“Tom---- I am sorry! I did the best I knew how.... Something made me melancholy--yes.” This was all wrong, all wrong, David was thinking. Yet how could he right it? Tom had no real grievance against him. It was _he_ who had the grievance! Why did things always take this perverse turn? Why was he always in the wrong? This time he _was not_.... Tom spoke on. He too hated the superficial form that social intercourse seemed fatefully to take. But under it the play of minds, the approach of men and women to each other was good: justified the forms and the conversations. He was no creative genius to revolutionize society. When David had succeeded in finding a more satisfactory way for friends to share their thoughts, he would be happy. Until then.... “But Tom--why did you, why did you have to make up stories that aren’t so?” It was difficult for David to ask this. All his being and courage were summoned to the effort. Why should he need his courage? Tom walked quietly on. David felt his vibrance. Either he was in wrath or in pain. “_So that is it?_” Again he was silent. At last: “David, my friend,” in a low still tone, utterly changed from before. “Davie, you make me worry for you. This is not a mere lack of a sense of humor. This is something deeper.” He went on quietly. His words cut into David like curved knives. Silently, David resisted. But the points of attack were too many. Attack whirled about him.... David was always looking for faults in him, doubting his honor and his word. Why? Had he so little faith in his friend? Let David tell him, had he given him cause to believe the first ill thing about him vagrant in his mind? David shifted to answer. Tom was attacking elsewhere.... David had no sense of proportion. He seemed to take from his remarks nothing but sources for quarrel. Or was it unwilling rather than unable? David was sure he could here give satisfactory answer. He was perhaps too serious and dull: he took everything Tom said so deep to heart! No cause for anger, really. Tom had veered far.... Oh, this was no exception. There were many things. The truth was David thought only of himself: David was selfish. “Why should you always sit in judgment on me? Supposing I began this trick with you of weighing your deeds and your words to see what direct pleasure they brought to _me_, as a miser might sift dirt to find the grains of gold? Do you really think I _couldn’t_?”