“Why should I?” Alan countered in his usual way.
“I don’t know. I think it’s time you did,” said Michael. “You’ve no idea how much older it makes you feel. And I suppose you don’t want to remain a kid for ever. Because, you know, old chap, you are an awful kid beside me.”
“Thanks very much,” said Alan. “I believe you’re exactly one month older, as a matter of fact.”
“Yes, in actual time,” said Michael earnestly. “But in experience I’m years older than you.”
“That must be why you’re such a rotten field,” commented Alan. “After forty the joints get stiff.”
“Oh, chuck being funny,” said Michael severely. “I’m in earnest. Now you know as well as I do that last term and the term before I was miserable. Well, look at me now. I’m absolutely happy.”
“I thought you were so frightfully depressed,” said Alan, twinkling. “I thought you’d had an unlucky love affair. It seems to take you differently from the way it takes most people.”
“Oh, of course, I was miserable,” Michael explained. “But now I’m happy in her happiness. That’s love.”
Alan burst out laughing, and Michael observed that if he intended to receive his confidences in such a flippant way, he would in future take care to be more secretive.
“I’m showing you what a lot I care about you,” Michael went on in tones of deepest injury, “by telling you about myself. I think it’s rather rotten of you to laugh.”