He took the packet from me in silence, but I saw his hands shake and the crow's-feet gather about his eyes. He fumbled with the seals, then let the packet drop on the table, and looked at me again as I blurted out: "I have said nothing--not a word."
"I do not understand, sir."
"John Mazarion," I cut in, "you are still to her what you have ever been. Man! you know not what you are throwing away. See here, John! You are my oldest friend, and I can't let you go like this. Pull up and turn round; give yourself a chance. If--if money is wanted--well, I've saved a bit----"
He simply leaned back in his chair and laughed. And such a laugh! There was not a ring of mirth in it--a tuneless, mocking laugh such as might come from the throat of a devil. Then he stopped and looked at me, the hard lines still in the corners of his mouth and round his eyes.
"Thring, you're a meddlesome fool! Take my advice and let each man stir his own porridge. I want no interference and none of your damned advice. I mean to live my own life."
"It isn't of you alone I am thinking."
He fairly shook with rage. "Go!" he burst out. "Go! I hate the sight of you, with your lips full of talk about duty and self-respect and honour. Go!"
I left the man, but for all his violence I felt that his anger was really against himself, and that my words had gone home.
A year, two years passed. Three times in this interval I had heard from Nelly, and on each occasion the letter was not so much for me as to obtain news of Mazarion. She was still watching and waiting--wasting the treasures of her heart as many another woman has done on men as worthless as Mazarion. And I--I was powerless to help her for whom I would have given my life. Twice I had answered to say that I had no news to give; but on the third occasion it was on the heels of her letter that news reached me. It came from the commander of a river steamer who dined with me in my lonely district house on the banks of the Irawadi.
"The man has practically gone to the devil," said Jarman in his blunt outspoken way; "he got a touch of the sun about a year ago."