Max reddened. "You make me angry with this 'I do not know!' and 'I am not so sure!' The matter is like day. You cannot submerge your personality and yet retain it."
"I don't know! I'd submerge mine to-morrow if I could find an alter ego!"
"Then, mon cher, you are a fool!"
Blake drank his coffee meditatively. "Some say the fools are happier than the wise men! I remember a poor fool of a boy at home in Clare who used to say that he danced every night with the fairies on the rath, and I often thought he was happier than the people who listened to him out of pity, and shook their heads and laughed behind his back!"
Max looked up, and as he looked the anger died out of his eyes.
"Ned, mon cher, you are very patient with me!"
Blake turned. "What do you mean?"
"What I say—that you are patient. Why is it?"
"Oh, I don't know. I'm fond of you, I suppose."
"I am, then, a good comrade?"