The two survivors of the originating trio passed into this room together, and closed the door behind them.
“The worst of one's own private tragedies is that they are usually only comedies in disguise,” said Jack Meredith oracularly.
Guy Oscard grunted. He was looking for his pipe.
“If we heard this of any two fellows except ourselves we should think it an excellent joke,” went on Meredith.
Oscard nodded. He lighted his pipe, and still he said nothing.
“Hang it!” exclaimed Jack Meredith, suddenly throwing himself back in his chair, “it is a good joke.”
He laughed softly, and all the while his eyes, watchful, wise, anxious, were studying Guy Oscard's face.
“He is harder hit than I am,” he was reflecting. “Poor old Oscard!”
The habit of self-suppression was so strong upon him—acquired as a mere social duty—that it was only natural for him to think less of himself than of the expediency of the moment. The social discipline is as powerful an agent as that military discipline that makes a man throw away his own life for the good of the many.
Oscard laughed, too, in a strangely staccato manner.