Stainton's iron-grey brows drew together. "I don't understand."
"Of course it sounds unusual to you," admitted Holt. "If you did understand, you wouldn't do this thing. You don't understand; you can't, and that's just the pity of the whole business." Like all men of his stripe, he gathered both conviction and courage from the sound of his own voice. "You've lived in the desert and such places like a what-do-y'-call-it—anchorite—and had opium-dreams without the fun of a smoke."
Stainton stiffened.
"I didn't ask your advice," said he.
"You wanted it," Holt ventured.
"I don't mind your giving it if it amuses you," said Stainton, shrugging his shoulders; "but I am quite clear on one point: you are what most city-bred men are: you have looked so hard after happiness that, when you see it, you can't enjoy it."
"Am I?" The liquor was burning in Holt's eyes. "Perhaps I am, but that rule works two ways. Some fellows don't look hard enough. I don't know, but I imagine if a man never uses his eyes he goes blind."
Stainton, who had carried a few of his books to the West with him, wanted to quote Cicero: "Sis a veneris amoribus aversus; quibus si te dedideris, non aliud quidquam possis cogitare quam illud quod diligis." All that he said, however, was:
"I have tried to live in such a way that I may be fit to look a good woman in the face."
"What man alive is fit to do that?" Holt answered.