of a temple. “We can’t have a man like that here. Why, he’ll drive the other people out, we’ll lose all our guests: people aren’t going to stay in a place with a crazy man. There’s no telling what a man like that is liable to do. Now!” he said with an air of abrupt and pugnacious decision, “he’s got to get out: I won’t have him here! I’m not going to have a man like that in my hotel a moment longer”—his small jaw hardened meanly, his face shrank, and his eyes narrowed, as he turned away, “and someone’s got to pay for all the damage that was done! Now, I don’t care who pays it”—his face was averted—“but it’s not going to be us! Now you can tell him,” he snapped curtly, and he left.
Eugene went upstairs at once to Robert’s room in a state of choking anger and resentment: he felt that Robert had tricked him and taken advantage of him, that he was being held accountable for Robert’s misbehaviour, and that now his own standing in the hotel had been jeopardized and he would be forced to leave this delightful and charming establishment at which he had cursed and mocked so bitterly many times, but which now, in his resentful spirit, took on a peaceful and home-like glamour it had never had before. He walked into Robert’s room without knocking: the room was a wreck, a negro maid was mournfully and sullenly gathering up from the floor the charred and blackened remnants of a pile of bed-linen and blankets; the mirror had been smashed by a drinking-glass which Robert had hurled at it, he said, when he saw his image reflected in it, the remnants of a chair lay on the floor, the heavy glass plate upon a writing table had been broken, there was a large brownish stain upon one of the walls where he had hurled a whisky bottle, and one end of his bed lay tilted on the floor where he had stamped or kicked the slats and boards to splinters. Robert was standing in the midst of all the ruin he had made, with a nervous and rueful expression on his face: when his friend came in he looked at him uneasily and laughed in a feeble and foolish manner, without conviction.
“Now, damn it, don’t stand there laughing about it, Robert,” the other said. “You may think it’s funny as hell, but it’s no joke for me. Of course,” he went on bitterly, “I’m the goat. I’m the one who’s got to suffer for it. I’m the one they hold responsible. Now you’ve just fixed it so that I can’t stay here in the hotel any longer: they’re going to put me out!”
“You!” Robert said, in a protesting tone. “Why, it’s not your fault. You didn’t have anything to do with it.”
