'There's something I want to feel. Something wonderful. I've been thinking of it, looking at that star. I want to love like--like that. Or nothing.'
Humphrey leaned on the railing over the beach, and smoked reflectively. The rose tints were deepening into scarlet and gold. The star was fading.
'Hen,' said Humphrey, speaking out of a sober reverie, 'I don't know that I've ever seen anybody reach a star. Our lives, apparently, are passed right here on this earth.'
Henry couldn't answer this. But he felt himself in opposition to it. His hands were clenched at his side.
But back of this' determination, like a dark current that flowed silently but irresistibly out of the mists of time into the mists of other time, he dimly, painfully knew that life, the life of this earth, was carrying him on. And on. As if no resolution mattered very much. As if you couldn't help yourself, really.
He set his mouth. And thrust out his chin a little. He had not read Henley's _Invictus_. It would have helped him, could he have seen it just then.
Here there was a constant clattering of dishes and a smell of food. People drifted in and out--men who worked along Simpson Street, and a few family groups--said 'Good-morning. Looks like a warm day.' Picked their teeth. Paid their checks to Mrs Stanley at the front table, or had their meal tickets punched.
They walked slowly up the street as far as the Sunbury House corner, and crossed over to the _Voice_ office. Each glanced soberly at the hotel as they passed.
They went in through the railing that divided front and rear offices. Humphrey took off his coat and dropped into his swivel chair before the roll-top desk. Henry took off his and dropped on the kitchen chair before the littered pine table. Jim Smith, the foreman, came in, his bare arms elaborately tattooed, chewing tobacco, and told 'a new one,' sitting on the corner of Henry's table. Henry sat there, pale of face, toying with a pencil, and wincing.
After Jim had gone, Henry sat still, gazing at the pencil, wondering weakly if the rough stuff of life was too much for him.
He glanced over toward the desk. Humphrey, pipe in mouth, was already at work. Hump had the gift of instant concentration. Even this morning, after all that had happened, he was hard at it. Though he had something to work for.