bondman,” he said, “body and soul.  I could not tell you at this moment whether I hate her or love her the more; but I could not live without seeing her.”

Douglas passed upstairs to his billiards with a grim vision before his eyes.  Drexley was a broken man—­of that there was no doubt.  He knew that his warning was kindly meant, but many times, both during that evening and afterwards, he regretted that he had ever heard it.  He had come into the club almost lighthearted, thinking only of Cicely and of the pleasant days of companionship which might still be theirs.  He left it at midnight vaguely restless and disturbed, with the work of weeks destroyed.  Emily de Reuss had regained her old place without the slightest effort.  Surely it was a hopeless struggle.