Holton saw then that he hadn’t said the right thing. He tried to explain. “I don’t mean you shouldn’t start a business. I just mean something might go wrong.” He was saying worse things now; he stopped.
Jim changed the subject. “How do you like being out?”
“Oh, it’s pretty wonderful. Just to be able to stay in one place....”
“I guess it’s nice for a while.”
Holton sighed. “I don’t think I’ll ever travel again.”
Jim was surprised. “I thought you were going to go around the world. Don’t you remember when we used to talk about seeing more of Italy?”
“Well, maybe sometime. I hadn’t stopped moving for very long then.”
“No, that’s right, you hadn’t.” As they talked Jim Trebling became more uneasy. This was a person he had not met before and he was surprised and sorry. Robert Holton had been different as a soldier.
As they talked, the words forming conventional patterns and hiding their real thoughts, Jim thought of the war.
“You remember the time we were in Florence?”