to his stammering explanations, nodding across the blundering pauses and keeping his eyes on the sunlit driveway with a thoughtful attention.
"Why do we know these people are wrong—living that way? Why are they committing suicide—and drinking themselves stupid—and looking like a lot of miserable condemned wretches—terrible faces all eaten up with disease and wretchedness—if there's no reason why we shouldn't be brutes—if it's natural for us to be brutes—if we are all brutes? That's what I don't understand. If honesty and morality are just poppycock stuff that we learn when we're children—like Santa Claus—why aren't frank dishonesty and frank immorality happy instead of openly miserable—and killing themselves?"
"Tower" shook his head. "I don't know, I'm sure. I never thought of them that way. They're just people to me—people I meet. I suppose I get along with them so well, because I just take them as I would anyone else. . . . I can see, though," he added, "why they kept you boosting down there."
"Why?"
He looked at Don, as if summing him up, feature by feature. "Because that sort of thing shows in your face."
"How do you mean?"
"Well, anyone can see that you're not one of them."
Don blushed girlishly. "Neither are you."
"I act not to be—so that no one will think I am. You aren't—and anyone can see that you're not acting it."
