“Wickham has the quality of greatness,” he said. “I don’t mean to say he’s great now. Not at all. I think he’s fumbling and groping, not sure of himself, afraid of his best instincts, thinking his worst may be right. But one day he will straighten all that out and have a call as loud as a trumpet. What I like is his moodiness and bad temper.”
“Queer taste, doctor!” I remarked. “When old Brand is in the sulks there’s nothing doing with him. He’s like a bear with a sore ear.”
“Sure!” said Dr. Small. “That’s exactly it. He is biting his own sore ear. I guess with him, though, it’s a sore heart. He keeps moping and fretting and won’t let his wounds heal. That’s what makes him different from most others, especially you English. You go through frightful experiences and then forget them and say, ‘Funny old world, young fellah! Come and have a drink.’ You see civilisation rocking like a boat in a storm, but you say, in your English way, ‘Why worry?’... Wickham worries. He wants to put things right, and make the world safer for the next crowd. He thinks of the boys who will have to fight in the next war—wants to save them from his agonies.”
“Yes, he’s frightfully sensitive underneath his mask of ruggedness,” I said.
“And romantic,” said the doctor.
“Romantic?”
“Why, yes. That girl, Eileen O’Connor, churned up his heart all right. Didn’t you see the worship in his eyes? It made me feel good.”
I laughed at the little doctor, and accused him of romanticism.
“Anyhow,” I said, more seriously. “Eileen O’Connor is not without romance herself, and I don’t know what she wrote in that letter to Franz von Kreuzenach, but I suspect she re-opened an episode which had best be closed.... As for Brand, I think he’s asking for trouble of the same kind. If he sees much of that girl Elsa I won’t answer for him. She’s amazingly pretty, and full of charm from what Brand tells me.”
“I guess he’ll be a darned fool if he fixes up with that girl,” growled the doctor.