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 Networking
Fundamentals

Crystal Panek
Copyright © 2020 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Published by
John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
111 River Street
Hoboken, NJ 07030
www.wiley.com
Published simultaneously in Canada
ISBN: 978-1-119-65074-4
ISBN: 978-1-119-65071-3 (ebk)
ISBN: 978-1-119-65069-0 (ebk)
Manufactured in the United States of America
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This book is dedicated to my loving husband, William Panek, and to my
two wonderful daughters, Alexandria and Paige. Thank you all for your
love and support. I love you all more than anything!
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank my husband and best friend, Will, because without him I would not
be where I am today—Thank you! I would also like to express my love to my two daugh-
ters, Alexandria and Paige, who have always shown nothing but love and support. Thank
you all!
I would like to thank everyone on the Sybex team, especially my Associate Acquisitions
Editor, Devon Lewis, who helped make this the best book possible. I would like to thank
Kathleen Wisor, who was the production editor.
Finally, I also want to thank everyone behind the scenes that helped make this book pos-
sible. Thank you all for your hard work and dedication.
About the Author
Crystal Panek   holds the following certifications: MCP, MCP+I, MCSA,
MCSA+ Security and Messaging, MCSE-NT (3.51 & 4.0), MCSE 2000,
2003, 2012/2012 R2, 2016, MCSE+ Security and Messaging, MCDBA,
MCTS, MCITP.
For many years she trained as a contract instructor teaching at such
places as MicroC, Stellacon Corporation and the University of New
Hampshire. She then became the vice-president for a large IT training
company and for 15 years she developed training materials and courseware to help 1000’s
of students get through their certification exams. She currently works on a contract basis
creating courseware for several large IT training facilities.
She currently resides in New Hampshire with her husband and two daughters. In her
spare time, she likes to camp, hike, shoot trap and skeet, golf, bowl, and snowmobile.
Contents
Introduction xv

Lesson 1 Understanding Local Area Networking 1

Examining Local Area Networks, Devices, and Data Transfer 3
Defining the LAN 3
Identifying Types of LANs 20
Getting to Know Perimeter Networks 23
Identifying Network Topologies and Standards 25
Identifying Network Topologies 25
Defining Ethernet Standards 29
Identifying the Differences Between Client/Server and
Peer-to-Peer 32
Skill Summary 36
Knowledge Assessment 38
Multiple Choice 38
Fill in the Blank 40
Business Case Scenarios 41
Scenario 1-1: Planning and Documenting a Basic LAN 41
Scenario 1-2: Selecting the Correct Networking Model 41
Scenario 1-3: Selecting Network Adapters for Your
LAN Computers 41
Scenario 1-4: Configuring the Correct Subnet Mask 41
Solutions to Business Case Scenarios 42

Lesson 2 Defining Networks with the OSI Model 43

Understanding OSI Basics 45
Defining the OSI Model Layers 46
Defining the Communications Subnetwork 48
Define the Physical Layer 49
Define the Data Link Layer 51
Understanding Layer 2 Switching 52
Understanding Layer 3 Switching 56
Understanding Characteristics of Switches 56
Defining the Upper OSI Layers 58
Defining the Transport Layer 59
Defining the Session Layer 62
Defining the Presentation Layer 63
Defining the Application Layer 64
Reviewing the OSI Layers 65
Defining the TCP/IP Model 67
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x Contents

Skill Summary 68
Knowledge Assessment 69
Multiple Choice 69
Fill in the Blank 71
Business Case Scenarios 71
Scenario 2-1: Installing the Appropriate Switch 71
Scenario 2-2: Defining the IP Address and Ports Used
by Destination Servers 72
Scenario 2-3: Ensuring a Newly Created Email Account’s
Logon Is Encrypted 72
Scenario 2-4: Creating a Permanent ARP Table Entry 72

Lesson 3 Understanding Wired and Wireless Networks 75

Recognizing Wired Networks and Media Types 77
Identifying and Working with Twisted-Pair Cables 77
Identifying and Working with Fiber-Optic Cable 86
Understanding Wireless Networks 89
Identifying Wireless Devices 89
Identifying Wireless Networking Standards 91
Skill Summary 97
Knowledge Assessment 98
Multiple Choice 98
Fill in the Blank 100
Business Case Scenarios 100
Scenario 3-1: Selecting Channels for a WLAN 100
Scenario 3-2: Running Cable Drops Properly 100
Scenario 3-3: Selecting Network Adapters for Your
WLAN Computers 101
Scenario 3-4: Securing a WLAN 101

Lesson 4 Understanding Internet Protocol 103

Working with IPV4 105
Categorizing IPv4 Addresses 105
Default Gateways and DNS Servers 114
Defining Advanced IPv4 Concepts 117
Working with IPV6 129
Understanding IPv6 130
Configuring IPv6 133
Skill Summary 140
Knowledge Assessment 142
Multiple Choice 142
Fill in the Blank 144
 Contents xi

Business Case Scenarios 145

Scenario 4-1: Defining a Private Class C IP Network 145
Scenario 4-2: Specifying the Correct Device 145
Scenario 4-3: Implementing the Correct Class Network 145
Scenario 4-4: Implementing the Correct Subnet Mask 145

Lesson 5 Implementing TCP/IP in the Command Line 147

Using Basic TCP/IP Commands 149
Working with the Command Prompt Window 149
Using ipconfig and ping 152
Working with Advanced TCP/IP Commands 162
Using netstat and nbtstat 162
Using tracert and pathping 167
Using nslookup 170
Using ftp and telnet 171
Using Windows PowerShell 173
Using net 180
Skill Summary 188
Knowledge Assessment 189
Multiple Choice 189
Fill in the Blank 192
Business Case Scenarios 195
Scenario 5-1: Connecting to an FTP Server 195
Scenario 5-2: Troubleshooting TCP/IP Results 195
Scenario 5-3: Documenting a Basic Wide Area Network 196
Scenario 5-4: Using Advanced Ping 196

