He turned. The sun was aflame in the Eastern windows. He faced the Park. Slow swarms of men and women crawling and scattering like bugs. These drew away his thoughts from the house and Cornelia. She stood laughing at the ornamented vestibule: its florid crimson plaster. “Strange, isn’t it?” she said. “When they tried to add beauty to their houses they made them hideous. Why is it?...” Tom’s new partner, Gilbert Lomney, who was a cousin of the President of the Fidelity Bank, who was a nephew of the General Manager of a great Railroad System, who was among the loyal stags of Mrs. Astor’s balls, who was a fellow with no moral and no professional sense--he wondered how he was going to get along with him. He brought in business well enough. But Tom had misgivings. He thought about them now. Lomney’s most brilliant feature was his glasses: his best achievement was his neckties. His glasses had a way of catching the sun whenever there was any sun around. His neckties were striped and of three colors. Without his glasses, Lomney was dull. Without his neckties, he would be naked. His eyes were flat. His complexion was habitually gray. About his mouth were the heavy lines, the puffing pucker that denote a sluggish kinetic system. One thing, to be sure: Lomney’s head was long--what Tom knew to be a generous head. But he was not sure of the brows that seemed dissociate from his eyes. Well: this was his partner. That day there had been a rub in the office. Lomney came in smiling in the morning. “Rennard,” he said, “is there no way of getting out of this contract cheaper than by paying the indemnity?” “Why doesn’t Murchison pay it? Good God! it’s scarcely a mutual document at that!” “Well, if he has to, he’ll have less respect for us.” Both of them knew that Murchison could afford to be fair: that Sampson could not afford to be cheated. But, “It’s not a question of that,” said Lomney, “It’s a question of how we are going to stand at 79 Broadway.” “Let’s have all the facts--since the contract.” Tom easily devised a plan. He had taken it to Lomney, who rejoiced. “Come out to lunch, oh, Daniel!” He flourished a silver-headed cane. “No, I’ve an engagement.” “Very well. Ta-ta. I’ll not be back to-day.” Tom sulked at his lonely lunch. He did not mind the trick he had played for Lomney’s client. But the unctuous pleasure of his partner was an ill thing to accept. It made him clear away his desk that afternoon with a fresh disgust: and be improperly amiable to Ladd, their abject clerk: and smile at Lomney’s fizzle of a brief to be argued in the morning. “Let him lose the damn motion, I’ll win it back on appeal for him. More glory, more money----” Standing on the stoop, Tom saw and added: “--More satisfaction in having Lomney lose.” He went on, while his body waited: “Why should I be doing these clever things for the half benefit of Gilbert Lomney? Don’t I know? I have the brains, but he has the pull and the people. Face it, man, it’s the game.”