Whether or not these things were true was at first of little moment.  The sting lay in the fact that someone had troubled to think them.  The careless illusion, that what he thought of himself the world thought, lay at his feet pricked into utter collapse.  It seemed to him as he walked the floor in a tumult of hurt pride, that the world must accept the man he knew himself to be, the man whose light-hearted existence he loved to dramatize, a brilliant painter with piquant imperfections, intensely human and delightful.  He passionately demanded that it accept him so without question.  Good God!  No one had seemed to question until Brian in a burst of temper had brought the world about his ears.

Well, let the world misjudge him if it chose.  He was big enough, he knew, to hold his head above it.

In a mood of lively irony he whipped forth a notebook and wrote a sarcastic summary of his shortcomings, his lips curled in hostile interest.

“Sunsets and vanity,” he wrote with a flourish and lost his temper.  Well, that phase in Brian’s life was closed forever, thanks to Whitaker’s meddling tongue.  Never again would Kenny lay himself open to misinterpretation by seeking commissions for his son.  Brian could write truth for Whitaker with a blue pencil and be damned!

“Hairbrained, unquenchable youth,” he wrote next and added airily after this:  “This is likely hair and teeth.”

“Irresponsible.”

“Failure as a parent.”  This he underlined.

“Need to suffer and learn something of the psychology of sacrifice.”

“Romantic attitude toward the truth.”

“Improvidence.  Need for plebeian regularity in money affairs and petty debt.”

“Disorder—­chairs to sit down on without looking first.”

“I borrow Brian’s money and his clothes.”

“Pawned shotgun, tennis racket, some fishing tackle and golf clubs.”

“Note:  Look over tickets.”

“A tendency to indolence.”

He had begun with an air of bored amusement; he finished grimly, read and reread.  In the light of the Craig-and-Whitaker analysis, which dovetailed in the similarity of their venom, the details might, he fancied with a lifting of his brows, be classified under three general headings:  youth, irresponsibility and a romantic attitude toward the truth.

The envious charge of youth he attributed instantly to the thinning of John Whitaker’s grayish hair, and felt better.  In irresponsibility he read, agreeably, needful temperament.  And his romantic attitude toward the truth was merely a brilliant overplus of imagination without which life would be insufferably dull.

He read the list again with colors flying and drum beating victory.  Though singly he could refute each item, an unguarded perusal when he felt complacent, brought the hot blood back to his face in a rush of mortification and dismay.

With a curse he flung the book across the room.  Then unreasonably he went after it and wrote at the end:  “Life is a battle.  I do not fight.  And life is not an individual adventure.”