"Recently?"
"Over a year ago was the last time."
"And why not since?"
He shook his head and did not answer for a moment. And then, with the same odd suddenness, he added: "I don't want you to misunderstand.... She gave up writing to me—no doubt—because I gave up answering her."
"Why did you?"
"Because—I couldn't answer. The letters she wrote were the sort I didn't know how to answer."
The orchestra struck up again, and we walked stealthily away through the trees. It seemed to me that the opportunity had arrived for saying a good deal that I had intended to say some time or other. I told him outright that I thought he was in great danger of making a hash of his life. "Still?" he said; and the word was an answer to everything. I said that perhaps I had put the matter a shade too tragically, although, undoubtedly, it was serious. He was, to be quite frank about it, working too hard. "I don't care," I said, "how important your work is; there are two things you ought never to sacrifice to it—friendship and recreation."
"Well?"
The word was disconcerting. "Of course, I know it isn't any of my business, but still—you are working too hard—you must realize that. Why don't you take a holiday—a month, say—and come to England? My landlady could easily put you up."
He shook his head. It was good of me, he said, but he couldn't possibly manage it. He couldn't leave his work, and besides that, there were other reasons. It would cost too much, for one thing.... And then (with a sudden agitation of voice) why should he go to England? What was there in England for him?