An unbroken flank of houses rose from the mist of the street. They were lightless and sleeping. They were not dreaming like most houses he had known that went musing by night. They were heavy and hurt. It was as if the day had struck them and blinded them; left them there in a coma. David saw the quavering glow of the sky. The air came to his naked throat with moist fingers that trembled. David crept away to bed.... “Your bath is ready, Sir.” He heard this, he recalled the several knocks that had preceded. A sun slanted into the dormer windows, lay bright there in the corner of his room. But the shadows were everywhere--hostile hangers-on. At table below he found his uncle, still coatless, moist, full also of night’s shadows. His uncle looked worn and tired. A drawing weariness in his own body, over his own face, told him the same shadows clung to himself. City morning lacked the resilience of new birth. It must be the usual thing: for Mr. Deane had answered his question with “Yes, I slept fine,” and David looking back over the swift night could see in it no cause for this new agedness that waked in his veins. “A cool night,” said Mr. Deane. “You were lucky, lad, not to be introduced to the city in one of our broilers.” The swinging door widened, the maid brought David his breakfast. A melon, eggs daintily propped in porcelain funnels: he must split them, he guessed, with a sharp stroke of the knife without taking them out: coffee that cut mental mists.... What curious impressions he was having! He sat so long in this room, he noticed the shadows on his uncle’s face, the shadows in his own blood: he had not seen the room. He felt now as if he had thought the room was dark, and there was no use trying to see in the dark. The door swung wide: it was as if himself had just come in. Yellow woodwork in the pantry, an entering maid. He saw the heavy panelings in oak and the resplendent chandelier in the air and the straight-back, red-plush chairs and that the maid was like himself from the country. She was a heavy solid girl moving in grace. Chestnut hair about the sweet round eyes. Her smile was sweet, he did not feel like smiling; she was the sort that smelt of warm milk; David thought to himself what a shame she had lost two of her teeth. He liked her standing close to him, serving him: her arm touched his shoulder. He saw that the ceiling was painted: it sagged down in a verdant circle of flowers: obese angels cavorted about very green garlands. “We’re friends,” his senses spoke, “we are both strangers.” Mr. Deane rustled his papers: he dipped toast in his coffee, noisily lapped it up, sucked his mustache. It was droll how his red tongue shot out and caught the brown drip of his mustache. Mr. Deane was talking.