"I know just how all of them feel about it," Lester interrupted at
last, "but I don't see that anything's to be done right now."

"You mean that you don't think it would be policy for you to give
her up just at present?"

"I mean that she's been exceptionally good to me, and that I'm
morally under obligations to do the best I can by her. What that may
be, I can't tell."

"To live with her?" inquired Robert coolly.

"Certainly not to turn her out bag and baggage if she has been
accustomed to live with me," replied Lester.

Robert sat down again, as if he considered his recent appeal
futile.

"Can't family reasons persuade you to make some amicable
arrangements with her and let her go?"

"Not without due consideration of the matter; no."

"You don't think you could hold out some hope that the thing will
end quickly--something that would give me a reasonable excuse for
softening down the pain of it to the family?"

"I would be perfectly willing to do anything which would take away
the edge of this thing for the family, but the truth's the truth, and
I can't see any room for equivocation between you and me. As I've said
before, these relationships are involved with things which make it
impossible to discuss them--unfair to me, unfair to the woman. No
one can see how they are to be handled, except the people that are in
them, and even they can't always see. I'd be a damned dog to stand up
here and give you my word to do anything except the best I can."

Lester stopped, and now Robert rose and paced the floor again, only
to come back after a time and say, "You don't think there's anything
to be done just at present?"

"Not at present."

"Very well, then, I expect I might as well be going. I don't know
that there's anything else we can talk about."

"Won't you stay and take lunch with me? I think I might manage to
get down to the hotel if you'll stay."

"No, thank you," answered Robert. "I believe I can make that one
o'clock train for Cincinnati. I'll try, anyhow."

They stood before each other now, Lester pale and rather flaccid,
Robert clear, wax-like, well-knit, and shrewd, and one could see the
difference time had already made. Robert was the clean, decisive man,
Lester the man of doubts. Robert was the spirit of business energy and
integrity embodied, Lester the spirit of commercial self-sufficiency,
looking at life with an uncertain eye. Together they made a striking
picture, which was none the less