"My word! Let's—let's look at one another and take stock."
Stonehouse sat back and bore the inspection with a faint smile. He knew himself, and how he impressed others. The eight years had done a great deal for him. His strength had cast its crudeness and had attained a certain grace—the ease of absolute control and tried confidence in itself. He still dressed badly—indifferently, rather—but his body had toned down to the level of the fine hands, which he held loosely clasped upon the table.
He looked at once very young and very fine drawn and, as Cosgrave thought, a little cruel.
"You seem—awfully well and prosperous, Robert. And a sight better looking."
Stonehouse laughed. All he said in reply was:
"And you look prosperous and ill. What was it? Enteric?"
Cosgrave shrugged his thin shoulders. He was still flamboyantly red-headed and generously freckled, but now that the first flush of excitement had ebbed, his face showed a parchment yellow. His eyes, wistful in their setting, were faded, as though a relentless tropical sun had drunk up their once vivid, boyish colouring.
"Oh yes, that and a few other trifles. I think I've housed most West African bugs in my time. Everyone had them, but I was such poor pasture that I got off better than most. Three of my superiors died of 'em, and I stepped right into their shoes. It pays, you see, if you can hold out. People like a fellow who isn't always clamouring to come home—and you bet I never did. But, finally, I took an overdue leave and a hunk of savings and trekked back. I'd always planned it—a good time, you know—but somehow it hasn't come off. I expect I left it too long. In the end I didn't really want to come at all—wanted to lie down and die, but hadn't the strength of mind to insist. I'd been in London a week before I wrote you—just drifting round—too weak-kneed to take the first step. I tore up that idiotic note three times."
"Well, as long as you posted the fourth effort," Stonehouse said, "it's all right."
They fell then unexpectedly into one of those difficult silences which beset the road of friends who have been separated too long. The past stood at their elbow like an importunate and shabby ghost. And yet it was all they had to lead them back into the old intimacy.