And, as a sense of impending loss always heightens values, E. H. Merriwether suddenly realized how important to him and to his happiness Tom was. He loved Tom, who was not only his only son, but the only Merriwether. That told everything: He loved Tom. VI After his father and Dr. Frauenthal left the house Tom tried to feel that he had finished his breakfast--that is to say, he attempted to read the newspapers. But the printed letters failed to combine themselves into intelligible forms, and even when he read a word here and there his mind did not record it. Obeying an unexplained impulse, he rose. Then he sat down merely because he had been standing. Then he tried to reason why he was sitting and what sitting there thinking of himself in that particular position meant. But the sky was too blue! It called to him in an azure voice that made him long for the sunshine and the open air, and the rooflessness of outdoors that permits ten million fancies to soar unchecked. Also, he longed for something; and, though he knew that he longed, he did not know exactly what it was he longed for, because it was not his mind that desired it, but all of him; and all of him did not think with precision. Young men are apt to feel like that in the springtime--also young women. Also widowers and relicts and canaries and heifers and burros--and even bankers! Therefore Tom swore at that nothing which is always something and gave up trying to make himself think that he wanted to read the morning papers. His nervous system coined a proverb for him: “When in doubt, walk out!” So he walked out of the house and crossed the Avenue. He found himself in Central Park--the remedy which the very rich do not and the very poor cannot use to cure the spring in the blood. And as he walked the soul-fidgets left him, so that after a mile or two he quite cold-bloodedly began to think of his most pressing duties. He went about them systematically. The first thing he had to do was some shopping; shopping on Fifth Avenue--on Fifth Avenue where the jewelry-shops were; in the jewelry-shops where the wedding-presents were. There! He was off again. Everybody was getting married! What business had people to make people think of wives--yes, wives--plural; lots of wives; all beautiful, all desirable and worthy; all lovely and loving and lovable; and all fit to be rolled into one--Tom's? It was not polygamy. It was merely composite photography. The one he desired had a little of each of the girls he admired. She was the amorous crazy-quilt that youth is so apt to dazzle itself with in the springtime--a nose from a friend; two lips from a stranger; a complexion from a distant relative; a pair of eyes from the sky; a heart from the heart of the sun--and lo! the wife-to-be!