lack of deference in Tom Spade's tone, and a suspicion shot
through him that the words were meant to veil a reprimand.

"Well, I reckon the boy's got as good a right to drink as I
have," he retorted sneeringly, and a moment afterward went gaily
whistling through the store. At the time he felt a certain
pleasure in defying Tom's opinion--in setting himself so boldly
in opposition to the conventional morality of his neighbours. The
situation gave him several sharp breaths and that dizzy sense of
insecurity in which his mood delighted. It had needed only the
shade of disapproval expressed in the storekeeper's voice to lend
a wonderful piquancy to his enjoyment--to cause him to toy in
imagination with his hatred as a man does with his desire. Before
Tom spoke he had caught himself almost regretting the
affair--wondering, even, if his error were past retrieving--but
with the first mere suggestion of outside criticism his humour
underwent a startling change.

Between Fletcher and himself the account was still open, and the
way in which he meant to settle it concerned himself alone--least
of all did it concern Tom Spade.

He was groping confusedly among these reflections when, one
evening in early November, he went upstairs after a hasty supper
to find Cynthia already awaiting him in his room. At his start of
displeased surprise she came timidly forward and touched his arm.

"Are you sick, Christopher? or has anything happened? You are so
unlike yourself."