Lesson 6 Working with Networking Services 199

Setting Up Common Networking Services 201
Working with the Dynamic Host Configuration
Protocol (DHCP) 202
Introducing Remote Administration 208
Enable Remote Desktop 210
Access Remote Desktop 210
Defining More Networking Services 213
Defining RRAS 213
Defining IPsec 217
Defining Name Resolution Techniques 218
Defining DNS 218
Defining WINS 222
Skill Summary 223
Knowledge Assessment 225
Multiple Choice 225
Fill in the Blank 227
xii Contents

Business Case Scenarios 227

Scenario 6-1: Selecting the Appropriate Services 227
Scenario 6-2: Selecting the Appropriate Services 228
Scenario 6-3: Setting Up a DHCP Server 228
Scenario 6-4: Setting Up a New DHCP and Migrating
Old Computers 228
Scenario 6-5: Managing Remote Connections 228

Lesson 7 Understanding Wide Area Networks 231

Understanding Routing 233
Identifying Static and Dynamic Routing 233
Understanding Quality of Service (QOS) 237
Defining Common WAN Technologies and Connections 239
Defining Packet Switching 239
Defining T-Carriers 249
Defining Other WAN Technologies and Internet
Connectivity 250
Skill Summary 252
Knowledge Assessment 254
Multiple Choice 254
Fill in the Blank 256
Business Case Scenarios 256
Scenario 7-1: Selecting the Appropriate Service
and Protocol 256
Scenario 7-2: Selecting the Appropriate WAN Technology 256
Scenario 7-3: Recommending the Right Service 257
Scenario 7-4: Setting Up Routes to Other Networks 257

Lesson 8 Defining Network Infrastructures and Network

Security 259
Understanding Networks Outside the LAN 261
Defining the Internet 261
Defining Intranets and Extranets 262
Configuring VPN Connections and Authentication 264
Selecting Types of VPN Protocols 265
Selecting Authentication for VPN Connections 267
Creating a VPN Connection Using the Create a VPN
Connection Wizard 268
Creating a VPN Connection Using Windows 10 Settings 270
Using Connection Manager (CM) and the Connection
Manager Administration Kit (CMAK) 272
Understanding Security Devices and Zones 273
Defining Firewalls and Other Perimeter Security Devices 273
Redefining the DMZ 277
 Contents xiii

Putting It All Together 278

Skill Summary 281
Knowledge Assessment 282
Multiple Choice 282
Fill in the Blank 284
Business Case Scenarios 285
Scenario 8-1: Setting Up a DMZ 285
Scenario 8-2: Selecting the Appropriate Solution 285
Scenario 8-3: Setting Up a PPTP Server 285
Scenario 8-4: Creating a WAN with VPN 286

Appendix Answer Key 289

Lesson 1: Understanding Local Area Networking 290
Answers to Knowledge Assessment 290
Answers to Business Case Scenarios 291
Lesson 2: Defining Networks with the OSI Model 292
Answers to Knowledge Assessment 292
Answers to Business Case Scenarios 293
Lesson 3: Understanding Wired and Wireless Networks 293
Answers to Knowledge Assessment 293
Answers to Business Case Scenarios 294
Lesson 4: Understanding Internet Protocol 295
Answers to Knowledge Assessment 295
Answers to Business Case Scenarios 296
Lesson 5: Implementing TCP/IP in the Command Line 297
Answers to Knowledge Assessment 297
Answers to Business Case Scenarios 298
Lesson 6: Working with Networking Services 298
Answers to Knowledge Assessment 298
Answers to Business Case Scenarios 299
Lesson 7: Understanding Wide Area Networks 301
Answers to Knowledge Assessment 301
Answers to Business Case Scenarios 302
Lesson 8: Defining Network Infrastructure and
Network Security 302
Answers to Knowledge Assessment 302
Answers to Business Case Scenarios 303
Index 305
Introduction

What Does This Book Cover?

Chapter 1: Understanding Local Area Networking This chapter covers understanding
local area networks (LANs), perimeter networks, addressing, reserved address ranges for
local use (including local loopback IP), VLANs, wired LAN and wireless LAN. Discusses
understanding network topologies and access methods. Discusses star, mesh, ring, bus,
logical and physical topologies as well as a brief overview of using switches.
Chapter 2: Defining Networks with the OSI Model This chapter covers understanding the
Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) model. Discusses the Transmission Control Protocol
(TCP) model, examples of devices, protocols, applications, and which OSI/TCP layer they
belong to. This chapter also discusses TCP and User Datagram Protocol (UDP), well-
known ports and their purposes, as well as discussing packets and frames. This chapter
also discusses switches, transmission speed, number and type of ports, number of uplinks,
speed of uplinks, managed or unmanaged switches, VLAN capabilities, Layer 2 and Layer
3 switches and security options, hardware redundancy, support, backplane speed, switch-
ing types and MAC table. As well as the capabilities of hubs versus switches and virtual
switches.
Chapter 3: Understanding Wired and Wireless Networks This chapter covers understand-
ing different media types, cable types and their characteristics, including media segment
length and speed, fiber optic, twisted pair shielded or unshielded, catxx cabling, wire-
less, susceptibility to external interference (machinery and power cables), susceptibility to
electricity (lightning), and susceptibility to interception. This chapter also provides a brief
discussion on local area networks (LANs). VLANs, wired LAN and wireless LAN. This
chapter discusses wireless networking including types of wireless networking standards and
their characteristics, the 802.11a,b,g,n,ac including different GHz ranges, types of network
security (WPA, WEP, 802.1X, and others), point-to-point (P2P) wireless, ad hoc networks,
and wireless bridging.
Chapter 4: Understanding Internet Protocol This chapter covers understanding Local
Area Networks (LANs), using reserved address ranges for local use (including the local
loopback IP). This chapter discusses understanding IPv4 and IPv6, including subnetting,
IPconfig, why use Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4), why use Internet Protocol version 6
(IPv6) addressing, ipv4toipv6 tunneling protocols to ensure backward compatibility, dual
IP stack, subnetmask, gateway, ports, and packets.
Chapter 5: Implementing TCP/IP in the Command Line This chapter covers understand-
ing TCP/IP tools such as ping, tracert, pathping, Telnet, IPconfig, netstat, reserved address
ranges for local use (including local loopback IP), protocols as well as discussing using a
routers routing table memory.
xvi Introduction

