“A man's got to stand up under a thing like this, you know. I mean, it mustn't be a knockout. Keeping busy is a darned good method.”
Joe shook himself free, but without resentment. “I'll tell you what's eating me up,” he exploded. “It's Max Wilson. Don't talk to me about her going to the hospital to be useful. She's crazy about him, and he's as crooked as a dog's hind leg.”
“Perhaps. But it's always up to the girl. You know that.”
He felt immeasurably old beside Joe's boyish blustering—old and rather helpless.
“I'm watching him. Some of these days I'll get something on him. Then she'll know what to think of her hero!”
“That's not quite square, is it?”
“He's not square.”
Joe had left him then, wheeling abruptly off into the shadows. K. had gone home alone, rather uneasy. There seemed to be mischief in the very air.