To his horror Philip saw that his friend was in a measure reconciled to death. This to a pagan like Philip, was incomprehensible.
Now that he had talked more freely, Lester was calmer and his dejection was not so pronounced as at first. Silence had fallen on them and they sat looking into the fire, each busy with his own thoughts.
“Let's talk about when we were boys,” Lester finally said. “You do the talking just as you did when I saw you last. Do you know if I can't sleep nights—and I can't most of the time—I like to think about it: the past that stops where my folly began. In all the years since I came of age, there is nothing I want to remember—it's all agony to me. Talk about when we were boys, Philip—about what we did in vacation. You were always such a good old chap!”
He put his hand on Philip's arm and let it rest there affectionately while Philip in a low voice began to speak of the past,—and at the telling much that was hard in his own nature grew soft. A strange gentleness came into the hearts of both, as Philip talked of their boyhood. When the winding country roads knew the marks of their bare feet in the dust; when, stripped of clothing and shame, they lay lazily upon the hot sand by the river's brim, and afterward took the long walk for home through the scented dusk. Back to the days when they were dirty and happy—when respectability knew them not at all—Philip carried them. And Lester saw in the fire, the red of the sunshine; in the smoke, the darkness of night,—the warm summer nights that were filled with peace and sleep.
Surely, it was better then—and as he listened his head fell over on his shoulder, his eyes closed, while still as in a dream he heard the murmur of Philip's voice, saw the pictures he drew, and then he slept.
Philip moved noiselessly to the table where the lamp burned. This he blew out so that only the firelight filled the room, the firelight and the colder brightness the moon sent stealing in through the windows.
As the hours wore on, he kept his watch at the sleeper's side, thinking and wondering what it all meant and what the end would be.
It was almost day when Lester woke.
“Better, Lester?” he asked.
“Yes. I wish I were back to it. I wish I were a boy again. I am sick of the present, and the future has nothing for me. You know I can't keep from the very things that are killing me. I try and try and then I fail.”