'
'Who?'
Darkly, 'You.'
'Just how I feel.'
There is such true sympathy in the manly avowal that Roger cannot but be
brought closer to his father.
'It's pretty ghastly, father.'
'It is. I don't know which it is worse for.'
They consider each other without bitterness.
'You are a bit of a wag at times, Roger.'
'You soon shut me up.'
'I have heard that you sparkle more freely in my absence.'
'They say the same about you.'
'And now that you mention it, I believe it is true; and yet, isn't it
a bigger satisfaction to you to catch me relishing your jokes than any
other person?'
Roger's eyes open wide. 'How did you know that?'
'Because I am so bucked if I see you relishing mine.'
'_Are_ you?' Roger's hold on the certain things in life are
slipping. 'You don't show it.'
'That is because of our awkward relationship.'
Roger lapses into gloom. 'We have got to go through with it.'
His father kicks the coals. 'There's no way out.'
'No.'
'We have, as it were, signed a compact, Roger, never to let on that we
care for each other. As gentlemen we must stick to it.
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