Chapter 6: Working with Networking Services This chapter covers a brief discussion
on understanding wireless networking, understanding names resolution, DNS, resource
records, Windows Internet Name Service (WINS), the name resolution process, HOSTS
file and the LMHOSTS file. This chapter also discusses understanding networking services
including Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP), Network Address Translation
(NAT), firewalls, remote access and VPNs.
Chapter 7: Understanding Wide Area Networks This chapter covers understanding rout-
ers and directly connected routes, static routing, dynamic routing (routing protocols), RIP
vs. OSPF, default routes; routing table and how it selects best route(s). Also covers installing
and configuring routing and Quality of Service (QoS). This chapter also discusses under-
standing wide area networks (WANs), leased lines, dial-up, ISDN, VPN, T1, T3, E1, E3,
DSL, cable modems and their characteristics (speed, availability).
Chapter 8: Defining Network Infrastructures and Network Security This chapter covers
understanding the concepts of Internet, intranet, and extranet as well as Virtual Private
Networks (VPNs), security zones and firewalls.

Interactive Online Learning Tools

Studying the material in Networking Fundamentals is an important part of self-learning
but we provide additional tools to help you prepare.
To start using these tools to jump start your self-study for go to www.wiley.com/go/
networkingfundamentals.

How to Contact the Publisher

If you believe you’ve found a mistake in this book, please bring it to our attention. At John
Wiley & Sons, we understand how important it is to provide our customers with accurate
content, but even with our best efforts an error may occur.
In order to submit your possible errata, please email it to our Customer Service Team at
wileysupport@wiley.com with the subject line “Possible Book Errata Submission”.
Lesson Understanding Local

1
Area Networking

Objective Domain Matrix

Objective Domain Objective

Skills/Concepts Description Domain Number

Examining Local Area Understand local area 1.2

Networks, Devices, networks (LANs)
and Data Transfer Understand switches 2.1

Identifying Network Understand network 1.5

Topologies and topologies and access
Standards methods

/FUXPSLJOH
'VOEBNFOUBMT
By $SZTUBM
1BOFL
Copyright © 20 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Key Terms
broadcast messaging server
centralized computing multiport repeater
client/server network adapter
Carrier Sense Multiple Access with network controller
Collision Avoidance (CSMA/CA) network documentation
Carrier Sense Multiple Access with network operating systems (NOSs)
Collision Detected (CSMA/CD)
network topology
Computer Telephony Integration
P2P
CTI-based server
peer-to-peer
data transfer rate
perimeter network
database server
print server
demilitarized zone (DMZ)
ring topology
distributive computing
RJ-45
Ethernet
serial data transfer
file server
star topology
frames
switch
full-duplex
transceive
half-duplex
unicast
host
virtual LAN (VLAN)
hub
web server
IEEE 802.3
Windows 10
IP address
wireless access point (WAP)
local area network (LAN)
wireless local area network (WLAN)
mesh topology
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 Examining Local Area Networks, Devices, and Data Transfer 3

Lesson 1 Case

Local area networks are used by just about every organization, and today many homes
have them as well. This lesson refers to a fictitious company named Proseware, Inc., that
wants to implement a new LAN in a brand-new office, which will serve approximately
20 users. The company requires an extremely quick network that can transfer many
different types of data. They want the most cost-effective layout without losing speed
or efficiency! The network engineer's job responsibilities include selecting the right
equipment, making sure it is all compatible, and getting it installed on time. The network
engineer should have a thorough understanding of technologies, such as Ethernet and
switching, because she will be critical in designing and implementing the network.
This lesson covers all of the concepts necessary so you can be confident installing the
network that this company desires. As we progress through this book, we will build on
this scenario and add lots more networking technologies to the infrastructure.

Examining Local Area Networks,

Devices, and Data Transfer
Simply stated, a network is two or more computers that exchange data. A local area network
(LAN) is a group of these computers that are confined to a small geographic area, usually
one building. Setting up a LAN requires computers with network adapters, central con-
necting devices to connect those computers together, and a numbering scheme (such as IP
addresses) to differentiate one computer from the next. It can also include servers, some
type of protective device such as a firewall, and connections to perimeter networks that are
adjacent to the LAN.

Defining the LAN

As mentioned, a LAN requires computers with network adapters, central connecting
devices, and some type of medium to tie it altogether, be it cabled or wireless connections.
These must be connected together in some way to facilitate the transfer of data. It is impor-
tant to define how they are connected together, as well as how they actually transmit data.

Certification Ready

What is a local area network (LAN)? Objective 1.2

4 Lesson 1 ■ Understanding Local Area Networking

We mentioned that a network is used to exchange data. But what are the real reasons that
an organization will desire (or need) a network? They can be organized into four categories:
Sharing The sharing of files, databases, and media
Communication The methods of communication, such as email, instant messaging, and
faxing
Organization The ability to centralize data and make it more accessible and efficient
$$$ The ability for the network to provide cost savings and/or increase productivity
Some would place security in this list of categories, but, unfortunately, as you will find,
many networks, devices, and operating systems are insecure when they are fresh out of the
box. Just having a network doesn’t ensure security. In fact, many steps must be taken to
implement a secure network.
To understand local area networks (LANs) better, it helps to write out the structure of
the LAN—to document it. Network documentation is any information that helps describe,
define, and otherwise explain how computers are connected in a physical and logical way.
For example, the physical connection could be cables, and the logical connection could be
the various IP addresses used by the devices on the network.
In the following exercises, you will:
■■ Examine typical LAN network documentation.
■■ View the type of network adapter in a computer, inspect the type of connection that
the network adapter makes to the network, and view its Properties page.
■■ Define how information is sent across the LAN.
■■ Configure IP addresses on hosts.
The ability to document networks is an important skill for network administrators. The
documentation phase occurs before networks are built and whenever changes or additions
are made to the network. Microsoft Visio is a common tool used for network documenta-
tion; Figures 1.1 to 1.3 were developed using Visio.

