Tietjens patted him on the shoulder, Macmaster being on the stairs above him.
"It's all right, old man," he had said—and with real affection: "We've powlered up and down enough for a little thing like that not to . . . I'm very glad. . . ." Macmaster had whispered:
"And Valentine. . . . She's not here to-night. . . ."
He had exclaimed:
"By God! . . . If I thought . . ." Tietjens had said: "It's all right. It's all right. She's at another party. . . . I'm going on . . ."
Macmaster had looked at him doubtingly and with misery, leaning over and clutching the clammy banisters.
"Tell her . . ." he said . . . "Good God! You may be killed. . . . I beg you . . . I beg you to believe . . . I will . . . Like the apple of my eye. . . ." In the swift glance that Tietjens took of his face he could see that Macmaster's eyes were full of tears.
They both stood looking down at the stone stairs for a long time.
Then Macmaster had said: "Well . . ."
Tietjens had said: "Well . . ." But he hadn't been able to look at Macmaster's eyes, though he had felt his friend's eyes pitiably exploring his own face. . . . "A backstairs way out of it," he had thought; a queer thing that you couldn't look in the face a man you were never going to see again!