He told the story of his early meetings with the fat boy on the sidewalk of Louisburg Square.
"Wasn't it awful living with that burglar?"
Tom smiled. "No. It seemed natural enough. He was a very kind burglar. I owe him everything."
To Tom's big appetite the lunch was frugal, but it was ceremonious. He was oppressed by it. That three strong men should be needed to bring them the little they had to eat and drink struck him as ridiculous. And this was his father's house. This was what he should come to take as a matter of course. He would get up every morning to eat a breakfast served with this magnificence. He would sit every day on one of these thrones, like an apostle in the Apocalypse. He thought of breakfasts in the tenements, at the Tollivants', at the Quidmores', or with Honey in the grimy eating-places where they took their meals, and knew for the first time in many years a pang something like that of homesickness.
It was not altogether the ceremony against which he was rebellious. It had elements of beauty which couldn't be decried. What he felt was the old ache on behalf of the millions of people who had to go without, in order that the few might possess so much. It was the world's big wrong, and he didn't know what caused it. His economic studies, taken with a view to helping him in the banking profession, had convinced him that nobody knew what caused it, and that the cures proposed were worse than the disease. Without thinking much of it actively, it was always in the back of his mind that he must work to eliminate this fundamental ill. Sitting and eating commonplace food in this useless solemn stateliness, the conviction forced itself home. Somewhere and somehow the world must find a means between too much and too little, or mankind would be driven to commit suicide.
During the meal, which was brief, Lily scarcely spoke. As they recrossed the hall to go back to the big sunny room, she sloped away to some other part of the house. Tom and his mother sat down together, embarrassed if not distressed.
Pointing to the box of cigarettes, she said, tersely, "Smoke, if you like."
In the hope of feeling more at ease he smoked. Still wearing her hat and coat, she drew her chair close to the fire, which had been lighted while they were at lunch, holding her hands to the blaze.
"Do you think you're our son?"