He tore the page out, struck a match and burned it. Again he dropped back in his chair and closed his eyes.
Kenny opened his eyes with a start. Garry stood by the cabin door, his hand upon the knob.
"Don asked me to come. Kenny, I was on the porch. Great God! the kid must have gone crazy."
"And now that he's cooled down enough to remember your kindness, Kenny, he's breaking his heart over you. A queer kid! I almost thrashed him. He's tramping off his brain-storm."
"With Brian." Garry looked away. "They have forgotten the world," he added bitterly.
"Kenny, how did you manage? That look in her face--"
"Gallant liar!" said Garry huskily. "I knew you would. It was the only kind way."
"Almost," said Kenny, "I did not remember to lie in time. Truth is a thing I cannot understand."
The sympathy in Garry's eyes unnerved him.
"Garry," he flamed, "why did I practice the telling of truth to end now with a lie? Why did Joan plead for a year to learn to be my wife and learn in it--not to be?"
"God knows!" said Garry gently. "Why did agony come to Brian at the hands of a boy he'd befriended? And then--to you?"
"It is the Samhain of my life," said Kenny rising. "And I am no longer John Whitaker's King of Youth. I think my youth died back there when Don thrust it aside, not meaning, I take it, to be cruel. But I grew up all at once." He frowned. "Drowning men, they say, have a kaleidoscopic vision of the past. I think sitting here that came to me. Perhaps, Garry, if Eileen had lived I would have been different--steadier. I think I loved her. I think it would have lasted. A child is a beautiful link. Perhaps that fever of vanity that grew to a burning in my veins would never have started. Started, it was like a conflagration. It drove Brian to sunsets. God knows what it didn't do. I thought only of myself--always. That desire for adulation in a woman's eyes, that curious persistent fever was, I'm sure, a sort of sex vanity. It has nearly ruined many another man's life. It nearly ruined mine. Always when I was drifting into new madness, I couldn't work. I dreamed. The Isle of Delight, always receding! I sang and whistled. The King of Youth! Only when I was drifting out again, could I bend myself to concentration and sanity. And then another look in a girl's soft eyes--and more vanity and self and delirium. But I'm tired. I want to look ahead to--to quiet and steadiness and work."