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“Well,” I admitted, “all that seems plain sailing.”

“Quite so; but it’s at this point the thing grows complicated.” He rose, and walking to the fireplace, turned his back on me and spread his palms to the blaze. “Well,” he asked, after a moment, gazing into the mirror before him, “why don’t you shoot?”

I thrust my hands into my trouser-pockets and leaned back staring– I daresay sulkily enough–at the two revolvers within grasp. “I’ve got my code,” I muttered.

“The code of–these mirrors. You won’t do the thing because it’s not the thing to do; because these fellows”–he waved a hand and the ghosts waved back at him–“don’t do such things, and you haven’t the nerve to sin off your own bat. Come”–he strolled back to his seat and leaned towards me across the table–“it’s not much to boast of, but at this eleventh hour we must snatch what poor credit we can. You are, I suppose, a more decent fellow for not having fired: and I–By the way, you did feel the temptation?”

I nodded. “You may put your money on that. I never see you without wanting to kill you. What’s more, I’m going to do it.”

“And I,” he said, “knew the temptation and risked it. No: let’s be honest about it. There was no risk: because, my good Sir, I know you to a hair.”

“There was,” I growled.

“Pardon me, there was none. I came here having a word to say to you, and these mirrors have taught me how to say it. Take a look at them– the world we are leaving–that’s it: and a cursed second-hand, second-class one at that.”

He paced slowly round on it, slewing his body in the chair.

“I say a second-class one,” he resumed, “because, my dear Reggie, when all’s said and done, we are second-class, the pair of us, and pretty bad second-class. I met you first at Harrow. Our fathers had money: they wished us to be gentlemen without well understanding what it meant: and with unlimited pocket-money and his wits about him any boy can make himself a power in a big school. That is what we did: towards the end we even set the fashion for a certain set; and a rank bad fashion it was. But, in truth, we had no business there: on every point of breeding we were outsiders. I suspect it was a glimmering consciousness of this that made us hate each other from the first. We understood one another too well. Oh, there’s no mistake about it! Whatever we’ve missed in life, you and I have hated.”

He paused, eyeing me queerly. I kept my hands in my pockets. “Go on,” I said.

“From Harrow we went to College–the same business over again. We drifted, of course, into the same set; for already we had become necessary to each other. We set the pace of that set–were its apparent leaders. But in truth we were alone–you and I–as utterly alone as two shipwrecked men on a raft. The others were shadows to us: we followed their code because we had to be gentlemen, but we did not understand it in the least. For, after all, the roots of that code lay in the breeding and tradition of honour, with which we had no concern. To each other you and I were intelligible and real; but as concerned that code and the men who followed it by right of birth and nature, we were looking-glass men imitating–imitating–imitating.”

“We set the pace,” said I. “You’ve allowed that.”

“To be sure we did. We even modified the code a bit–to its hurt; though as conscious outsiders we could dare very little. For instance, the talk of our associates about women–and no doubt their thoughts, too–grew sensibly baser. The sanctity of gambling debts, on the other hand, we did nothing to impair: because we had money. I recall your virtuous indignation at the amount of paper floated by poor W—- towards the end of the great baccarat term. Poor devil! He paid up–or his father did–and took his name off the books. He’s in Ceylon now, I believe. At length you have earned a partial right to sympathise: or. would have if only you had paid up.”