“There must be a difference,” said Henry, shaking his head and looking very solemn. “If it had been Millie it mightn’t have mattered so much, because she’s been away a lot as it is, but with Katherine—you see, we’ve always thought that whatever misfortune happened, Katherine would be there—and now we can’t think that any longer.”
“But that,” said Philip, who’d drunk quite a number of whiskies by this time, “was very selfish of you. You couldn’t expect her never to marry.”
“We never thought about it,” said Henry. He spoke now rather confusedly and at random. “We aren’t the sort of people who look ahead. I suppose we haven’t got much imagination as a family. None of the Trenchards have. That’s why we’re fond of one another and can’t imagine ever not being.”
Philip leant forward. “Look here, Henry, I want us to be friends—real friends. I love Katherine so much that I would do anything for her. If she’s happy you won’t grudge her to me, will you?... I’ve felt a little that you, some of you, don’t trust me, that you don’t understand me. But I’m just what I seem: I’m not worthy of Katherine. I can’t think why she cares for me, but, as she does, it’s better, isn’t it, that she should be happy? If you’d all help me, if you’d all be friends with me—”
He had for some minutes been conscious that there was something odd about Henry. He had been intent on his own thoughts, but behind them something had claimed his attention. Henry was now waving a hand in the air vaguely, he was looking at his half-empty glass with an intent and puzzled eye. Philip broke off in the middle of his sentence, arrested suddenly by this strangeness of Henry’s eye, which was now fixed and staring, now red and wandering. He gazed at Henry, a swift, terrible suspicion striking him. Henry, with a face desperately solemn, gazed back at him. The boy then tried to speak, failed, and very slowly a large fat tear trembled down his cheek.
“I’m trying—I’m trying,” he began. “I’ll be your friend—always—I’ll get up—stand—explain.... I’ll make a speech,” he suddenly added.
“Good Lord!” Philip realised with a dismay pricked with astonishment, “the fellow’s drunk.” It had happened so swiftly that it was as though Henry were acting a part. Five minutes earlier Henry had apparently been perfectly sober. He had drunk three whiskies and sodas. Philip had never imagined this catastrophe, and now his emotions were a confused mixture of alarm, annoyance, impatience and disgust at his own imperception.
Whatever Henry had been five minutes ago, there was no sort of question about him now.
“Someone’s taken off my—b-boots,” he confided very confidentially to Philip. “Who—did?”
The one clear thought in Philip’s brain was that he must get Henry home quietly—from the Carlton table to Henry’s bed, and with as little noise as possible. Only a few people now remained in the Grill Room. He summoned the waiter, paid the bill. Henry watched him.