May I help myself again ?" He poured out a very much stiffer drink than before, and poured half of it down his throat.
"It's not a joyous thing to see the woman one has been crazy over the wife of another fellow." "I suppose it isn't," said I.
Of course I might have made some subtle and cunning remark, suavely put a leading question which would have led him on, in his unbalanced mood, to confidential revelations.

But the man was a distinguished soldier and my guest.

To what he chose to tell me voluntarily I could listen.

I could do no more.

He did not reply to my last unimportant remark, but lay back in his armchair watching the blue spirals of smoke from the end of his cigar.