At table below he found his uncle, still coatless, moist, full also of night’s shadows. His uncle looked worn and tired. A drawing weariness in his own body, over his own face, told him the same shadows clung to himself. City morning lacked the resilience of new birth. It must be the usual thing: for Mr. Deane had answered his question with “Yes, I slept fine,” and David looking back over the swift night could see in it no cause for this new agedness that waked in his veins.
“A cool night,” said Mr. Deane. “You were lucky, lad, not to be introduced to the city in one of our broilers.”
The swinging door widened, the maid brought David his breakfast. A melon, eggs daintily propped in porcelain funnels: he must split them, he guessed, with a sharp stroke of the knife without taking them out: coffee that cut mental mists.... What curious impressions he was having! He sat so long in this room, he noticed the shadows on his uncle’s face, the shadows in his own blood: he had not seen the room. He felt now as if he had thought the room was dark, and there was no use trying to see in the dark. The door swung wide: it was as if himself had just come in. Yellow woodwork in the pantry, an entering maid. He saw the heavy panelings in oak and the resplendent chandelier in the air and the straight-back, red-plush chairs and that the maid was like himself from the country. She was a heavy solid girl moving in grace. Chestnut hair about the sweet round eyes. Her smile was sweet, he did not feel like smiling; she was the sort that smelt of warm milk; David thought to himself what a shame she had lost two of her teeth.
He liked her standing close to him, serving him: her arm touched his shoulder. He saw that the ceiling was painted: it sagged down in a verdant circle of flowers: obese angels cavorted about very green garlands.
“We’re friends,” his senses spoke, “we are both strangers.”
Mr. Deane rustled his papers: he dipped toast in his coffee, noisily lapped it up, sucked his mustache. It was droll how his red tongue shot out and caught the brown drip of his mustache. Mr. Deane was talking.
“We’ll go down together, my boy—for the first day.” He consulted his watch. “It’s eight-twenty now. As a rule, I think Mr. McGill will want you at the office at eight. It takes forty minutes from here to the office. Fifteen minutes for breakfast.” He reckoned and rang the bell. To the entering girl: “Anne, Mr. David’s regular breakfast time will be ten past seven.”
His face had been long, looking away. It turned again toward David, and broadened. He winked. Yes: he was trying to be kind.
“Does your watch keep good time?” he asked. Why should this question seem to bring him relief? “See to that, my boy. The City is run on schedule. On schedule. That’s why it’s a great City. That’s what makes a great City out of a piece of country. Manhattan once had fields in it. And a few hills. Oh, yes—Central Park was a squatter’s marsh. Wait till you see it with its new asphalt roads! Some day there’ll be asphalt roads all over the country.”
“It’ll be hard on the horses,” David felt he must inform his uncle.