Tibbetts’ gaze clinched his firmly; almost too fixedly: as if his eyes lacked the pain of encounter. They were lashless blue. Tibbetts had the soft eyes of a boy, the shallow eyes of a man who has not ventured where the boy’s eyes yearned. David turned his own deep uncertain gaze on him: in the retreat of his glance and the veil of warmth that suffused from the contact it was altogether clear which was in truth the older of these two. But neither David felt this, nor Duer Tibbetts, steadfast and staring. What came from their encounter was David’s sense of respect and wonderment for Duer Tibbetts, and Duer Tibbetts’ thrill of respect and wonderment for himself. To this end he talked. A gentleman can boast only before an equal. And Tibbetts was a gentleman, if for no other reason because he felt the quality of David. “A smart chap. You know: the sort who get on in the end,” he reported to his father. The young protégé and the powerful attorney of Deane and Company discussed the new arrival. They said many things. The paramount detail that this was the nephew of Mr. Deane, they had no words for: but this was what they were keenly thinking. The suppressed thought came out in the rhythmic beat of Mr. Tibbetts’ thumb against the desk, in the over-emphasis of his son when he said such common words as these: “I like him. He is slow, but what is slowness? You never can tell what’s underneath. The fact that he don’t know much now shows merely that he has lived in a little town. Lots of good stuff has come from little towns.” Now, he talked lavishly and with diligence to impress David who sat passive, trying to learn, telling himself that he was learning. He talked of projects and profits, of Mr. Deane’s subtle aggressiveness and of the Company’s prosperity. He spoke of the great law-suit which his father had won for the firm from the Feddlesby people. He spoke of a swinging figure that had gone from Deane and Company to help elect McKinley. “Measure it with our payroll, if you want to _feel_ how much it was to give.” He did not divulge the payroll. He said, “We” when he meant David and himself; “We” when he meant the Company; “We” when he meant America. There was a deep philosophy in this confusion. But David was still far from grappling with it, and Tibbetts did not dwell in the sphere of definition and reflection. “Yes, sir,” he pointed and flushed with his prophecy. “We’ll be in Cuba in less than a year. Don’t you forget it. We’ve got to kick the Spaniards out and go in ourselves. Then, we’ll earn enough from our dormant Las Daciendas plantations to buy up every relic factory in Key West. It’s a coup that’s certain.” All this puzzled David. He was not sure whether the “We” who must kick Spain out of the West Indies was the payroll of Deane and Company: or whether the “We” that was to grow subsequently rich in Las Daciendas was the citizenry of America. It was all a bewilderment of lines.