Examine LAN Network Documentation

To examine LAN network documentation, perform the following steps.

Download

You can download a free trial of Visio from the Microsoft website. A link is provided on
the companion website.

Certification Ready

What are the capabilities of hubs as compared to switches? Objective 2.1

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He rubbed it up and down. He could not let it go. David, standing there,
counted the buttons on his waistcoat.
Mrs. Deane spoke: “Why don’t you young people run along upstairs?”
Automatically, Lois, Miss Tibbetts and the two boys rose from their
chairs. It was as if they were being thrust away by a sated creature. David
could feel the swift rushing of the current of attention from him. The single
eye was turned away: the single word knew him not. He was nothing.
He saw these men and women, sure, satisfied; he felt a certain cruelty in
their assurance and in their satisfaction. He was closer to the girls. Muriel
had not budged from her seat. In Duer was a certain mingling of movement
and of motive. Duer was changing his status. Muriel had changed already.
She had qualified and been absorbed. She was one of the possessors, one
with this generation which had achieved. Duer was on the way. David saw
something like a royal whim in the intensity of the brief interest of these
elders. They had looked at him as possible food, as a possible new adhesion
to their body. They had not remotely thought of him as a separate human
being with heart and mind and soul of his own. In a way poignant, however
vague, David felt this, felt further the meaning of their swift disposal after
the appeasement of interest. Here, at last, he discerned a Group. He knew
that in its elemental consciousness he must be either a good thing for its
increase, or a bad thing altogether....
Upstairs another sudden shift in mood and stress.
Duer all at once was middle-aged and weightily silent. He looked on the
two girls with a forebearing reticence. He had left a part of himself—a
longing part—downstairs. A part of the group downstairs—the complacent
part—he was trying sturdily to carry on.
Lois and his sister were hard to impress. Their bright indifference
outshone his drab and manufactured ease. A certain sublime comfort lay
beneath Duer’s manifest disapproval of their gayety. It said: “Time is with
me. Wait until you are women, as I am a man. My way wins.”
Lois placed Miss Tibbetts before him with a ceremonial air.
“Fay is my very best friend. So you two must be friends, too: for my
sake.... Kiss!”
He obeyed joyously. He liked the spirit of this. He felt its unregeneracy.
Already, though he knew it not, he was arrayed against the informing tide of
this life about him. And when he was near a girl whom he liked, much of
David’s inhibitions melted away.
Duer made his advance. He needed an ally against the flippancy of these
girls, these girls about whom he would have said: “They know nothing
about life: they know nothing about Business.”
“Well, how go things?” he swaggered, throwing up his head with a
nonchalance that was belied by the keen worry of his eyes. “Satisfied with
McGill?”
David retreated. “Sure,” he avoided an answer.
Duer knew that in such gatherings as now downstairs men must talk
politics and business while the mentally segregated ladies discussed
servants and dress. Duer had the passion of conforming. Life to him was an
exclusive club to which he yearned to belong. Service was a means toward
being voted in. He had all the fervor of a mediæval page grasping for spurs.
But David was miserable in this intruding sense of fitness. He liked the
anarchy of Lois more. He was curious about this girl whom Lois loved. He
had nothing to say to Duer.
 So the four joined a circle from which Duer spiritually retired. David did
not know how to skate. Lois and Fay already lived the delight of teaching
him. The Rink would be open soon. They argued the kind of skates he
should buy.
“And if you fall,” said Lois forbiddingly.
“Oh, he will fall. Beginners always do.”
“Well, never you mind. We’ll pick you up. Won’t we, Fay? We’ll take
care of you.”
She seemed almost tender. Then her hard giggle.
“No one shall laugh at you either,” Fay declared.
“No one except us,” said Lois.
The thought came to David that he would have preferred her saying: “No
one except me.” But it was plain these two hunted together. David found it
hard to understand their likeness.
“Children! Children! Come now. We’re going.” The voice of Mrs.
Tibbetts strode through the house. Duer was the quickest to respond.
David and Lois were alone.
The brief packed hour had stirred the early world of David, had made it
glow again. Their spirits had been high together. Now, somehow, they sat in
gloom. They realized that in their lightness there had been combat. Looking
at each other, they felt the burden of those below advancing heavily upon
them.
“Why do you love Fay so much?”
“Because she’s a dear.” Lois was not on the defensive because of Fay.
She had more intelligence than her answer. She deemed the question worthy
of no better. She sought the solace of a different subject.
David kept silent, and looked at Lois and thought of Fay.
He saw Fay quite clearly. Fay was dark, regular of feature, beautiful
even. Her face was hard. It had none of the free loveliness of sixteen years.
It roused in David passion more nearly than affection, the need to dominate
rather than to help. David saw her straight mouth, her veiled eyes, the
squareness of her forehead: he tried to remember that she had laughed and
joked with Lois, was delightful snubbing her solemn brother. Her lively
brightness seemed strange to her immobile face.
 “Besides, Lois is her chum, and look at Lois!” he argued with himself
and he looked. He knew that her tenderness was like an early yellow violet.
He set aside his first forbidding instinct about Fay. He forgot it, altogether....
In contemplation of each other, these two were like two worlds, each
with its atmosphere and its teeming life and its fires, each with its intense
exclusive consciousness, thrust suddenly close out of the silences of Space.
They felt the indefeasible Past that summed their difference: its involute
progression of separate thought and deed reaching from the mist of their
beginnings. They were separate: Nothing was between them. Yet they were
being drawn together.
When Lois came down to breakfast, David was gone. There was just
time to kiss her father as he trudged back into the dining room, hatted and
overcoated, smoking hard at the day’s first cigar. Mr. Deane’s true genius
