e. "I guess ve fix it up all right."

Laurie shook his head. None of the thirty minutes he had spent on the
ground floor had been devoted to improving his appearance. His black
curly hair, usually as shining as satin, was rough, matted, dirty.
Across his left cheek the sinister cut still ran, raw, angry-looking,
freshly irritated by the ice-laden wind.

"Sit down," he said, wearily. All the life had gone out of his voice. It
had an uncanny effect of monotony, as if pitched on two flat notes. To
those three, who knew so well the rich beauty of his speaking tones,
this change in them was almost more alarming than the change in his
looks.

They sat down, as he had directed, but not an eye in the room moved from
his face. Epstein, still wearing his hat and heavy coat, had dropped
into the big chair by the reading-lamp and was nervously gnawing his
under lip. Bangs had mechanically tossed his hat toward a corner as he
came in. He took a chair as mechanically, and sat very still, his back
to the window, his eyes trying vainly to meet his friend's. Doris had
moved to the upper corner of the couch, where she crouched, elbows on
knees, chin on hands, staring at a spot on the floor. Though in the
group, she seemed alone, and felt alone.

Walking over to the mantel, Laurie rested an elbow heavily upon it, and
for the first time looked squarely from one to the other of his friends.
As he looked, he tried to speak. They saw the effort and its failure,
and understood both. With a gesture of hopelessness, he turned his back
toward them, and stood with sagging muscles and eyes fixed on the empty
grate. Epstein's nerves snapped.

"For God's sake, Devon," he begged, "cut out the vaits! Tell us vot you
got on your chest, and tell it quick."

Laurie turned and once more met his eyes. Under the look Epstein's
oblique eyes shifted.

"I'm going to," Laurie said quietly and still in those new, flat tones.
"That's why I've brought you here. But--it's a hard job. You see,"--his
voice again lost its steadiness--"I've got to hurt you--all of
you--most awfully. And--and that's the hardest part of this business for
me."

Doris, now staring up at him, told herself that she could not endure
another moment of this tension. She dared not glance at either of the
others, but she heard Epstein's heavy breathing and the creak of Rodney
Bangs's chair as he suddenly changed his position. Again it was Epstein
who spoke, his voice rising on a shriller