"Offended!" Roused out of his ill humor Armstrong flushed penitently. "You've never offended, never. On the contrary, you're only too patient with my tantrums." He jerked himself together impulsively. "I didn't mean anything by that at all. I'm blooming glad to see you prosper. I always knew you would." "The imitation colonial--factory then--" Roberts recalled slowly. "Just a dream, a fancy, an air castle." "No, a reality--I hope." "What?--a miracle! But how about the tape line?" "I repeat: I hope. Hope always refers to the future--the indefinite future." Armstrong smiled broadly, shrugged. Banter tingled on the tip of his tongue, but for some reason remained unspoken. Abruptly as it had arisen the subject vanished beneath the surface. Merely the memory of that suggestion of things to come remained. In the silence Roberts glanced at the clock and arose preparatory to bed. Watching the familiar action, a new thought sprang full-fledged to Armstrong's brain, a sudden appreciation of the unconscious dependence he had grown to feel on the other man. The thought took words. "On the square, old man," he said soberly, "I hate to have you go. It'll be beastly lonely here without you to sit down on me and make me feel foolish." He gestured in mute eloquence. "It means the end between you and me the moment you pack your trunk. We may both put up a bluff--but just the same it's the end." Roberts halted thoughtfully where he stood. "The end? I wonder--and who will be to blame?" "Neither of us," swiftly. "It was inevitable. We'll simply drift apart. You recall I prophesied once before--" "Yes, I recall." Armstrong started involuntarily. Another memory had intruded. "You remember--something else I predicted, do you?" A slow smile formed on Roberts' lips. "You said that sometime we'd hate each other, in the same measure that we were friends now." "Yes; and it's so. I feel it; why I don't know, can't imagine--yet. But it will come about as surely as to-morrow will come." He looked at his companion steadily, unsmilingly prophetic. "Good-bye, friend Darley Roberts. You're going--and you won't return. Good-bye." An instant Roberts stood as he was, motionless; then he turned swiftly. "You're morbid to-night, Armstrong," he returned slowly. "In the morning the sun will shine and the world will look very different. As for my leaving--you'll find another man who'll make a lot better mate than I am. I'm not a good fellow in the least." "I know it," bluntly. "That's why you're good for me." Unconsciously his glance travelled to the mantel, and shifted hurriedly. "I'm a kind of clinging vine, I guess. To change the figure of speech, I need a stiff rudder to keep me headed straight to windward. I'll--miss you," simply. Roberts hesitated a moment, choosing his words carefully. "We can't very well always be together, though," he suggested at last slowly. "No, we can't. I realize it. It's--Pardon an ass and go to bed, old man."