Birds of Prey

"I prefer to do so," said Haldane, promptly, "and will try to perform the business to your satisfaction."

Mr. Arnot nodded a cool dismissal, and Haldane started for a hotel-restaurant near the depot with a step entirely too quick and elastic for one who must walk henceforth in the shadow of "bitter memories and dark disappointment." The exercise brought color to his cheek, and there certainly was a sparkle in his dark eyes. It could not be hope, for he had assured himself again and again that "hope was dead in his heart." It might have been caused after his long fast by the anticipation of a lunch at the depot and a petit souper in the city, and the thought of washing both down with a glass of wine, or possibly with several. The relish and complacency with which his mind dwelt on this prospect struck Haldane as rather incongruous in a being as blighted as he supposed himself to be. With his youth, health, and unusually good digestion he would find no little difficulty in carrying out the "gloomy grandeur" scheme, and he began to grow conscious of the fact.

Indeed, in response to a law of nature, he was already inclined to react from his unwonted depression into reckless hilarity. Impulse and inclination were his controlling forces, and he was accustomed to give himself up to them without much effort at self-restraint. And yet he sought to imagine himself consistent, so that he could maintain his self-approval.