"This is—this is rather a delicate situation, isn't it?" he said at last with a little deprecatory, nervous smile.
"Nothing seems unusual or impossible these days," said Hal easily.
"Well, you see," said the other, "I was intended for the diplomatic service, but I'm afraid I'm rather direct."
What a kid it was, thought Hal.
"An engaging frankness is sometimes the highest form of diplomacy," he said encouragingly.
"Well, you see," said the other gathering courage, "she has come to rely on me so completely, on my judgment as it were——"
"She? Oh, yes, my wife."
"Yes, yes," eagerly assented the lover, so absorbed in his own romance as to be beautifully oblivious to any other point of view. Hal smoked and kept an inscrutable face, while his heart sang within him, going with the wind and tide, going out of these eddies, these twists and turns, out into the broad ocean and on to a new world.
Yester walked over to the writing-table and began to play nervously with its furnishings.
"I wanted to say certain things to you, and I—I—I find I hardly know how." Then he pulled himself together as his mind went back over their acquaintance. "You see, as she had no other friends, as she was in trouble and in bad health, my sympathies were naturally enlisted, and almost before either of us realized it—well, you see, while I think you have behaved very badly, I—eh—now that we have met, I—will you let me say, I feel very sorry for you?"