“I mean that I wrote and resigned my commission yesterday,” said Michael.  “If you had dined with me last night—­as, by the way, you promised to do—­I should have told you then.”

Francis got up and leaned against the chimney-piece.  He was conscious of not thinking this abrupt news as important as he felt he ought to think it.  That was characteristic of him; he floated, as Michael had lately told him, finding the world an extremely pleasant place, full of warm currents that took you gently forward without entailing the slightest exertion.  But Michael’s grave and expectant face—­that Michael who had been so eagerly kind about meeting his debts for him—­warned him that, however gossamer-like his own emotions were, he must attempt to ballast himself over this.

“Are you speaking seriously?” he asked.

“Quite seriously.  I never did anything that was so serious.”

“And that is what you want my opinion about?” he asked.  “If so, you must tell me more, Mike.  I can’t have an opinion unless you give me the reasons why you did it.  The thing itself—­well, the thing itself doesn’t seem to matter so immensely.  The significance of it is why you did it.”

Michael’s big, heavy-browed face lightened a moment.  “For a fellow who never thinks,” he said, “you think uncommonly well.  But the reasons are obvious enough.  You can guess sufficient reasons to account for it.”

“Let’s hear them anyhow,” said Francis.

Michael clouded again.

“Surely they are obvious,” he said.  “No one knows better than me, unless it is you, that I’m not like the rest of you.  My mind isn’t the build of a guardsman’s mind, any more than my unfortunate body is.  Half our work, as you know quite well, consists in being pleasant and in liking it.  Well, I’m not pleasant.  I’m not breezy and cordial.  I can’t do it.  I make a task of what is a pastime to all of you, and I only shuffle through my task.  I’m not popular, I’m not liked.  It’s no earthly use saying I am.  I don’t like the life; it seems to me senseless.  And those who live it don’t like me.  They think me heavy—­just heavy.  And I have enough sensitiveness to know it.”

Michael need not have stated his reasons, for his cousin could certainly have guessed them; he could, too, have confessed to the truth of them.  Michael had not the light hand, which is so necessary when young men work together in a companionship of which the cordiality is an essential part of the work; neither had he in the social side of life that particular and inimitable sort of easy self-confidence which, as he had said just now, enables its owner to float.  Except in years he was not young; he could not manage to be “clubable”; he was serious and awkward at a supper party; he was altogether without the effervescence which is necessary in order to avoid flatness.  He did his work also in the same conscientious but leaden way; officers and men alike felt it.  All this Francis knew perfectly well; but instead of acknowledging it, he tried quite fruitlessly to smooth it over.