“Yes,”—Eben came back and sat down—“I’ll grant you that, Cornelius. And I suppose the best thing that can be said about Willard is that it could contain them both—nourish them both—accept them both for what they were.” Then he looked over at Cornelius, really looked at him, Christina thought, for the first time. “You’ve changed, Cornelius.”

“Have I?” Cornelius returned Eben’s look, and for a second the glances locked. Perhaps even Christina, who was pouring out more coffee, didn’t catch it, a fleeting second but a momentous one. It was not a collision. It was as if in each of these men a door that had been held locked for fifty years opened. Cornelius turned away first, lifted a hand and let it fall. “Old age tames us, Eben. Still,” he teased, “it doesn’t seem to have tamed you. You’re still a tiger pacing about and growling, aren’t you?”

“Yes, I am.” Then, very unexpectedly, he added, “I need you, old boy. I need your wisdom—for you have somehow achieved it, and I, God knows, have not.”

“Well, you haven’t got knocked over and pretty nearly knocked out. This …”—he coughed before the word and perhaps chose a different one—“incapacity of mine has not been a wholly disastrous thing. Perhaps it is that we become what we have to become to survive.”

It was now as if the two men were alone in an arena, and, feeling this, Christina and John, on the excuse of taking out the tray and on the understanding that Eben would stay for lunch (“just a sandwich and soup, Eben—no trouble”), withdrew into the kitchen.

After they had gone, there was a silence. Eben bent down to put another log on the fire. He slouched down in the big armchair opposite Cornelius. Was Cornelius asleep? His eyes were closed, and Eben wondered whether the conversation had been too great an effort.

“I’m not asleep,” Cornelius murmured. “I find when I close my eyes these days that everything becomes a good deal clearer. Go on, Eben; we haven’t got much time.”

Was he referring to death, in the wings already, or to the simple fact that Christina would not be gone long?

“I’m ‘incapacitated’ too, in a different way. I have no wife.”

“I can’t imagine life without Christina,” Cornelius said, opening his eyes.

“One doesn’t imagine it. Perhaps if Olive had lived—she died just when we might have had some tranquil years after all the strain and expense of our life—I might not be such a tiger still. Oh, well …”