“You’re crazy, Jerry,” I said. “I had dinner with them. There’s nothing the matter.” That was what my people thought too until Janet and Lew separated, openly, a couple of weeks later.
Jerry came into my room and, as soon as I saw him, I flung my book to the foot of the bed; for it was perfectly plain, even to my sort of wits, that something mighty amazing to him had happened. He was pale and his blue eyes looked positively big; he has fine eyes, Jerry; you like them, though they take hold of you and seem to look through you; the reason you like them, in spite of this, is that while finding out something of you, they grant you a good deal of him. So they told me now that Jerry was afraid; and, though we have been companions for twenty-eight years—that is, since we were babies—and though that companionship includes service in the Argonne, I had never seen him so afraid before.
He’d come upstairs with his overcoat on, over his evening clothes, for he’d been at Ina Sparling’s wedding, and he hadn’t even dropped his hat downstairs.
“How long you been home, Steve?” he asked, coming beside me.
“Since half-past twelve,” I said.
“Awake all the time?”
“Yes, Jerry.”
“Anybody call for me?”
“No.”
“You’ve not heard the ’phone at all?”