Up at Shortlands there were lights in the windows, as if nobody had gone to bed. On the landing-stage was the old doctor, the father of the young man who was lost. He stood quite silent, waiting. Birkin also stood and watched, Gerald came up in a boat.
“You still here, Rupert?” he said. “We can’t get them. The bottom slopes, you know, very steep. The water lies between two very sharp slopes, with little branch valleys, and God knows where the drift will take you. It isn’t as if it was a level bottom. You never know where you are, with the dragging.”
“Is there any need for you to be working?” said Birkin. “Wouldn’t it be much better if you went to bed?”
“To bed! Good God, do you think I should sleep? We’ll find ’em, before I go away from here.”
“But the men would find them just the same without you—why should you insist?”
Gerald looked up at him. Then he put his hand affectionately on Birkin’s shoulder, saying:
“Don’t you bother about me, Rupert. If there’s anybody’s health to think about, it’s yours, not mine. How do you feel yourself?”
“Very well. But you, you spoil your own chance of life—you waste your best self.”
Gerald was silent for a moment. Then he said:
“Waste it? What else is there to do with it?”