Donaldson started as at the cut of a whip-lash. Then he straightened to meet face to face this new development. Somehow this contingency had never occurred to him. Now for the moment it disarmed him, for it brought him down, like a wounded bird, to the level of Arsdale himself. As voiced by the latter the act expressed the climax of simpering cowardice. Donaldson, in the first shock of finding himself included in the same indictment with the very man for whom he had had so little mercy, felt the same powerlessness that had paralyzed this other. He was shorn of his strength. He blinked as stupidly at Arsdale as Arsdale had blinked at him.
But even as he stood with loose lips before the infirm features of the younger man, he realized that Arsdale's talk had been the chatter of a child. He had used the phrase idly and, although it was possible he might in just as idle a mood commit the act itself, Donaldson was convinced that it was not yet a fixed idea. With this came the inspiration which gave him a fresh grip upon himself, that revealed his great opportunity; he would make Arsdale see all that he himself had learned in these few days. So in reality he would be giving the best of his life to another.
It was like oxygen to one struggling for breath through congested lungs. He went to the window and in great deep-chested inhalations stood for a moment drinking in not only the fresh air but with it the spirit of the eager, turbulent world which was bathed in it, the world that he now saw so clearly. The sun flashing from the neighboring windows glinted its glad message of life; the rumbling of the passing traffic roared it to him in a thundering message, like that of shattered sea waves; the deep cello-like undernote of the city itself sang it to him. And the message of all the voices was just, "It is good to live! It is good to be!"
He turned back, seeing a new man in the chair before him. Here was a brother—a brother in a truer sense than a better man could have been. Coming from different directions, along different roads, through different temptations, they had reached at last the crumbling edge of the same dark chasm. They faced the same eternal problem. That made them brothers. But Donaldson had already seen, already learned; that made him the stronger brother.
His face was alight, his body alert, as he came to Arsdale's side. The latter looked up at him in surprise, feeling his presence before he saw. Donaldson's first words stirred him,
"You can't pull out," he said, "because you 're out already. You must pull in. Don't you see,—you must pull back!"
"You don't understand what I mean."
"A great deal better than you yourself do. And in the light of that understanding I tell you that you can't do it,—that it is n't the way."
"I 'm no good to any one," Arsdale complained dully. "I don't see why it would n't be better for everyone if I just quit."
The word quit was a biting gnome to Donaldson.