for system was at work even at half past eight. When he reached his train at
Fiftieth Street, his cigar was done. It was a smaller cigar than he smoked
later in the day.
“Well, good-by.” He stood in the doorway. Lois jumped from her chair
and threw her arms about his neck and kissed him. She loved her father. It
was somewhat a maternal love. She knew that he was rather the defensive
and serviceable member of the household.
One day, she visited her father at his offices downtown. She walked a bit
fastidiously through the murky sales-department on the ground floor where
the bright yellow oak and the beveled glass and the shadows under long
tables depressed her. She saw men moving about in shirt-sleeves: grimy
boys that ambled in and out of doors whose jaws seemed busier with gum
than their slack minds with business. They led her to a spiral iron stair
through whose slatted steps she could see the bowed heads below of men at
desks and women bent over papers. It had appeared to her first that this was
a hostile world, she was frightened to have come upon it.
On the narrow steps, she gave way to a girl—not much older than herself
in years—but very old as if she lived in a harder world than Lois, a world
that wore one more away, that sapped the flower of cheeks and the laughter
of eyes and parched the bloom of a girl’s hair. She noticed all this, stepping
aside so that the girl might pass. She moved, apologetic, fearful, strangely
ashamed. She saw the hard paper cylinders serving this girl as sleeves. In
the lifeless golden hair she saw that a pencil was stuck. She felt guilt. But
Lois had no power to plumb her impulse: it went. She was in her father’s
private office and a new pride swiftly scurried away the mist of that strange
encounter.
Here—she felt it at once—here her father was master! A new light by
which to see him.
At home her mother ruled him. Muriel flouted him when he obtruded
upon the most idle of her ways. He seemed glad, as of a privilege, to hold
Lois on his knees, after Sunday breakfast, and spoil her with promises of
trinkets, bribing for kisses and smiles. Also, at home he was weary, a
depleted man. He had little ways of confessing his weakness and although
Lois was not so analytic as to gauge them consciously, their accumulation
brought its impress to her mind. He lost his temper. He bore treading on,
was silent, then suddenly he lost his temper. He cried aloud about his
power, that his will was final: he was the head of the household: not Muriel,
not Muriel—he. Lois felt the whisper against these over-protestations.
Here was a party to which a not too well established youth had invited
Muriel. The youth was calling for her in a carriage himself had hired.
“You aren’t going in that carriage,” said Mr. Deane.
Muriel was struck silent. She retreated before the sudden quiet of his
authority. Slowly gathering herself, she matched him.
“And why not, please?” Her voice was compressed in her throat.
“Why not?” her father burst forth. “Because I don’t want you to. I don’t
allow any young whippersnapper who wants, to take my daughter in a hired
carriage. We have a carriage of our own, haven’t we? Isn’t it good enough?
Send your young man a message to countermand his rig and you may go.”
Muriel stood there, swaying a bit, lowering on him.
“I’ll do no such thing. Make him think I’m a child who cant go out in
any carriage but my Papa’s? The whole thing is too silly——”
“Very well. Then stay at home.”
Muriel broke into tears.
“I won’t,” she cried. “I’ll go. I never heard of such a thing. It’s stupid.
What have you got all of a sudden against Alfred? Why should you ask me
to insult him so? If he prefers to order his own cab....”
She stood there and wept and moved not at all, save for the stamping of
her feet. Her father paced the room, far less contained.
 “I have said what I meant.” Stopping short, he joined the issue. “And
you will obey. So long as you are in my house, I am to be obeyed, do you
hear? You ain’t married yet.”
He left the room. Muriel went to the dance in her father’s carriage. But
Lois knew how clearly, in the light of the ensuing days, the victory was
with her sister. Muriel kept aloof, frigid. She waged a perpetual guerilla on
her father. Soon he began to bribe and to cajole for a return to favor. He
bought her an armlet she had several months ago expressed the wish for. He
had said it was too expensive. “Out of the question.” He took her to theater
with a strained gusto of good will and to supper after. He spoke to her with
a nervous smile that exclaimed his suppliance. And Muriel accepted all,
gave nothing. She wore his armlet and in no way acknowledged the life and
feeling of the harried man who waited for thanks as for a reprieve. On his
return each evening to his house, she managed some little way to hold him
frozen in discomfort. On the occasion of another dance, he said:
“Muriel, my dear—I just wanted to know—are you using the carriage to-
night, or is your escort taking care of that? I just wanted to know, you see—
because if so, I might use Henry myself. There’s a conference I——”
“I have made no other arrangements.”
“Oh, well, that is all right, my dear. I can get a cab. I—I just wanted to
know, you see....”
Having completely and ignominiously surrendered, he beamed at his
daughter. Muriel smiled back.
Here: Lois was ensconced in a deep armchair of bronzed leather. She
was examining her little feet that lay in a rich Turkish rug. A knock at the
door.
“Come in,” said her father without looking up.
A young man, the symbol of subservience, stepped in.
He placed a group of papers before Mr. Deane, who did not look at him.
He stepped back, threw up his head and waited.
Mr. Deane raced through the papers. He marked annotations. He
grunted.
“You’ll have to see Mr. McGill about this”: the young man agilely
stepped forward to ascertain which paper it was, and agilely subsided. “All
right. Let Mr. Marton attend to the tax.”
 He returned the papers to the young man, for the first time saw him.
“Here,” he smiled. “Why don’t you two greet each other?”
Duer Tibbetts moved jerkily forward and took his cousin’s hand. But the
bondage of the room’s authority was strong on him. He seemed weighed
down by this sense of special dispensation. Social talk was impossible in
the august presence. He was soon gone.
Another five minutes of chat, another knock. This time a girl appeared
with papers. The same subdued alertness, the same gingerly respect. Mr.
Deane pressed a button. A boy bobbed in.
“Take Miss Deane to her carriage.” The boy fell back as if to flatten
