'You're a lucky brute, Hen!'
Henry started; glanced up; fumbled at his moustache. 'You're wondering why I said that. But, man, you're a genius—Yes, you are! I have to plug for it. But you've got the flare. You know well enough what's loaded all this circulation on us. Your stories! Not a thing else. You'll do more of 'em. You'll be famous.'
'Oh, no, Hump I You don't know how I've——'
'Yes, you'll be famous. I won't. It's a gift—fame, success. It's a sort of edge God—or something—puts on a man. A cutting edge. You've simply got it. I simply haven't.'
Henry pulled and pulled at his moustache.
'And you've got a girl—a lovely girl. She's mad about you—oh, yes she is! I know. I've seen her look at you.'
'But, Hump, you don't just know what——'
'She doesn't have to hide her feelings. Not seriously, not with a lying smile. And you don't have to hide yours. You haven't got this furtive rope around your neck, strangling the breath of decent morality out of your soul. Thank God you don't know what it means—that struggle. She'll be announcing her engagement one of these days.
'There'll be presents and flowers. You'll get stirred up and write something a thousand times better than you know how to write. Money will come—oh, yes it will! It'll roll to you, Hen. For a time. Or at times. And you'll marry—a nice clean wedding. God, just to think of it is like the May winds off the lake!'
He threw out his long arms. Henry thought, perversely enough, that he looked like Lincoln.