I had joined in a laugh against my best friend, because I had not the courage to stand up for him behind his back, and I had tried to appear as if bad language and drinking and gambling were familiar things to me, because I dared not make a stand and confess I thought them loathsome.
We sat for a long time that night talking and cracking jokes, and telling stories.

Many of the latter were clever and amusing, but others--those that raised the loudest laugh--were of a kind I had never heard before, and which I blush now to recall.

Any one who had seen me would have supposed that talk like this was what I most relished.

Had they but heard another voice within reproaching me, they might have pitied rather than blamed me.
And yet with all the loose talk was mixed up so much of real jollity and good-humour that it was impossible to feel wholly miserable.
Doubleday kept up his hospitality to the last.

He would stop the best story to make a guest comfortable, and seemed to guess by instinct what everybody wanted.
At last the time came for separating, and I rose to go with feelings partly of relief, partly of regret.