Tom was up from his chair. “Look at this flat!” He parted the curtains of pale lavender that subdued the room to a quiet steadfast chromatic scale. It was afternoon of Sunday. Swift and passionate the sun came in. It made the curtains tremorous with fire: it cast a radiance upon the cream-dun walls. It sang through the room, with light feet tripping the soft rug, with tawny fingers touching the books and the vases.... Tom and David sat within miracle. Tom’s voice was dark in the sunlight. “This rare thing,” he said, “who can purchase the sun in the city? Not your saint, not your artist and lover! Only creatures like me who serve darkness. The Law that I serve lives in shadowy dusty places. Its priests are men too crafty and bent to be honest thieves. So I have the sun. And, David, I love the sun. I hate what I must do to earn it. I am a man who can keep his love only with gold that he gains by his love’s prostitution.” The last splendor of day. The sun’s arms turned upward, suppliant in death. The vast Star sank beneath crumble of buildings. Tom and David shivered at the eternal surcease. “I feel that the sun some day of its own accord will go from me because of what I do against it.... Go at midday, as it has gone just now.” New shadows rose, they were silent like lips that have just spoken. The glow was gone from the room: it throbbed still in their minds. A flower faded. David said: “I wish, Tom, I could help you.” Tom did not smile. “I feel you are unjust to yourself. Perhaps unjust to the world also. It can’t be as evil as you paint it. As for you, I know how far you are from what you say of yourself. You deserve the sun, Tom.” Tom did not move. “Just think! Over there, in the East--those black belching houses where you say they slaughter cattle and brew hops--the sun will rise to-morrow. Before you awake.” “Where do you get your idea of the world?” ... A sharp question. It left David blunt. “I can’t explain. It’s not reasoned out. My idea of the world I guess is chiefly what I feel.” “And what do you feel?... Your own past of feelings, that is what you feel. Your mother, your easy village life alone with your mother. Nine-tenths of it.” “Well: isn’t that life as well as this?” “It’s dream!” “I do not see the difference very clearly.... My mother was: and my love for her. They are more real to me than the hardness of the city. Perhaps, Tom, it is the hardness of men which is dream.” “If your love and your life with your mother are reality, lean on them now.” “I live with them, Tom.” Tom walked up and down. “I leave you in your dream, David. I want to. But some shock of the outer world will come and wake you. You are walking in your sleep. I want gentle hands to bring you to yourself, at a safe moment, at a safe place. Lest you fall, David.” David was up also. They faced each other: the tall gentle unkempt boy and the sharp sure measure of Tom: the boy with bright slow eyes, against the weary quickness of the other.