To the right from the dank water of a quarry pool abandoned long since to catfish and willows, a milk-white mist was rising eerily into the moonlight. Brian saw it but he saw it indistinctly. He was thinking of the boy's sister, her sweet face tragic with imploring. It lay in the mist and yet not in the mist, and it was binding him to obligation. He had written a promise. That promise he must keep. The face his memory etched upon the mist made its appeal to every finer instinct of his courage.
Brian did not face his problem with excitement. He faced it with ruthless concentration. All summer he had been groping through fog and disillusion to the meaning of service, service to his fellowmen, and he had groped through to something vague and lofty. Service lay across the water where men raved in the red fever of destruction, service and inclination. Could not one be mercifully the religion of the other? Must service spring from the bitter dregs of self-denial? Brian stared wretchedly into the dank white mist curling in the moonlight like a fallen cloud. And again with his conscience up in arms he remembered the face of Donald's sister. In a sense he could thank the boy for the peace of his summer. And he had written his promise. He was like Kenny, that boy, inflammable of purpose, erratic in his vigor, and likable. And he needed a friend, inflexible and kindly.
"Always," said Brian, "I am slated to be somebody's keeper."
Could he shirk? Had he shirked when he left the studio in anger? Had he a right to live his life his own way? Had anybody? His common sense endorsed his earlier rebellion. This was different.
"Whenever you tell me I can do a thing and hang around to see me do it, I can seem to make myself do it somehow!"
The words echoed harshly in his ears; and at first Brian refused to hear them. Then inexorably he faced his fact. He and he alone was the spur to the boy's amazing energy. A year? Well, after all what was a year?
He went back through the autumn moonlight with a sigh.
"Don," he said, "you're right. You couldn't swing it up here alone. I'll stick and see you through it."
Don looked up, his face scarlet with emotion. Brian's hand was on his shoulder. And Brian's eyes were half humorous, half quizzical and wholly tender.