Part 1 (2/2)

”Sir?”

”You never look at it.”

”Never look at it?”

”No. I've watched you thirteen nights, and not once have you looked at the sunset--not once.”

He knitted his brows like one who encounters a problem.

”Well, I enjoy the sunlight--the atmosphere--I go along this path, through that gate”--he jerked his head over his shoulder--”and round--”

”You don't. You never have been. It's all nonsense. There isn't a way.

To-night for instance--”

”Oh! to-night! Let me see. Ah! I just glanced at my watch, saw that I had already been out just three minutes over the precise half-hour, decided there was not time to go round, turned--”

”You always do.”

He looked at me--reflected. ”Perhaps I do, now I come to think of it. But what was it you wanted to speak to me about?”

”Why, this!”

”This?”

”Yes. Why do you do it? Every night you come making a noise--”

”Making a noise?”

”Like this.” I imitated his buzzing noise. He looked at me, and it was evident the buzzing awakened distaste. ”Do I do that?” he asked.

”Every blessed evening.”

”I had no idea.”

He stopped dead. He regarded me gravely. ”Can it be,” he said, ”that I have formed a Habit?”

”Well, it looks like it. Doesn't it?”

He pulled down his lower lip between finger and thumb. He regarded a puddle at his feet.

”My mind is much occupied,” he said. ”And you want to know why! Well, sir, I can a.s.sure you that not only do I not know why I do these things, but I did not even know I did them. Come to think, it is just as you say; I never _have_ been beyond that field.... And these things annoy you?”

For some reason I was beginning to relent towards him. ”Not annoy,”

I said. ”But--imagine yourself writing a play!”

”I couldn't.”

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