In an instinctive need for human support, the reassurance
of the comprehension of his kind, he directed
an observation at the broad, squat, somber
back. "I might have been drunk a month," he
asserted, "by the way I feel." The priest paused
in his reading, inserted a finger in the page, and half
turned. Gordon could see the full, smooth cheek,
the drooping gaze, against the green radiance of the
lamp.

"If you will drink," Merlier said in a bitter, repressed
voice, "if you will indulge the flesh, don't
whimper at the price." He made a gesture, indicating
the bed, then returned to his reading.

"The man doesn't live who's heard me whimper,"
Gordon began loudly; but his angry protest trailed
into silence. There was no comfort, no redress, to
be obtained from that absorbed, ungainly figure.
He slipped out of the baggy trousers, the worsted
slippers, and, extending himself on the couch, fell
heavily asleep.

[[109]]

p108 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p109w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p110

v?