‘A real friendship can never be broken,’ answered Graham slowly. ‘If you think that ours can, then it is not a very great one—even now.’
Brocklehurst nodded his head. ‘I wonder what you call a real friendship!’
‘Oh, if you have to ask——!’
‘It is only because I want you to tell me,’ he said softly.
Graham smiled. Then suddenly he saw the opening for which he had been waiting. ‘One of the signs of a real friendship is not to be afraid to speak openly to your friend of all that concerns both him and you.’
‘Ah, that means you have something rather unpleasant to tell me, doesn’t it?’ Brocklehurst inquired with a not unkindly irony. ‘Friends should have no secrets from each other, I expect?’
‘They ought to share everything,’ Graham replied simply; ‘and more than anything else they ought to share their thoughts.’
Brocklehurst paused. ‘Shall we sit down here,’ he asked, with a faint sigh, ‘before we begin?’
‘You make it very hard for me,’ Graham murmured, colouring a little.