“You don’t think you could hold out some hope that the thing will end quickly—something that would give me a reasonable excuse for softening down the pain of it to the family?”
“I would be perfectly willing to do anything which would take away the edge of this thing for the family, but the truth’s the truth, and I can’t see any room for equivocation between you and me. As I’ve said before, these relationships are involved with things which make it impossible to discuss them—unfair to me, unfair to the woman. No one can see how they are to be handled, except the people that are in them, and even they can’t always see. I’d be a damned dog to stand up here and give you my word to do anything except the best I can.”
Lester stopped, and now Robert rose and paced the floor again, only to come back after a time and say, “You don’t think there’s anything to be done just at present?”
“Not at present.”
“Very well, then, I expect I might as well be going. I don’t know that there’s anything else we can talk about.”
“Won’t you stay and take lunch with me? I think I might manage to get down to the hotel if you’ll stay.”
“No, thank you,” answered Robert. “I believe I can make that one o’clock train for Cincinnati. I’ll try, anyhow.”
They stood before each other now, Lester pale and rather flaccid, Robert clear, wax-like, well-knit, and shrewd, and one could see the difference time had already made. Robert was the clean, decisive man, Lester the man of doubts. Robert was the spirit of business energy and integrity embodied, Lester the spirit of commercial self-sufficiency, looking at life with an uncertain eye. Together they made a striking picture, which was none the less powerful for the thoughts that were now running through their minds.
“Well,” said the older brother, after a time, “I don’t suppose there is anything more I can say. I had hoped to make you feel just as we do about this thing, but of course you are your own best judge of this. If you don’t see it now, nothing I could say would make you. It strikes me as a very bad move on your part though.”
Lester listened. He said nothing, but his face expressed an unchanged purpose.