'That depends on what you—I wasn't exactly sporty, but—oh, you don't know the trouble I've had, Humphrey. Then my mother died, and I hadn't been half-decent to her, and I was left alone, and my uncle had to pay my debts out of the principal—it was hundreds of dollars——'
His voice died out.
There was an element of pathos in the picture before him that Humphrey recognised with some sympathy—the gloomy lad of twenty, with that absurd little moustache that he couldn't let alone. After all, he had been rather put to it. It began to appear that he had suppressed himself without mercy. There would doubtless be reactions. Perhaps explosions.
Henry went on:—
'I don't know what's happened to me. I don't feel right about things. I'—he hesitated, glanced up, then down, and his ears reddened—'I've been going with Martha Caldwell, you know. For a long time.'
Humphrey nodded.
'Mondays and Thursdays I go over there, and other times. I don't seem to want to go any more. But I get mixed up about it. I—I don't want them to say I'm fickle. They used to say it.'
'You've evidently got gifts,' observed Humphrey, as if thinking aloud. 'You've got some fire in you. The trouble with you now, of course, is that you're stale.' Humphrey deliberately considered the situation, then remarked: 'You asked me if a man can change his nature. I begin to see now. You've been trying to do that to yourself, for quite a while.'
Henry nodded.
'Well, I suppose you'll find that you can't do it. Not quite that. The fire that's in you isn't going to stop burning just because you tell it to.'