Under the stars he endeavoured to account for his extraordinary choosing of the way.
"I've three reasons for keeping straight. To begin with, I've got a conviction that I'll write something great if I don't go to the devil first. Then, there's Horace Jewdwine."
Maddox hardened his face; he had been told not to talk about Jewdwine, and he wasn't going to.
"If I go to the devil, he won't go with me. Say what you like, he's a saint compared with you and me. If he doesn't understand Songs of Confession, it's because he's never had anything to confess. The third reason—if I go to the devil—no, I can't tell you the third reason. It's also the reason why I wear my magnificent trousers. All the reasons amount to that. If I go to the devil I can't wear those trousers. Never, Maddox, believe me, never again."
Maddox smiled, and, unlike Maddox, he said one thing and thought another.
What he said was. "Your trousers, Ricky-ticky, are of too heavenly a pattern for this wicked world. They are such stuff as dreams are made of, and their little life—" he paused. What he thought was—"Your way, Ricky-ticky, is deuced hard for the likes of me. But I'll go with you as far as I can, my son."
Under the stars they looked into each other's faces and they knew themselves aright.