The dummy-chucker lifted his glass of Scotch.
"To a regular feller," he said, and drank. He set his glass down gently. "And the girl? I suppose she's all shot to pieces?"
"She doesn't know," said the host quietly.
The dummy-chucker's eyebrows lifted again.
"I begin to get you," he said. "I'm the messenger from Brazil who breaks the sad news to her, eh?"
"The news isn't to be broken to her--not yet. You see--well, I was Jones' closest friend. He left his will with me, his personal effects, and all that. So I'm the one that received the wire of his death. In a month or so, of course, it will be published in the newspapers--when letters have come from the explorers. But, just now, I'm the only one that knows it."
"Except you. And you won't tell. Ever wear evening clothes?"
The dummy-chucker stiffened. Then he laughed sardonically.
"Oh, yes; when I was at Princeton. What's the idea?"
"Well, with a shave, and a hair-cut, and a manicure, and the proper clothing, and the right setting--well, if a person had only a quick glance--that person might think you were Jones."
The dummy-chucker carefully brushed the ashes from his cigar upon a tray.
"I guess I'm pretty stupid to-night. I still don't see it."
"You will," asserted his host. "You see, she's a girl who's seen a great deal of the evil of drink. She has a horror of it. If she thought that Jones had broken his pledge to her, she'd throw him over."
"'Throw him over?' But he's _dead_!" said the dummy-chucker.
"She doesn't know that," retorted his host.
"Well, I should think the quickest way to get her would be to tell her about Jones----"
"You don't happen to know the girl," interrupted the other. "She's a girl of remarkable conscience. If I should tell her that Jones died in Brazil, she'd enshrine him in her memory. He'd be a hero who had died upon the battle-field. More than that--he'd be a hero who had died upon the battle-field in a war to which she had sent him. His death would be upon her soul. Her only expiation would be to be faithful to him forever."
"I won't argue about it," said the dummy-chucker. "I don't know her. Only--I guess your whisky has got me. I don't see it at all."
"She's going to the opera to-night with her parents. But, before she goes, she's going to dine with me at the Park Square. Suppose, while she's there, Jones should come in. Suppose that he should come in reeling, noisy, _drunk_! She'd marry me to-morrow."
