"Things can never be the same again," was the doleful refrain of all Gracie's thoughts as she tossed and tumbled that night, very weary but far too troubled to sleep.
And at Carne there were two more in like case.
"Seen Mr. Eager?" asked Jack when Jim came in.
"Yes," nodded Jim, and nothing more passed between them on the subject.
But here too things could never be quite the same again, for, good friends as ever though they might remain in all outward seeming, neither could rid his mind of the fact that the other desired beyond every other thing in life the prize on which his own heart was set. And that ever-recurring thought tended, no matter how they might try to withstand it, to division. Similarity of aim, when there is but one prize, inevitably produces rivalry, and rivalry scission.
They strove against it.
"Jim, old boy, this mustn't divide us," said Jack next day, when both were feeling somewhat mouldy.
"Course not," growled Jim, but all the same the cloud was over them.
Eager had asked them to come in to tea that afternoon, so that he might be with them all at this first meeting and help to round awkward corners.
But they all three felt somewhat gauche and ill at ease at first, as was only natural. For Gracie's face, swept by conscious blushes, was lovelier than ever, and set both their hearts jumping the moment she came into the room. And it is no easy matter for a girl to appear at her ease in the company of two love-sick young men who know all about each other's feelings and hers.