The heavy woman waited on them silently and let his pleasantries rebound from her like rubber balls. She was devoted to her “wonderful Mr. Rennard.” “Let us get David to speak Italian,” he said. “David is altogether too provincial.” He threw out the terms he had picked up as if he were pelting David with them. David stirred languidly. He was full of sleep. “Well, I’m off.” Tom jumped up, before David had finished. “Have a case to-day before Justice Bayne. Wish me luck, Davie. The problem is to keep the old fellow awake. Otherwise I’ve no chance. If he sleeps, I lose.” He stood in the doorway, his eyes flashed, and laughed. “You ought to see him, Davie, when he falls asleep on the Bench! He gets deeper and lower--in his swivel chair. His legs are always crossed. As he slides down, the upper leg grates in such a way on the other as to lift its trouser gradually up. Down goes Bayne: up goes the trouser. Till the leg is bare, and the garter visible. There is the Scale of Justice for you. Ha-ha!” He was gone. As he raced to his elevated train, the last evening raced with him. He was going to his Office--to the law--into the world. “When Marcia marries Van Ness she must make me a wedge into his law business. I must absolutely manage that! Lomney and Rennard, of counsel for Van Ness, Stone and Company. Gad, what a _coup_!” He had no thought of David. He had no thought of himself, save as the instrument of his own progress.... X So the days and the nights: the weeks and the months. Tom direct toward his several goals; David involute and hesitant, sinking, it seemed to him, forever deeper from mastery of self and from some vague light he yearned for. Each of his revolts from Tom had the same ending: found him contrite and dedicated to his own unworthiness. David did what his friend wanted. Even to the extent that when he was with Cornelia he came away disillusioned. He patronized Cornelia. He evolved a superficial concord with his relatives and their friends that left him free and fitted Tom’s measure of the way to handle such useful, lower factors in one’s life. He went with Tom’s friends when Tom took him along. His work downtown was satisfactory. He was industrious, tactful, busy. He was not happy. “Perhaps,” he said to himself, “perhaps I do not give myself enough to all these things.” He looked at his life and was amazed to find how little he did, even how little he went out, of his own accord. Yet, his uncle said to him: “My boy, I am delighted with you. Do you know what you have? You have imagination. I am beginning to realize already on my investment of you. Come up, can you, this evening? Aunt Lauretta has asked the whole lot of Tibbetts.”