He got up and began pacing the floor, his hands clenched behind his back. Simmy smoked in silence, apparently absorbed in watching the angry clouds that blackened the western sky.
Presently Thorpe resumed his seat in the window. His eyes did not meet Simmy's as the latter turned toward him. He look straight out over the tops of the great apartment houses on the far side of the Park.
"How long has she been living down there alone?" he asked again.
"Five or six weeks."
"When did you last see her?"
"Yesterday. She's been dreadfully nervous ever since the blowing up of the Lusitania. I asked her to go to the pier with me. She refused. See here, Brady," said Simmy, rising suddenly and laying his hand on the other's shoulder, "what are you going to do about Anne?"
"Nothing. Anne can never be anything to me, nor I to her," said Thorpe, white-faced and stern. His face was rigid.
"Nonsense! You love her, don't you?"
"Yes. That has nothing to do with it, however."
"And she loves you. I suppose that hasn't anything to do with it, either. I suppose it is right and proper and natural that you both should go on loving each other to the end of time without realising the joys of—"