Under his light, unmoved exterior Val was deeply concerned about the affair. His emotions were varied and complex. In the first instance, he was deeply attached to old Masterson—one of those smooth, placid, deep affections that come sometimes between old and young, an affection built solidly on intimacy, sympathy and understanding. It had been as though out of all the youth in the world Mat Masterson had picked Val out; as though he had said: “Here, from out of the millions of young men, is the one I specially love; for behold, he mocks me not, saying ‘Go to, gray-beard loon’ or words to that effect. That is, here is one bird I really can stand.” And it was as though Val had said: “Here, out of all the millions of old men in the world, is one who does not think that a man who has youth must necessarily be a fool; for lo, am I not able to speak to him of the enthusiasms of youth. That is to say, I’m certainly strong for that old guy.”
Not that either of them had ever formulated the matter thus succinctly. Men don’t do that at all, and women never do unless they don’t mean it. Yet the feeling ran true between these two. Mat typified all of age and the venerable to Val, and on his part Val was youth eternal to Mat—he was all of youth, a sort of a composite picture of all the beauty and fire and dreams in the world.
