“God, I need it!” Antony growled surprisingly.
And then I laughed—remembering Red Antony’s old way of acting cussed, just to surprise and annoy. He’d do anything to make a fool of some one, that man, even if he had to make a fool of himself in doing it. But as I laughed, Antony looked at me with furious, haggard eyes, and I stopped laughing.
I saw Tarlyon looking at him queerly. He knew Antony much better than I did, for many and many a year ago he was a junior subaltern in the mess when Antony threw a bottle at the head of an extremely superior officer. The bottle was full, the aim was true, and Antony was cashiered with all due pomp and dishonour. But, through all his subsequent follies, Tarlyon had liked him. One couldn’t, of course, defend Antony; but the very few who had once liked Red Antony always, somehow, went on liking him. There was something about the man, a sort of tremendous gallantry, an air of shameless bravado, a thunder of individuality, which might have made him a simple and lovable giant—but for a grain of rotten subtlety somewhere in him. Fine timber worm-eaten, Tarlyon said. Not, of course, said Tarlyon, that himself was anything to write home about.
“What’s the matter, old Antony?” Tarlyon asked kindly. “You’ve changed enormously....”
Now I had noticed no particular change, except, perhaps, that handsome Antony looked his forty years and more; but Tarlyon knew him better.
“How have I changed?” snapped Antony. He hated kindness; he thought he was being pitied.
“You look a bit worn, old boy, that’s all,” said George lightly.
“If it comes to that, you aren’t the man you were, what with war, wine, and women!”
“Talking of wine,” I thought to say, “one always understood that you’d die of drink, Antony. That’s probably what George meant when he said you looked worn.”