“He’s not dull. I was amazed last night....”
“At last, the dinner!”
“I was amazed at the bright muddle he’s in. I tell you, he’s inquiring and inquiring. It’s glorious! He told me the Spanish-Cuban question was not a mere matter of relief for the reconcentrados! ‘There’s something else beside Principle,’ he announced.”
“Whereupon, I am sure, you added: ‘The same’s true of the Monroe Doctrine.’”
“If I had, it would have shocked him. I did not. His new searching eye has not yet reached that sacrosanct past. I was in no mood to startle him, Cornelia. I felt different. I like David Markand. I respect him. What if he has the usual illusions? In his soul, they are no longer the smug knock-kneed lies I hate. They become true: at least, beautiful. My facts seem shoddy and ugly—and lying, in the warm glow of his faith.”
They were silent both. Tom did not often speak so tenderly.
“Wait and see,” he concluded.
“I see already,” said his sister.
So David came.
He was to leave at once after the Sunday dinner: push his way through the depleted Sabbath City: he was to ring the bell on the brass-plate marked Rennard, come up three dusty stairs and find them waiting through the door that made two worlds of the black hall and the bright room.