Aren't you easily led
to take too much wine?"
"Perhaps--perhaps, but no more than other men."
"I hope so, at least not more than the men I saw you with last night."
"You saw me! Where?"
"In a coffee house near St. Paul's. The man who left you a few minutes
ago was making you drink and the others were helping him. Your glass was
never empty save when you yourself had emptied it. I don't like that
white-faced squinting man. His voice is horrid. His vulgar talk--oh, it
made me put my fingers to my ears and run out of the house. He doesn't
mean you well."
"I--I like him no more than you," stammered Vane. "But he wants me to
write for him. It would put money in my pocket. How could I refuse to
drink with him?"
"Why not? He would not employ you if he did not think it was to his own
good. And have you promised?"
"No--not yet. He was persuading me just now but I've not consented."
"Then don't. He's a bad, a wicked man I feel sure. Have nothing to do
with him."
"I swear to you I've no desire. But a penniless scribbler has no choice
if he has to live--that is if life be worth living, which I sometimes
doubt."
"You shouldn't think like that. It's cowardly. A man should fight his
way through the world. Now a woman...."
"She's armed better than a man. Her charm--her beauty--her wit. Nature
bestows on her all conquering weapons."
"Which she as often as not misuses and turns against herself.
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