“I can’t sleep,” muttered Stanny.
“No more can I. Let’s walk then.”
When they had gone a block, Stanny stopped short, and faced Wilfred. “I know I’m a bloody fool,” he said ill-temperedly. “Now are you satisfied?”
Wilfred slipped his arm through Stanny’s “I’m a bloodier fool than you, old fellow, and my heart’s just as heavy!”
“Oh, for God’s sake!” cried Stanny passionately. “You and your heart! Do you think I can’t see that you’re saying that just to make me feel better? Nothing can touch you! I wish to God you’d give over trying to manage me like a woman!”
Wilfred laughed.
When they got to the corner of Washington Square, Stanny kept straight on, and by that Wilfred knew that he was coming to his place. As they turned in at the old iron gate, rusting under its hundred coats of paint, in Stanny’s sullen eyes could be read as plainly as if it had been spoken, his intention of inveigling Wilfred into going to bed, and afterwards slipping out again.
As soon as they got inside Wilfred’s room, they started to quarrel viciously. Wilfred insisted on making up the fire, and Stanny said they shouldn’t need it. Then about the bed. Stanny all but knocked Wilfred into his own bed. Wilfred however, insisted on lying down on the moth-eaten bearskin before the fire. Stanny looked as if he would have liked to kick him there.
“You might as well take the bed,” said Wilfred.
“I’m damned if I will!” cried Stanny passionately.