himself into the wall, while she passed him. Her father got up.
“Well, my dear. I am afraid I am too busy now”; in this splendid easy
manner he dismissed her....
This transfiguration of her father into a man of power was a sharp new
knowledge. But in the more persuasive color of her home, its lines grew
faint. It soon withdrew into the limbo of things remote, scarce real, hence
scarce remembered. It had little application to her world uptown. In
consequence, it had no effect.
Lois left school in time for lunch. It was to be her last year at school. The
lunches would go on.
Seated at the wide round table with Muriel and her mother, she
instinctively inquired into her own future freedom: and in this mood studied
them. She studied their dress; she studied their activities. She absorbed their
judgments and their pleasures.
She was sixteen. A spirit of gayety and candor danced in her heart. But
she had no knowledge to build a mansion for it: to train and cherish it: to
give it weapons wherewith to confront the world. It was dancing, this
unblemished spirit, dancing itself to death. For it was daughter of the sun,
and it breathed no fresh air: it had been born careless and frail and all about
it walls of convention: it was starved and forced to feed upon itself.
“I promised to go and have tea with poor Mrs. Dent.”
“Since when,” asked Muriel, “is Mrs. Dent ‘poor’?”
“Don’t you remember she has just lost her husband?”
“Oh, yes.” Muriel remembers.
 Her mother goes on. “Do you think, dear, you can drop me there on your
way to the Selby’s?”
“I don’t really see how I’ll have time, Mamma. I must take a rest after
lunch. I promised to call for Aline King.”
“Can’t Aline get there without you?”
“I promised her, Mamma.”
Mrs. Deane will take the street-car. She does not like to squander money
on cabs.
“You haven’t forgotten that you are going shopping with me, to-morrow
morning. You promised me.”
“I saw just the loveliest hat, just to-day, Mamma, at Bertrande’s. I am
having it sent home to you. I’m sure it will suit you. Then, we needn’t go
shopping. I must write to Clarice sometime. I thought I’d sleep late to-
morrow and write before lunch. She is getting a divorce, you know.”
Lois knew already the inwardness of marriage. There was much talk of
this at the luncheon table. She had the right contempt for the girls who
married unmoneyed men for love: for the men who risked their future—
their finances—in alliance with unmoneyed girls: and for the novels she
read where love was extolled and the sentimental match defended. These
books were—well—for reading. Novels and stories were indulgences like
red and emerald peppermints after dessert. They lied.
And Lois knew already the inwardness of friendship. Muriel and her
mother had friends. They kissed them and flattered them and entertained
them. At the luncheon table they discussed them. No one but was a tissue of
deceptions, of selfishness, of deceit. Their morals were largely obstacles
they were forever dodging. They flirted—with fops or fools. They angled—
for goldfish. They were miserable at home. One was none too anxious to
have children. One was none too faithful to her husband. All of them were
none too good at all.
Immediately after lunch, Florence was to call for Muriel and take her for
a walk. Florence was violently trying to win the King boy whose father had
nearly a million. But it was hopeless because Mabel—mutual friend—had
told Muriel all about it and she was secretly engaged to Clifford King. Oh,
Aline wouldn’t know! Clifford was bored by Aline. Muriel and Mabel had
had a good laugh over Florence—poor child—such antics.
 “She really loves him, you know.” Muriel smiles complacently. This is
an interesting if somewhat superfluous detail in her wish to wed him. Mrs.
Deane nods, mildly concerned.
Later: “Hello, Florence dearest. I was so afraid you’d be late....”
Indeed, Lois knew already the inwardness of life. Life was, in the
patriarchal term, a “business proposition.” Out of the arcana of the past her
intellect could summon the picture of a free land peopled by striving men
and women. This land was America. Its freedom meant the opportunity of
all “to get along”: to become rich. Men achieved this in business, women in
marriage. The sublime distinction of America was that no castes interfered
with business, and no classes with marriage.... Sharply there emerged from
this hallowed field one man and one woman. The man was her father. He
had grown rich by being quick and clever. The woman was her mother. She
had grown rich by being sensible, by seizing her chance. Romance in their
lives was a hidden function, if it existed at all. It was bound up with the
mysteries of birth and sex. These things took care of themselves.
The important thing for Lois, since she was a woman, lay in the need of
being sensible. Lois knew what this meant. She knew as well the
proportional insignificance of her own girlish impulses. Lois loved to play,
loved to be loyal to a friend, would have loved to love a man. But these
were part of her childhood, and childhood was a special state. Its needs
were indulgences one must outgrow. Childhood was of the same dim
category as art and stories. It wasn’t true. It was “make-believe.” It lied.
Muriel had already cast it aside like her short dresses. Lois was aware she
was carrying it a bit too far and too long. She was sixteen and in ankle skirts
and her braids were already gathered on her head. She deemed herself brave
and a trifle foolish to be so frolicsome at sixteen. She was unswervingly
confident of knowing how to change at the needed moment. Meanwhile,
she felt herself slightly inferior in the things that held her and in the moods
she loved. The rule of life was to harden the present into a mold for the
future. Yet Lois could not resist pouring herself still into immediate and
short-lived moments: giving herself to emotions that must have no future.
The gay spirit still danced fast. Inexorably, from without, the things she
learned bore inward, seeped downward, stifled the things she had merely
always felt. Her acquired consciousness was a slow acid mist that would eat
away the stir and laughter of her birth. The gay spirit danced fast, though it
was dancing to death.
 All this was Lois. All this was drawing, with her and in her, near to
David. With David the stalwart muteness of the years that inclosed him with
his mother: the sting and the song of his father: the drowsy stir of the Town
not yet awakened, not yet awakened to its death in the crash of the
industrial Age.
Two little teeming worlds, spying each other, craving each other across
the Nothing....

