“What’s eating you, colonel?” he asked presently.
Kirk frowned in silence at the Undeniable for a few moments. Then the pent-up misery of months exploded in a cascade of words. He jumped up and began to walk restlessly about the studio.
“Damn it! Steve, I ought not to say a word, I know. It’s weak and cowardly and bad taste and everything else you can think of to speak of it—even to you. One’s supposed to stand this sort of roasting at the stake with a grin, as if one enjoyed it. But, after all, you are different. It’s not as if it was any one. You are different, aren’t you?”
“Sure.”
“Well, you know what’s wrong as well as I do.”
“Surest thing you know. It’s hit me, too.”
“How’s that?”
“Well, things ain’t the same. That’s about what it comes to.”
Kirk stopped and looked at him. His expression was wistful. “I ought not to be talking about it.”
“You go right ahead, squire,” said Steve soothingly. “I know just how you feel, and I guess talking’s not going to do any harm. Act as if I wasn’t here. Look on it as a monologue. I don’t amount to anything.”