To evoke and to share such a friendship, moreover, marks the possession of possibilities ethically fine. A man may love a woman in pure selfishness; but really to love his male friend he must possess capabilities of self-sacrifice and of manliness. It is one of the charms of comradeship that it frankly accepts and frankly gives without weighing or accounting. In the garden of such a friendship may walk the soul of man as his body went in Eden before the Fall, "naked and not ashamed." He cannot be willing to show himself as he is if his true self have not its moral beauties. It may be set down to the credit both of Dick and of Jack that between them there existed a friendship so close and so trustful.
Even in the closest friendships, however, there may be times of suspension. Perhaps in a perfect comradeship there would be no room for the faintest cloud; but since men are human and there is nothing perfect in human relations, even friendship may sometimes seem to suffer. For some days after the announcement of Jack's engagement there was a marked shade between the friends. Jack, indeed, was the same as ever, jolly, careless, indolent, and apparently without a trouble in the world. Dick, on the other hand, was at times absent, constrained, or confused. To have his friend walk in and coolly announce an engagement with the girl whose correspondence had fired Dick's heart was naturally trying and astonishing. Dick might have written a bitter chapter about the way in which women spoiled the friendships of men; and certain cynical remarks which appeared in his next novel may be conceived of as having been set down at this time.
More than a week went by without striking developments. The engagement had not been announced, nor had it, after the first evening, been mentioned between the two friends. That there should be a subject upon which both must of necessity reflect much, yet of which they did not speak, was in itself a sufficient reason for a change in the mental atmosphere of their bachelor quarters, which from being the cheeriest possible were fast becoming the most gloomy.
One morning as Dick sat writing at his desk, Jack, who since breakfast had been engaged in his own chamber, came strolling in, in leisurely fashion, smoking the usual cigarette.