“And I suppose I’m not,” Jack answered, going over by the fireplace. “I know that as well as anyone, of course.”
“Natürlich,” said Burnett, with conclusiveness that was not meant to be cruel, yet cut like a two edged knife.
There was silence in the room. Jack stood by the chimney-piece, his hands upraised to rest upon its lofty shelf, his head dropped forward, and his eyes fixed on the empty blackness below.
“I wonder,” he said at last, “I wonder what will become of me if—if—”
He stopped.
Burnett didn’t speak.
“I wonder if she thinks of me as a boy,” the young man continued. “I wonder if she’s so good to me because I’m her youngest brother’s friend.”
Burnett did not comment on this speech.
“I don’t know what to do,” the other said. “When I first met her I wanted to cut college and get out in the world and go to work like a man. I told her so. But she wanted me to stay in college, and as it was the first thing she’d ever wanted of me, I did it. I’d do anything she asked me. I’ve quit drinking. I’m going at everything as hard as it’s in me to go; but—I don’t know—I feel—I feel as if it isn’t me—it’s just because she wants me to, and, do you know, old man, it frightens me to think how—if she—if she went out of my—my life—”
He stopped and his broken phrases were not continued to any ending.