“David, I hope you won’t be bored without me. Come. Good-by. You had better run along. You’ll only be in the way when aunt arrives.” She traveled with her aunt. “If you feel like it, write me.”
She kissed him swiftly on his lips—and even then, though in her one hand was a pair of shoes, in the other a pile of lingerie, and though her eyes were upon the door expecting her aunt to open, still there was passion in that moment. She was a wonderful woman: a true American in specialization. She had managed to pack her trunk and pack away her lover without placing passion in the bag or meticulousness on her lips.
David went satisfied, without a hint of her ingenuity in bringing this about.
And now his emotions were relieved of a fixed objective goal. They could waft outward, vaguely. David found delight in their vagueness.
It was the same, though less pointedly, with other dwellers in his life. Cornelia was always and largely removed. Unconsciously, David kept her and wanted her so. He saw her not more than once in a fortnight. He did not really see her then. He talked to her; looked at her; listened to the sounds of her voice which easily resolved into the accepted syllables of words. But he was deeply unaware of her. And sadly. Since she bled for this and was yet unwilling to shock her boy into a knowledge of his selfishness.
She knew she might have. Had she said: “David, you are far away. What is between us? David, look really into my words, look really into me. Don’t you see how I suffer when you remain outside?” David would have come to her indeed, like the half-tamed, clumsy cub he was, into her arms and begged for forgiveness. But that could not be. So Cornelia, also, was pleasantly removed for David. And this was good, since then he could read into the picture those details he liked: delete the others.
It was the same with Business. It was always so with Business when one so wanted it. David discovered that Business was more like a woman than he had discovered women: in its reticence, in its immediate response to his desire, either to be all taken up and quick with it, or to be left spiritually alone. He found as his moods veered and alternated, so followed what he could give to his affairs downtown. If he was full of energy to spill and full of fancies to weave, Business was a romantic game that grappled him and spent him. Mr. Barlow had taught him that. But if he was misty and gray and low, Business became a habit exercise that barely held his mind, unobtrusive and gray like his own forces. And without disaster. He could plunge into it, work upon it with every muscle of his body. Or he could hold aloof and run it with two disdainful fingers. He could thrust eyes upon it close, and have joy of its jungle of tropic passions, or poise it philosophically from afar, as a flat patch in his life where he grew his bread-and-butter. Now he was holding it endearingly aloof. It was an accommodating thing that used up just enough of his time and energy to leave him peaceful and ruminant at night.
Even Tom was away. He was gone West on business. David did not write. He made no effort to touch the actual departed friend. He dwelt with his own vision of Tom, unhampered now in his deep will to find it altogether perfect. For the nonce, this wearing struggle to hold it perfect was over. This Tom in his mind had no unfitting angles. Nor the Tom abstractly speaking to him from afar.
That morning, he had received a letter. It read:
Greetings, dear friend: