Between Friends

Like a man who reenters a closed and darkened house and lies down;

lying there, remains conscious of sunlight outside, of bird-calls,

and the breeze in the trees, so had Drene entered into the obscurity

of himself.

Through the chambers of his brain the twilit corridors where cringed

his bruised and disfigured soul, there nothing stirring except the

automatic pulses which never cease.

Sometimes, when the sky itself crashes earthward and the world lies

in ruins from horizon to horizon, life goes on.

The things that men live through--and live!

But no doubt Death was too busy elsewhere to attend to Drene.

He had become very lean by the time it was all over. Gray glinted

on his temples; gray softened his sandy mustache: youth was finished

as far as he was concerned.

An odd idea persisted in his mind that it had been winter for many

years. And the world thawed out very slowly for him.

But broken trees leaf out, and hewed roots sprout; and what he had

so long mistaken for wintry ashes now gleamed warmly like the orange

and gold of early autumn. After a while he began to go about more or

less--little excursions from the dim privacy of mind and soul--and

he found the sun not very gray; and a south wind blowing in the

world once more.

Quair and Guilder were in the studio that day on business; Drene

continued to modify his composition in accordance with Guilder's

suggestions; Quair, always curious concerning Drene, was becoming

slyly impudent.

"And listen to me, Guilder. What the devil's a woman between

friends?" argued Quair, with a malicious side glance at Drene. "You

take my best girl away from me--"

"But I don't," remarked his partner dryly.

"For the sake of argument, you do. What happens? Do I raise hell?

No. I merely thank you. Why? Because I don't want her if you can get

her away. That," he added, with satisfaction, "is philosophy. Isn't

it, Drene?"

Guilder intervened pleasantly: "I don't think Drene is particularly interested in philosophy. I'm

sure I'm not. Shut up, please."

Drene, gravely annoyed, continued to pinch bits of modeling wax out

of a round tin box, and to stick them all over the sketch he was

modifying.

Now and then he gave a twirl to the top of his working table, which

revolved with a rusty squeak.

"If you two unusually intelligent gentlemen ask me what good a woman

the world--" began Quair.

"But we don't," interrupted Guilder, in the temperate voice peculiar

to his negative character.