“I know you are wrong! I have watched you. We are friends, now, for so long a time. I could have told you this, almost when we met—when I paddled you about and you let your wrists play in the water and sprinkled me. You have a funny habit, Tom, of hurting yourself. Lord knows why you should like to! You are not satisfied with the world because you are so much better. It is no sin, Tom, to live in the world where we were born. It is splendid that you have such dreams of a far better one. Your life proves how true and real you have been—perhaps more so to Cornelia than to yourself. I am sure you would be the same for me.”
“I could do anything for you.”
“I have nothing with which to cure you of your black doubts except a stupid faith that does not touch you.”
“Davie, it is the best in you. Give me the best in you. I want nothing better in all the world....”
Silence inclosed them, again.
David struggled with what he deemed his impotence. He was not very bright, he feared. Perhaps he failed to feel the stupidity of men because himself was stupid. Tom would not tell him that. A wave of the need of giving welled about him. He was warm and relaxed within this element whose indeterminate grain moved him toward Tom.... He relaxed. The same easeless stir, moving to stiffen him back, poison this sweetness, to make him one again with his threatened solitude. David struggled for the quickening of himself in self-bestowal. Tom sat in darkness, bitter, hard, his will a clenched fist over his body. With a strain so true that the muscles in his neck stood out, he strove to turn away from his loved friend.
But his hand went forth: his knotted hand that seemed beaten by the weathers of life went forth as on a journey hazardous even to its wisdom. It tremored close to the hand of David ... the warmth of the young hand made it cold.
A sharp shrill voice that sounded a shriek in the darkness.
“Let’s have a light,” Tom jumped up.
In the yellow of the gas, David sat blinking. Tom was all movement. He flung off his shoes, put on another pair. He changed his necktie. He hung away his house coat. He stood dressed for the street.