"Yes.... I don't wish to be paid."
"Good Lord! You and I are professionals, Grismer, not beastly amateurs. Do you think I'd write for anybody unless I'm paid for it?"
Grismer's eyes held a curious expression as they rested on him. Then his features changed and he smiled and nodded carelessly:
"I'll do your fountain on your own terms. Tell me when you are ready."
Cleland rose:
"Won't you change your mind and lunch with me somewhere?"
"Thanks, no." Grismer also had risen, and the two men confronted each other for a moment in silence.
Then Grismer said:
"Cleland, I think you're the only man in the world for whom I have any real consideration. I haven't much use for men—no delusions. But it always has been different about you—even when we fought in school—even when I used to sneer at you sometimes.... And I want, somehow, to make you understand that I wish you well; that if it lay with me you should attain whatever you wish in life; that if attainment depended upon my stepping aside I'd do it.... That's all I can say. Think it over and try to understand."
Cleland, astonished, looked at him with unconcealed embarrassment.