the pantry for the dishes. "We want to set the table," Pittsey explained pacifically. "Your dinner's ready."
Conroy mumbled that he did not need any dinner, and went grumbling to the bedroom. Don, as he laid the table, heard him splashing water in the wash-basin. They sat down to their meal without him; and Pittsey was carving the burned steak, in the gloom of Don's silence, when Conroy came out of the bedroom and confronted his cousin across the table.
"The next time you put your hands on me," he threatened, "you'll get into trouble."
Don did not look at him. "Go away," he said. "I don't want to talk to you."
"No! Don't you? Oh? Well, I want to talk to you!"
"You ought to be ashamed of yourself. What would Aunt Jane say if she—or Uncle John"
"You mind your"
"Making a drunken brute of yourself. You're a disgrace. It makes me sick to see you." The blood went to his head, in a blinding passion. "You ought to be locked up somewhere! Drinking! You haven't done a thing but drink since you came back here—getting worse every day—brutalizing yourself. Where—where do you think this is going to end? In the gutter! On the streets! The town drunkard! In gaol! You're growing worse every day—worse! You're"
"Here!" Pittsey thrust a plate into Don's hands. "What's the use of starting a row? Sit down and eat your dinner. Have some sense about you."
Conroy took a long breath, his anger checked by
