'It seems that you put on an opera here--directed it, or sang it, or
something. Before my time.'
'That was _Iolanthe_,' said Henry, with a momentarily complacent memory.
'And you sang--all over the place, apparently. Why don't you sing now?'
'It's too,'--Henry was mumbling, flushing, and groping for a word--'too
physical.'
Then, with a sudden movement that gave Humphrey a little start, the boy
leaned over the table, pulled at his moustache, and asked, gloomily:
'Listen! Do you think a man can change his nature?'
Humphrey considered this without a smile. 'I don't see exactly how,
Hen.'
'I mean if he's been heedless and reckless--oh, you know, girls, debts,
everything. Just crazy, sorta.'
'Well, I suppose a man can reform. Were you a very bad lot?' The
wrinkled smile was reassuring.
'That depends on what you--I wasn't exactly sporty, but--oh, you don't
know the trouble I've had, Humphrey. Then my mother died, and I hadn't
been half-decent to her, and I was left alone, and my uncle had to pay
my debts out of the principal--it was hundreds of dollars----'
His voice died out.
There was an element of pathos in the picture before him that Humphrey
recognised with some sympathy--the gloomy lad of twenty, with that
absurd little moustache that he couldn't let alone. After all, he _had_
been rather put to it. It began to appear that he had suppressed himself
without mercy. There would doubtless be reactions. Perhaps explosions.