"It doesn't," Guy Brissenden presently said. "I do—'for' her—help to keep it up." And then, still unexpectedly to me, came out the rest of his confession. "I want to—I try to; that's what I mean by being kind to her, and by the gratitude with which she takes it. One feels that one doesn't want her to break down."
It was on this—from the poignant touch in it—that I at last felt I had burnt my ships and didn't care how much I showed I was with him. "Oh, but she won't. You must keep her going."
He stood a little with a thumb in each pocket of his trousers, and his melancholy eyes ranging far over my head—over the tops of the highest trees. "Who am I to keep people going?"
"Why, you're just the man. Aren't you happy?"
He still ranged the tree-tops. "Yes."
"Well, then, you belong to the useful class. You've the wherewithal to give. It's the happy people who should help the others."
He had, in the same attitude, another pause. "It's easy for you to talk!"
"Because I'm not happy?"
It made him bring his eyes again down to me. "I think you're a little so now at my expense."
I shook my head reassuringly. "It doesn't cost you anything if—as I confess to it now—I do to some extent understand."