The older men sat silent for a moment, Oldmeadow continuing to smoke and Barney turning the stem of his wine-glass in his fingers. "I'm awfully sorry," he said at last. "I can't think what's got into the boy. He's in rather a moil just now, I fancy."
"He's a dear boy," said Oldmeadow. "There's any amount of truth in what he says. He's at an age when one sees these things, if one is ever going to see them. I hope he'll run straight. He ought to amount to something."
"That's what Adrienne says," said Barney. "She says he's a poet. You think, too, then, that we're all in such a rut; living Chinese lives; automata?"
"It's the problem of civilization, isn't it, to combine automatism with freedom. Without a rut to walk in you reach nowhere--if we're to walk together. And yet we must manage to ramble, too; individuals must; that's what it comes to, I suppose. Individuals must take the risk of rambling and alter the line of the rut for the others. Palgrave may be a rambler. But I hope he won't go too far afield."
"You do like her, Roger, don't you?" said Barney suddenly.
It had had to come. Oldmeadow knew that, as the depth of silence fell about them. It was inevitable between them, of course. Yet he wished it might have been avoided, since now it must be too late. He pressed out the glow of his cigar and leaned his arms on the table, not looking at his friend while he meditated, and he said finally--and it might seem, he knew, another evasion--"Look here, Barney, I must tell you something. You know how much I care about Nancy. Well, that's the trouble. It's Nancy I wanted you to marry."
Barney had held himself ready and a deep, involuntary sigh of relief, or of postponed suspense, now escaped him. "I see. I didn't realize that," he said. And how he hoped, poor Barney! it was all there was to realize! "Of course I'm very fond of Nancy."
"You realize, of course, how fond she is of you."
"Well; yes; of course. We're both awfully good pals," said Barney, confused.
"That's what Palgrave would call speaking like a savage, Barney. Own to it that if Miss Toner hadn't appeared upon the scene you could have hoped to make Nancy your wife. I don't say you made love to her or misled her in any way. I'm sure you never meant to at any rate. But the fact remains that you were both so fond of each other that you would certainly have married. So you'll understand that when I come down here and find Miss Toner installed as tutelary goddess over you all, what I'm mainly conscious of is grief for my dear little relegated nymph."