One of the women tried to catch his eye. She was half nodding with drink and disgust. A rotten night. David saw her examining herself in the mirror. Her face was suddenly sweet. She opened her coat. She folded in and downward the starched corners of her waist so that her neck showed and the gap of her bosom. She looked up and smiled at David. She called for more drink and beat her hand in supplement to her call against the table. David left. Her flesh had sounded dead against the shrill-varnished wood. Tom was propped up with a book, in his black dressing-gown. “Hello, Davie.” He looked up but did not move. “Have you read _Gulliver’s Travels_ since you were a kid? Take my advice and do! How that man Swift must have loved life to have hated men so!” David thought this was nonsense. “What is there to hate in a thing we love?” Tom laughed. “You talk like a god, David. Are you a god? Hate does not enter into love only where there is paradisal satisfaction. To what mortal is that granted?” He watched David stand pensively, glowing. With a searching smile: “Also hate may not enter where there is complete delusion.” David started. “To have perfection in one’s love, one must be a god. To have complete delusion one must be--an ass. Are you a god, Davie?” “Good night,” said David.... * * * * * The following evening, he was not to be with her. She had so many engagements. But she was going to break one so he could come, only three evenings later. Through three days David went, repeating to himself that he loved Constance Bardale. Needful it was to his peace that he be persuaded of this. Good it would be for the new hunger of his life--to spread forth, make fresh dwellings for his spirit--if this was true. Yet all that had occurred was sudden and strange. All this woman was remote. This was why he had so fast retreated from Tom on that first night. Tom was very real: in his light, the new fire in himself did not appear. He was sure that he loved: a transfiguration had been made in him: the future of Constance Bardale must in some inscrutable way be one with his. Yet he could not talk of this joyous revelation to his best friend. Indeed, with his best friend all of it was dim. He did not solve the strangeness of this. He said to himself: “It is all too mysterious yet to be spoken of. Tom would not believe me. He would ask me what had happened to make me know.” Had David these three days seen Cornelia, he could have spoken. He did not know this since he had no plan to see Cornelia. He remained with his secret. Wondering, trying to wonder about it, his thoughts reeled in a dance with his upstarting senses. He could not even clearly wonder about it all.