David came through the room: it seemed a cavern as he made these paltry steps to Tom. He sat beside him. Still, he was ill-at-ease. He felt so suddenly strong, and stronger than his friend. While Tom talked, it had been hard for him to master the despairing sweep of impotence over his body as his mind. Now again, coming of his strength beside his friend, he felt a chord draw him, held outside himself; so that his coming was weakness. This could not be. Surely, it was good to sit beside his friend and comfort him, to be glad of the mystic glow that touched from their two bodies and made him feel Tom’s breathing, made him feel the palpitance of Tom’s thought like a butterfly in his close-cupped hands. Tom said: “Sitting beside me, you are sitting beside nothing.” David was still. “At the heart of me, David, there is an empty place. What you call my success has been a violence wrenched from me. David, have you ever walked along a country-road, taken a flower in your hand that grew beside it--pulled, hoping as you walked on to unearth it by its roots: and have you ever found in your hand a pitiful crumpled heap of petals and pollen, with the nude stalk still fast behind you in the ground?” “I wish I could reason out how wrong you are. I suppose for you I would have to make a very clear argument. My feeling does not help you.” “Are you sure?” “If I am downcast, argument to prove I am all right is not the thing I want. I am different from you.” “Perhaps not in all things different, dear David.” “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.