He found he was telling her all the little things that filled his days and nights--the little nothings. “I don’t know where I walked,” he said. “It was very noisy, I know. But it all seemed so quiet. There was a silence in the men and women.... It seemed as if there was a silence in them, and they were scurrying about so fast to get away from it.... But the silence clung.” “You spend very little time at home.” “Yes,” he said, shaking his head. “Don’t you care to read?” “I don’t seem to, now.” “Why, David?” “I do not want to be at home. When I am home, I go to bed. Even if it is only nine o’clock.” And then there was a pause. “You do not seem,” she said, “to be very fond of the company of your friend.” He shook his head again, looked away. It was not needful, long. Again, he saw her. He was very easeful and relaxed. He made no effort to talk or to conceal, when he was with her. She was a sweet impersonal presence. It was good of her to let him come so often. He had no sense within his vision of himself in the world, of her who was a woman beside him. One time, after a great quiet, she said: “Why, since these things are so, do you not live alone?” Her words were part of the quiet. They did not break it. They were very calm and very quiet indeed. So they entered into David. He had not answered her. Often he sat so, still, and when he spoke it was upon some other theme. She never spoke these words again.... It was Spring.... David got up very early from his bed, he went into their large room, it slumbered restlessly there, he looked out of the window. A great mist was before his eyes. A great mist lay in the street. He could not see the street and the opposite houses. It was a great white mist, warm and rolling away: the mist of morning. He looked toward the east. There, dim in the white, were the trees of the little Square. Above them he saw the Sun, a gleam, swathed in the vapors. He went back to bed and to sleep. When he awoke, he was rested. He was very warm under his sheet; he had perspired. Under his flesh he was cool and rested as he had not been in a long time. He returned to the large room and looked once more out of the window. The Sun was a naked flame jeweling the sky. The trees of the little Park were shrill with green and the moisture sang on them like tinkling glass. Tom came in. David said to him: “Tom, I think I want to go away and live alone.” Tom was haggard in the sunlight. His eyes were hot and rimmed in shadows. He nodded. “Of course, Davie,” he said. “Go now, if you want to. I shall be glad to keep the place.” The two friends looked at each other. David wanted to take Tom’s hand: he wanted to cry. Tom stood there, stiff, graceless for once, and did not help him.... Thus easy it had come like leaves on the tree in Spring; like Sun out of the mists of dawn. David thought very little about it.