David and Thomas Rennard had agreed on an evening by letter. They

were going to dine together, and then to theater. Tom waited in the lights of
a Broadway chop-house.
He would not know the man he met: this he knew. He stood quite still
and gauged the crowds. The heavy strokes of their passing fell against his
measured life. They separated him as he stood there from the thoughts and
fruits of his growing. Tom stood graceful and free as few men do. His
weight was equal on both feet: his arms were unpropped: his back curved
subtly in rhythm with his head. Only in the faint peer of his eyes was there
defect. Tom was nearsighted. He did not admit this. He wore no glasses,
despite the advice of doctors. His best friends had no inkling that when he
recognized them, distant, on the street, it was not by sight of their features
but by knowledge of the accents of their walk.
The crowds flayed him with dull black strokes and Tom was separate
from his first months in the City. He twined this with thoughts of David. It
was different of course. David must have found a ready welcome in the
house of his uncle. Tom knew of Anthony Deane: his name was that of a
big-hearted, well-liked merchant. Tom had come with no reception, no one
to remake and to keep him. He thought of a stone fallen in a wind-shattered
sea, how it sank with no slightest added tremor of wave and no sign from
the swinging heavens. He knew what the City had done upon him. The
terracing steel had rivetted his eyes and writhed him. The clamor of this
world had soon enticed him from the call of his old thoughts. Old dreams
were outrun by the faëry of the City.
He stood naked there, and emptied among millions. Cornelia was distant
with her cold hand in his. But he was more alive than he had been. He knew
this, because his nudity was not stark. It was encased in a great trembling. It
was cold with a great hunger for warmth. A fire of will stirred in him:
darted from him out and became vision among the millions. He had seen.
He saw that these millions also were naked and forlorn from themselves.
No one was at home in the City: no one was himself in the City! Tom had
found himself smiling, known himself strong. He was naked no longer. He
was clothed in the knowledge of the nakedness of others.... At once he had
looked at his hands and found money. He prospered. But Tom knew that
this light from within himself which played about among the darkness of
men and brought him the strength of knowledge could not go forth from
him and stay in him as well. When it was away, outside, doing his work
Success, he was unlit himself.
Would he find David still shivering in his new nakedness? Tom
remembered the distinction between them.
“No,” he said aloud: “he’ll be thinking there’s darkness and confusion all
about, in the blinding blare of his own light. And blaming it all on himself.”
He winced, suddenly finding it cold. The dark pupils of his eyes
distended, the mouth drew downward over the lower lip, the skin was taut
on his cheek-bones. Then a recovering spark in his eyes illumed their warm
particles of bistre, the defiant smile of his mouth pointed upward.
The lamps of the restaurant façade fell over Tom and bathed him. He had
the sudden pain of feeling himself a black spot in warm blaze. He moved
aside to shadow. He stepped out, and grasped David’s hand.
A coachman stood at the corner beside his horse. Idly he flapped his
arms—a habit caught from the cold winters—against the musty broadcloth
of his coat. He saw the two young men in the light. Their profiles were
sharp. An eager alert young man and a drowsy one, passive before him. A
clear laugh and a muffled laugh that followed always. The coachman turned
to his horse: “Well, young feller, have some oats?” He prodded his soft
nose. The other two were gone.
Three houses stood far separate in the City. The house of the Deanes
where the old world of David dissolved into a frantic chaos: the house of
the Company in whose gathered fires his new world formed from the
running welter: the house on whose top floor lived Thomas Rennard. These
houses threw a vivid stirring like the glow of lamps. The spheres of their
activity converged. As they burned and moved, a myriad other burnings
rose and met them, intermingled and transfused them. A single light,
drenching the City. It fell like an eye upon these two talking: it fell with the
same singleness upon each spot where men and women were, where men
and women loved. From each spot came a glow, from the myriad glows
rose back again the transfusing fire, deeper than consciousness, more real
than the separate lives which fueled it, as the glow of coal is deeper and
more real than the black coal itself. But through the brightness was a
vibrancy: and where David and Tom sat, had they been wise enough to
follow its receding lines, their vision must have reached back to the three
houses. From other spots the grain of the light traced back to other sources.
From these sources forth again to farther ones.... To a white cottage in the
Eastern village, to the leaning plains of Ohio. Thence again away to beneath
the hearts of two dead women stirring there, quiet—still—once more
outward—perhaps to find each other behind the sun. Close, there: and here
at the chop-house table seeking to be close.

