"My dear old fellow, how well you are looking!" said Max, as he drew off his gloves and brushed some dust from his coat sleeve. He had just arrived from Yorkshire, and had arranged to spend a portion of his leave in town before going down to Hampshire to visit our respected parents.
"I am wonderfully fit," I answered. "How are you?"
"Only pretty well," he replied, and I noticed as he spoke that his face looked older and more careworn than when I had last seen him. What was more, his manner seemed to have lost much of its old vivacity. The change startled me more than I can say, and my fears were far from being allayed when, half an hour later, he communicated to me the direful intelligence that he had determined to resign his commission in the army.
"I cannot get on with it," he said. "I do not take the least interest in it; and, if the truth must be told, I am far better out of it. I am only sorry that they ever permitted me to take it up."
"My dear old fellow," I answered, "this is the worst news that I have heard for a long time. You surely cannot be serious?"
"I could not be more serious if my life depended upon it," he returned. "Don't imagine that I have acted hastily and without thought. I have given the matter the fullest possible consideration, and the step I am about to take is the result. It will hurt our mother terribly, I fear, but it cannot be helped."
"And what do you intend to do when you have left the army?" I asked, more for the sake of saying something and having time to collect my thoughts, than for any other reason.
"I don't know," he replied gloomily. "Upon my word, I do not. The truth of the matter is, Paul, old man, I'm a failure, an abject failure. I have guessed it for years, and now I am certain of it."
He looked so sad, that I crossed the room and took his hand. "You musn't say that," I began. "You know how proud we all are of you, and how our hopes are centred on you."
Then, with what was for me unusual earnestness, I continued, "Think of Pannonia! This wretched fiasco of a republic cannot endure much longer, and then our father will abdicate in your favour, and you will be king. Isn't that something to look forward to and to work for?"