“I should like to have been with you.” The tone was non-committal. “Strange to say I like to see people in that frame of mind. It makes for optimism. Will his new effort, you think, stand on its own legs?”
“Yes; always providing nothing interferes. I’ve seen the first half. It’s more than good. It’s excellent. You’re in it, distinct as life, by the way.”
Roberts lit a cigar and smoked for a minute in silence. 323
“I’m sorry, sincerely, that I’m there,” he said then. He gazed at his companion steadily, and with a significance Randall never forgot. “I used to fancy I wasn’t afraid of anything. I’m not afraid of most things,—dynamite or nitro-glycerine or murderous fanatics or physical pain; but in the last year I’ve learned there’s one thing on earth, one person, I’m afraid of—deathly afraid. You know who?”
“Yes.”
“I predicted once he would make good. I believed it then. Since I’ve been alone a good deal and had much time to think, and question. That’s why I am afraid.” Roberts paused to smoke, seemingly impassive. “I’d give every cent I have in the world and start anew to-morrow without breakfast if I could only know, only know to a certainty that he would keep his grip. But will he?... I’m afraid!”
Scarcely knowing what he did, Randall lit a cigar in turn and smoked like a furnace. His tongue attempted to form an assurance, but try as he might he could not give it voice. Once he had promised not to lie to that man opposite, ever; and in the depths of his own soul he knew that he, too, was afraid. At last, 324 in self-confessed rout, he voiced the commonplace.
“It’s my turn to ask questions now, I think,” he said. “Are you back to stay?”
Roberts looked up, only half comprehending; he roused himself.
“No. I intend to close out everything. I doubt if I ever stay anywhere permanently again. I’ll keep the house here, though.”