She took his hand at the door, and now when the invitation she had so unconventionally stressed would have been a mere matter of form, she kept silent. “Good-night, Mr. Markand.” “Good-night, Miss Bardale.” He was very serious and far away. She had the wit to smile and turn to the others.... * * * * * It was a crystal night of autumn. David and Tom could not think of taking a car. David was sorely troubled. He was glad Tom made no effort to talk. A question from him would have thrown David into panic. It was about Tom he was troubled. And about himself. “I am afraid. I am afraid to meet a woman flirting with me. I am a coward,” he muttered to himself. Constance Bardale had understood him better. She had glimpsed under his sudden tenacity of refusal to meet her, to meet even her eyes or her laughter, some deeper preoccupation which her profane self must not be allowed to enter. But David walked with a sense of discomfort--wide and profound--as if all life were a garment that fitted him ill. Tom was a mere most sensitive spot where the ungainly garment caught. He had the sad conviction of Tom’s dishonesty from the fact that he went so well in that dishonest group: of Tom’s equal striving to overcome, to grasp, to possess, he could have no doubt. It was all very ugly to David. That did not matter. It mattered painfully that Tom should be ugly! Tom was his friend whom he loved: whose life he was entering more and more. Who was at fault that these constant doubts flared up against the passage? Now he wanted to talk to Tom. Tom always took these doubts and talked them away. He wanted Tom to dispose of the night’s new accumulation. Tom walked on. He seemed troubled also. This was a new thought lancing into David. His own misgivings were a shade less clear. Tom was troubled. Perhaps Tom had a grievance against him? If he did---- “What makes you so silent?” he asked, before he knew: reflexedly as one jumps from a danger and then looks to know what it is. “Do you want to know?” Tom’s voice was hard. “I am going to tell you, David. Sometimes you make it anything but easy for me.... These were my friends. For my sake, you might have tried to be a little pleasant....” “Wasn’t I pleasant, Tom?” “Did you stir yourself to be? Oh, of course, I know what’s in your mind. ‘This is easy for _Tom_. _He_ takes to all that frivol naturally.’ Well, I assure you, my dear friend, you are mistaken. I do nothing of the sort. But I have a sense of the world and of the need of living in it. That sense at times, fortunately for me, is greater than my sense of my own importance. Your sulks are nothing but conceit. Believe me! If I am distressed, it is because I am anxious. I want you to grow up. I take you to places where you meet mature and interesting people: people with minds. You might do me the honor of trusting my intentions: enough not to sit there as if I had taken you to a dime museum.”