“All right then, old fellow?”
“Quite.”
And we are two human beings, brothers even, living from day to day and indifferent to the fates!
Whether the passion in him that Letty had fired has died out or is only smoldering, I have no way of knowing. I am inclined to think it is his pride that suffers most. I do not think there is any black resolve back of his mind. His imagination is not apt to run away with him. But, having written this, I wonder. He is a nature utterly incomprehensible to me, and daily contact seems to send him further away. I am living with a stranger.
II
This afternoon we saw Alan. I had sent him word of our arrival at Bordeaux, before I knew I should have the opportunity to see him. As a matter of fact, I was apprehensive of what might happen, for both Alan and Ben are strong-willed and direct to the point. But to my surprise the meeting passed off without incident. We sat down as though twenty years had not passed and the leader was not Alan nor myself, but Ben. We both felt it. From the moment he walked into the room, he was the older brother and tradition held.
It was a curious phenomenon, yet one that I have noticed before on meeting again some hero of school days; an idolatry does abide that nothing in the passage of human life can destroy. It is probably this reason—the need of revolting against a mastership once acknowledged—that drives certain strong growing natures away from the dwarfing influences of the family.
Alan was alone when we entered, though Toinon came in shortly afterward.
“Well, Skipper, pretty banged up, aren’t you?”
Ben had come in with outstretched hand, as though there had never been a cloud between them, and Alan, who had hung back at my first approach, found himself shaking hands, yielding, allowing himself to be ordered around by the man against whom he had steeled his heart.