“I wonder, does the lure of death come always disguised as a fulfillment? Perhaps, when a man takes his life does he hope to achieve it? Cornelia and I--God! how we were glad of the calculated pavements of Manhattan.” But surely, he had left death behind? Was he growing sentimental? What a strange mood he was in. His father, the dilapidated farm--life, that? Very well: law, the nervous flutter he called success in the city--life, that, more? He shook his head. He saw he did not understand after all.... And yet, America in Chicago--Chicago in the American plains--gripped him and called him as never before.... Chicago? where Industry, a dirty giant, flung and heaped its refuse upon the dwellings of men? He could not understand. But he felt a poignance--of symbol--in himself yearning Westward, yearning _backward_ against the way of the train to where America lay impassioned beneath the coming sun. * * * * * He stepped into New York, its life came to him through splinter of movement with a sharp pathos. The dust of their traffic were these men and women swirling slow: their impress upon the places they had built was naught. An air of enervation lay over the clefts of houses, seeped down into the channels of men. Then Tom lost the sense of separation. The great Metropolis came like an iron cloak and made him invisible.... * * * * * Out of the confusion of his life he saw some things clearly and aimed at them: he saw some things vaguely and these he avoided. He sensed that the vague things were the vital: were of the color and stuff of that confusion which was his life: and that the dear things were trivial and lying. Marcia Duffield and King Van Ness were not yet engaged. A particular and naked problem. Tom feared the cynicism of the girl he had loved. “One thing, one thing alone can spoil this,” went his thoughts. “If she out of some mood abandoned her resistance. She might for spite, bravado, bitterness, what not? One such false gesture and Van Ness stops the hunt. He might possibly do an injury to himself: grow thoughtful for instance. But he’d never marry a girl that let him kiss her without a diamond ring.” Laura Duffield held out her hand for his. “I am young yet. This is my only life. What am I doing with it?” Tom thought and clasped the hand of his friend and laughed--the lust of the Game, Van Ness, Stone and Company to be pried open, the delicious recalcitrance of Marcia to be tasted and crushed--and forgot. “You are worrying about something? What is it?” At last he was conscious of Laura Duffield: his trivial words were over. She was ageing. There was a drawn tightness about her eyes, a sag at her throat. It was a day on which she was not looking well. And looking well was coming to be an art, these years of life when art grows difficult. Debts. The incredible burden of holding up her head. “Come and sit beside me, Tom.”