Yet as Tom saw his practice swell, saw the doors behind which stood butlers open to him, the silent music of his blood went on. All these talents and emotions were reactions. Behind them stood the Image of a man--hating art, hating social intercourse, hating life,--of a man beckoning Tom back to an ecstatic, fabular peace. For that man’s hatreds also were reactions ... behind them.... All that ancient lure was now resistance to the life Tom flung himself upon, even as all this life was his resistance to that hidden lure. He would consecrate his talent, he would build him his church, Success. But his mind ran against it, weakened the rock on which he builded. Cornelia was knowing. Here were depths beyond her vision. She saw chiefly the young man so soaked in his Puritan upbringing that he was loath to face the joys he had of his worldly undertakings: a very usual hypocrisy and of no importance, but one she hated since she was full of it also. “I don’t see,” she said, “why you should be ashamed of enjoying Mrs. Duffield’s parties. Heaven knows we had lonely enough years, here, first.” “You go with artists--with intelligent people. You have too much kindness to imagine how dull the rich and the successful are.” “Nonsense! Their success speaks continual wise words. Their gold is brilliant.” So they swayed back and forth, these two. They were equals. They had never become rivals--before David. * * * * * Laura Duffield invited her new friend to dine. “Come early,” she said, “I want you to meet my son, before he goes to his usual party.” He entered the drawing-room: a young girl and a young man were there. “Farge and Marcia, this is Mr. Rennard.” Their polite greeting was sauced in an expectant languor and a very harmless resentment. It was as if they were resigned to a bad habit of their mother. Marcia, looking at Tom’s trimly rhythmic body, thought: “It is lucky Mamma is getting a divorce and must behave.” Farge was too dull to syllogize but he twinged with a sort of envy and almost pondered out: “_My_ friends are not freakish enough for Ma.” Tom was seated and Mrs. Duffield was already in full talk. He found it hard, listening to her, to take in these two. As she talked, she insisted on holding his eyes. It was as if she talked for no greater purpose. Marcia and Farge sat on a lounge just outside his range. They were looking at him. Farge smoked a cigarette; he had offered none to Tom. Marcia leaned far back, her legs were outstretched straight; she threw one ankle over the other. Mrs. Duffield made good the deficiency of her son. She never smoked, but she had full provisions for her friends. Tom felt how from ankle to neck this girl was firm and spare and full of a voluptuous relaxation. Only her eyes were taut, perhaps from poising him. She did not listen to her mother’s words. She hummed a tune very faintly: her upward foot marked time.