"John Norman - Gor 02 - Outlaw of Gor" - читать интересную книгу автора (Norman John)

lonely man, and, for my part, I was more than happy to count myself his
friend - unfortunately perhaps, his only friend.

I felt that the time would come when Cabot would speak to me of the
mountains but that he himself would have to choose that time. I was not
eager to intrude into his affairs, or his secrets as the case might be. It
was enough to be once more his friend. I wondered upon occasion why Cabot
did not speak to me more openly on certain matters, why he so jealously
guarded the mystery of those months in which he had been absent from the
college. I now know why he did not speak sooner. He feared I would have
thought him mad.

It was late one night, in early February, and we were drinking once more at
that small bar in which we had had our first drink that incredible sunny
afternoon some months before. Outside there was a light snow falling, soft
as coloured felt in the lonely neon lights of the street. Cabot watched it,
between swallows of Scotch. He seemed to be morose, moody. I recalled it
was in February that he had departed from the college, years earlier.

'Perhaps we had better go home,' I said.

Cabot continued to stare out the window, watching the neon snow drifting
aimlessly down to the gray, trampled sidewalk.

'I love her,' said Cabot, not really speaking to me.

'Who?' I asked.

He shook his head, and continued to watch the snow.

'Let's go home,' I said. 'It's late.'

'Where is home?' asked Cabot, staring into the half-filled glass.

'Your apartment, a few blocks from here,' I said, wanting him to leave,
wanting him to get out of there. His mood was alien to anything I had seen
in him before. Somehow I was frightened.

He would not be moved. He pulled his arm away from my hand. 'It is late,'
he said, seeming to agree with me but intending perhaps more. 'It must not
be too late,' he said, as though he had resolved on something, as though by
the sheer force of his will he would stop the flow of time, the random
track of events.

I leaned back in my chair. Cabot would leave when he was ready. Not before.
I became aware of his silence, and the light subdued patter of conversation
at the bar, the clink of glasses, the sounds of a foot scraping, of liquid
swirling into a small, heavy glass.

Cabot lifted his Scotch again, holding it before him, not drinking. Then,