Lee’s eyes narrowed as his glance shifted from the window to Mauney’s face, but he said nothing.
“I could never talk this way,” Mauney continued, “except that I could talk to anybody, just now. We used to be pretty good pals, but that’s apparently over. We both know why, but neither of us will admit it. There’s a woman behind it. No need to mention names. You told me you loved her.”
“Well, what about it?” asked Lee.
“Just this—that I love her, too.”
“I knew that,” he said simply, playing a tattoo on the top of the desk. “I knew that long ago. It’s no secret and, well, I suppose she knows you love her, eh?”
“Not yet. But she’s going to be told. I hate doing anything underhanded.” Mauney paused to look searchingly at the thin, wistful face of his friend. “What are you going to do about it?” he asked.
“Why, nothing at all. What did you think I would do—try to murder you?”
Lee rose slowly and put his foot on the chair to tie his shoe-string. Mauney saw his thin, white hands, thinner and whiter than a month ago, tremble as he fumbled the knot.
“Why, no,” he said, straightening himself up. “I’m not going to do anything about it. I’m the loser, that’s all. I’m not morbid about it. It’s a losing game all along the line with me. But I have no fear—none whatever. That’s what I can’t understand.”
Mauney knew that Lee was thinking of death. There was death written on his pale face, whose cheeks had become more concave than before. His eyes burned with a fire too bright for normal fuel to have kindled. And Mauney’s bosom burned with pity that he could not have mentioned for worlds, for he felt that he must treat Lee as if he were strong. He would have given anything to be delivered from the necessity.