He nodded.

"And you'll feel them again to-night?"

"I hope so."

"I wonder you can stay away."

"Oh, one gets a bit deadened after an hour or so. One needs to be
freshened up. So long as I don't bore you--"

I laughed, and held out my cigarette-case.

"I rather wonder you smoke," I murmured, after giving him a light.
"Nicotine's a sort of drug. Doesn't it soothe you? Don't you lose just a
little something of the tremors and things?"

He looked at me gravely.

"By Jove!" he ejaculated, "I never thought of that. Perhaps you're
right. 'Pon my word, I must think that over."

I wondered whether he were secretly laughing at me. Here was a
man to whom--so I conceived, with an effort of the imagination--the loss
or gain of a few hundred pounds could hardly matter. I told him I had
spoken in jest. "To give up tobacco might," I said, "intensify the pleasant
agonies of a gambler staking his little all. But in your case--well, I don't
see where the pleasant agonies come in."

"You mean because I'm beastly rich?"