David and Tom, together, were not on Broadway but at Cornelia’s studio.
The studio had swung to place under their feet; Broadway lurched on, the
footing of others.
Cornelia had not mentioned again her wish to meet Tom’s new friend. It
was not necessary. The relation between them was too intimate for that.
Tom knew when she was thinking of this: Cornelia knew when Tom had
understood her.
“Well, how was the dinner, brother?”
“Are you busy next Sunday afternoon?”
“No.”
“I told Markand you were anxious to meet him. He is in a state of
perturbation I hope won’t interfere with his royal job of clerking.”
“Oh, I am glad. But—how was the dinner?”
“You are the first artist he will have met. I have told him about us.
Cornelia, you must wear something brighter than that Russian thing. Will
you? The sandals will do. Stockings under them, however. A little more air
in the meshes of your hair. Yes? Why not that green silk blouse with the
orange smocking. I want him to see you’re an artist in some outward visible
sign.”
“And the work——?” Cornelia looked at her clays.
“I am afraid he is not quite up to these.”
 “Oh, nonsense, Tom!” His sister turned on her couch, her favorite seat.
She tucked a foot beneath her and laughed. “To hear you talk, one would
think the boy was dull—or that my art was inscrutably profound.”
“He’s not dull. I was amazed last night....”
“At last, the dinner!”
“I was amazed at the bright muddle he’s in. I tell you, he’s inquiring and
inquiring. It’s glorious! He told me the Spanish-Cuban question was not a
mere matter of relief for the reconcentrados! ‘There’s something else beside
Principle,’ he announced.”
“Whereupon, I am sure, you added: ‘The same’s true of the Monroe
Doctrine.’ ”
“If I had, it would have shocked him. I did not. His new searching eye
has not yet reached that sacrosanct past. I was in no mood to startle him,
Cornelia. I felt different. I like David Markand. I respect him. What if he
has the usual illusions? In his soul, they are no longer the smug knock-
kneed lies I hate. They become true: at least, beautiful. My facts seem
shoddy and ugly—and lying, in the warm glow of his faith.”
They were silent both. Tom did not often speak so tenderly.
“Wait and see,” he concluded.
“I see already,” said his sister.
So David came.
He was to leave at once after the Sunday dinner: push his way through
the depleted Sabbath City: he was to ring the bell on the brass-plate marked
Rennard, come up three dusty stairs and find them waiting through the door
that made two worlds of the black hall and the bright room.
“I am so glad to see you!” Cornelia had him at once in hand. He looked
very tall beside her sharp slightness. She took his hat and his coat.
“Do sit down.” David was anxious to look everywhere about him, to
touch all these mysteries with the warmth of his eyes so that they might be
cold and strange no longer. He did not quite dare. He kept looking near
Cornelia: then, with still greater ease, toward Tom. In this his sensitivity
was clear. A glance was an intimate gesture, a visit, to David. He could not
comfortably look at what he did not already comfortably know.
“Tom has told me not half enough about you. Just enough,” she smiled,
“to make me know it was not half enough.”
 Tom apprehensively tested his new friend. His gladness at seeing David
understand Cornelia released his worry into laughter.
“Oh,” said David, “it is just the same in my case with what Mr. Rennard
has said about you.” He looked at the little cast between the windows and
blushed: he folded his hands and looked at them.
Tom remained silent. There was no need of talking: and although he
talked much it was deeply true that Tom talked only when he had need of
talking. He was comfortable now. He lit a cigarette, and lay prone, propped
by his arms, on the window-seat; he let the conversation of the two go over
him and smoked.
“You know,” Cornelia said, “we are not New Yorkers either.”
David met her eyes. “Your brother told me about how you ran away.”
Cornelia was silent. What could she say to swell the room’s slow
freedom?
“My case”—David went on—“I am so different. I always lived with my
mother and then she died. And then my uncle took me—took me really in
charge. That is why I came. I have never done anything because I wanted
to, really—that I can remember. Except perhaps work in the bicycle shop.
Mother wanted me to stay longer at school. But—” he looked at his hands
again and stopped, then met Cornelia squarely with a smile, “the truth is
mother said to me: ‘Do as you please, son.’ And—and I was bored by
school. My best friend, Jay Leamy—he worked at Mr. Devitt’s also.”
“You never told me that,” said Tom.
“He didn’t stay my best friend. I guess that’s why. I guess I was a better
friend than he.”
“What makes you say that?” asked Cornelia.
“Well—it was natural. He was ten years older than I. He got married. He
got a better job at the Arms factory just outside Town. We didn’t see each
other so much after that. He sort of lost interest.”
Cornelia laughed. “I think that’s a little hard!” She did not want this
word. She was sure “hard” was an ultimate wrong word for David
Markand. She was vague in her misgiving. “Probably, his wife and—he had
children? Well, they must have left him far less time.”
“It is not a question of time, is friendship?” David asked.
 “Well, left him far less——” Why did Cornelia find this difficult? “Less
emotion perhaps. I can understand that. With a wife and children.”
“It would not have made any difference with me,” said David simply.
Tom was leaning over. “Perhaps you don’t know what it means to have a
wife and children.”
“I know what it ought to mean to have a friend.”
“Are you sure?” said Tom.
“After we had shared so many thoughts, don’t you see?”
“You must be capable of deep friendship,” Cornelia thought aloud.
Tom was somehow crossed by her remark. He lay back once more,
brooding. The talk was easy now between the other two. So easy that even
silence did not disquiet them. Tom seemed far away.
Out of a silence, David asked: “Is that sort of friendship rare?”
Cornelia, not knowing, did not answer.
“If it is rare,” said Tom, “there must be something wrong with it.”
“What do you mean?”
“The good things in the world are common. Sunlight: moonlight.”
“Mother and I were that sort of friends,” said David.
“I hope Tom and I are also,” laughed Cornelia.
David looked at her close. She was a woman who made beautiful things.
That was her life. It seemed to David she was not so very different from
many women he had known who were nothing but mothers. She was not
pretty. It never occurred to David that she could be less than beautiful. So
he accepted her.
A vague questioning flew through his mind like a scarf of cloud: Were
things in the world that had different names so different after all? Artists
and mothers, friends and mothers, sunlight and mothers.... The questioning
faded.
It was good in this room.
Cornelia felt the trace of his mood on her flesh, found a warm pleasure
in talk with this earnest boy whose mind could touch truth without the stiff
proddings of the clever. It seemed to Cornelia that David was steadfastly
strong like a tree.
 Tom jumped out of his smoky silence and brewed coffee. They threw
cushions on the floor. They laughed a bit at David’s awkwardness at
squatting. These shadows in the room were good. Tom came forward now.
The ease of his revery and of his listening had distilled some new disquiet.
He needed to get at David.
He would have said: “How little this boy knows himself! What passion
lies behind this dream of friendship! What will the world do when he goes
asking impossible treasures?” The thought gave him worry. He would have
said: “The City will not make him. Thanks for that. But break him, break
him, perhaps.” The fear made him urgent: David must be flexible with his
terrible strength. His spoken words were: “I am reminded of a story——”
“There was a man.” Tom did not know what he was going to say. His
head swam. He was suddenly tired and full of power. He wanted, not sleep,
but dream—— “who loved his friend. This man loved his friend and a
woman came into his life whom he loved also. He asked for her in
marriage, she gave her promise. So he went to his friend and told him. And
the friend cried: ‘Do not wed her. Remain with me!’ And the man said: ‘I
love this woman but you are my friend. I remain with you.’ He dismissed
the woman whom he loved.
“Now, thereafter, all was sorrow in the home of the man and his friend.
One night as the man slept an angel came to him. The angel said: ‘Thou
who art so loyal to thy friend, name a wish and it is granted.’ The man, half-
unknown to himself, cried out: ‘Make a miracle! Make one my friend and
my lover. Then I may be loyal and yet be happy.’ The angel smiled. ‘So it is
already.’ The angel disappeared.”
Tom paused. A sudden discomfort came upon his face. He pushed back
to his tale as to haven: “...at once the man awoke. He found himself in his
bed. He remembered the angel’s visitation. He believed it. He ran to the
sleeping chamber of his friend, expecting to behold a miracle. It was his
friend, his unchanged friend who slept there. The man cursed and smote his
breast. Then a great light came to him. He understood. He returned, both
loyal and happy.”
David sat there.
This Cornelia understood. