"You are the one man I do want to see, Norvil. Even a miserable devil like me can talk to you, and there's a thing I want you to do for me, if you will."
"Name it."
Haswell glanced wearily about the big room and assured himself that no one was near enough to overhear his unbosoming. He still spoke in the dulled voice of a dulled heart. His utterance, like his movements, was slow and labored.
"There are times when you've got to talk—or get to feeling giddy and wrong in the head. I've about cut most of my clubs, but I can't cut meeting the men—down-town."
The Englishman nodded, but he said nothing.
"I'm getting rather sick of being asked—" Len halted, then forced the words doggedly—"how Loraine is and when I expect her back. I—well, I don't expect her back, and it hurts like hell to say so."
Norvil met the other's eyes and read in them a fulness of dumb suffering, such as might come into those of a great, faithful dog. His own question followed with a softness of assured sympathy. "And, of course, you want her back?"
A paroxysm of pain distorted his companion's face and his head flinched back as though it had been heavily struck.
"God! yes, like a strangling man wants breath," he said.
It was a misery for which there was no aid, so Thayre satisfied himself with the inquiry: "What is this thing you want me to do?"