’"Well.  Thanks—­once more.  You’ve been—­er—­uncommonly—­really there’s no word to . . .  Uncommonly!  I don’t know why, I am sure.  I am afraid I don’t feel as grateful as I would if the whole thing hadn’t been so brutally sprung on me.  Because at bottom . . . you, yourself . . .”  He stuttered.

’"Possibly,” I struck in.  He frowned.

’"All the same, one is responsible.”  He watched me like a hawk.

’"And that’s true, too,” I said.

’"Well.  I’ve gone with it to the end, and I don’t intend to let any man cast it in my teeth without—­without—­resenting it.”  He clenched his fist.

’"There’s yourself,” I said with a smile—­mirthless enough, God knows—­but he looked at me menacingly.  “That’s my business,” he said.  An air of indomitable resolution came and went upon his face like a vain and passing shadow.  Next moment he looked a dear good boy in trouble, as before.  He flung away the cigarette.  “Good-bye,” he said, with the sudden haste of a man who had lingered too long in view of a pressing bit of work waiting for him; and then for a second or so he made not the slightest movement.  The downpour fell with the heavy uninterrupted rush of a sweeping flood, with a sound of unchecked overwhelming fury that called to one’s mind the images of collapsing bridges, of uprooted trees, of undermined mountains.  No man could breast the colossal and headlong stream that seemed to break and swirl against the dim stillness in which we were precariously sheltered as if on an island.  The perforated pipe gurgled, choked, spat, and splashed in odious ridicule of a swimmer fighting for his life.  “It is raining,” I remonstrated, “and I . . .”  “Rain or shine,” he began brusquely, checked himself, and walked to the window.  “Perfect deluge,” he muttered after a while:  he leaned his forehead on the glass.  “It’s dark, too.”

’"Yes, it is very dark,” I said.

’He pivoted on his heels, crossed the room, and had actually opened the door leading into the corridor before I leaped up from my chair.  “Wait,” I cried, “I want you to . . .”  “I can’t dine with you again to-night,” he flung at me, with one leg out of the room already.  “I haven’t the slightest intention to ask you,” I shouted.  At this he drew back his foot, but remained mistrustfully in the very doorway.  I lost no time in entreating him earnestly not to be absurd; to come in and shut the door.’

CHAPTER 17

’He came in at last; but I believe it was mostly the rain that did it; it was falling just then with a devastating violence which quieted down gradually while we talked.  His manner was very sober and set; his bearing was that of a naturally taciturn man possessed by an idea.  My talk was of the material aspect of his position; it had the sole aim of saving him from the degradation, ruin, and despair that out there close so swiftly upon a friendless, homeless man; I pleaded with him to accept my help; I argued reasonably:  and every time I looked up at that absorbed smooth face, so grave and youthful, I had a disturbing sense of being no help but rather an obstacle to some mysterious, inexplicable, impalpable striving of his wounded spirit.