“I cannot understand you!” exclaimed Callandar, taking possession of the weapon Archie had laid down.
“It is hard enough to understand oneself, but I do at last,” said the other. “Once I thought life easy, but mine has been mighty difficult lately. From here on it will be quite simple. And there will not be much more of it, I fancy.”
“You are right there,” said Callandar grimly.
“I can see straight before me now. I tell you life has grown simple.”
“You lied at the cross roads.”
“I did. How you looked after me as I went! Well, I have done what I suppose no one has ever done before: I have threatened to report you for neglecting your duty.” He threw back his head and laughed. “And I am obliged to tell you to arrest me now. O Callandar, who will correct your backslidings when there is an end of me?”
The other did not smile as he looked at Flemington’s laughing eyes, soft and sparkling under the downward curve of his brows. Through his anger, the pity of it all was smiting him, though he was so little given to sentiment. Perhaps Archie’s charm had told on him all the time they had been together, though he had never decided whether he liked him or not. And he looked so young when he laughed.
“What have you done?” he cried, pacing suddenly up and down the little room. “You have run on destruction, Flemington; you have thrown your life away. Why have you done this—you?”
“If a thing is worthless, there is nothing to do but throw it away.”
Callandar watched him with pain in his eyes.