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Nick said nothing.

“Once a man’s married he’s absolutely bitched,” Bill went on. “He hasn’t got anything more. Nothing. Not a damn thing. He’s done for. You’ve seen the guys that get married.”

Nick said nothing.

“You can tell them,” Bill said. “They get this sort of fat married look. They’re done for.”

“Sure,” said Nick.

“It was probably bad busting it off,” Bill said. “But you always fall for somebody else and then it’s all right. Fall for them but don’t let them ruin you.”

“Yes,” said Nick.

“If you’d have married her you would have had to marry the whole family. Remember her mother and that guy she married.”

Nick nodded.

“Imagine having them around the house all the time and going to Sunday dinners at their house, and having them over to dinner and her telling Marge all the time what to do and how to act.”

Nick sat quiet.

“You came out of it damned well,” Bill said. “Now she can marry somebody of her own sort and settle down and be happy. You can’t mix oil and water and you can’t mix that sort of thing any more than if I’d marry Ida that works for Strattons. She’d probably like it, too.”

Nick said nothing. The liquor had all died out of him and left him alone. Bill wasn’t there. He wasn’t sitting in front of the fire or going fishing tomorrow with Bill and his dad or anything. He wasn’t drunk. It was all gone. All he knew was that he had once had Marjorie and that he had lost her. She was gone and he had sent her away. That was all that mattered. He might never see her again. Probably he never would. It was all gone, finished.

“Let’s have another drink,” Nick said.

Bill poured it out. Nick splashed in a little water.

“If you’d gone on that way we wouldn’t be here now,” Bill said.

That was true. His original plan had been to go down home and get a job. Then he had planned to stay in Charlevoix all winter so he could be near Marge. Now he did not know what he was going to do.

“Probably we wouldn’t even be going fishing tomorrow,” Bill said. “You had the right dope, all right.”

“I couldn’t help it,” Nick said.

“I know. That’s the way it works out,” Bill said.

“All of a sudden everything was over,” Nick said. “I don’t know why it was. I couldn’t help it. Just like when the three-day blows come now and rip all the leaves off the trees.”

“Well, it’s over. That’s the point,” Bill said.

“It was my fault,” Nick said.

“It doesn’t make any difference whose fault it was,” Bill said.

“No, I suppose not,” Nick said.

The big thing was that Marjorie was gone and that probably he would never see her again. He had talked to her about how they would go to Italy together and the fun they would have. Places they would be together. It was all gone now.

“So long as it’s over that’s all that matters,” Bill said. “I tell you, Wemedge, I was worried while it was going on. You played it right. I understand her mother is sore as hell. She told a lot of people you were engaged.”

“We weren’t engaged,” Nick said.

“It was all around that you were.”

“I can’t help it,” Nick said. “We weren’t.”

“Weren’t you going to get married?” Bill asked.

“Yes. But we weren’t engaged,” Nick said.

“What’s the difference?” Bill asked judicially.

“I don’t know. There’s a difference.”

“I don’t see it,” said Bill.

“All right,” said Nick. “Let’s get drunk.”

“All right,” Bill said. “Let’s get really drunk.”

“Let’s get drunk and then go swimming,” Nick said.

He drank off his glass.

“I’m sorry as hell about her but what could I do?” he said. “You know what her mother was like!”

“She was terrible,” Bill said.

“All of a sudden it was over,” Nick said. “I oughtn’t to talk about it.”

“You aren’t,” Bill said. “I talked about it and now I’m through. We won’t ever speak about it again. You don’t want to think about it. You might get back into it again.”

Nick had not thought about that. It had seemed so absolute. That was a thought. That made him feel better.

“Sure,” he said. “There’s always that danger.”

He felt happy now. There was not anything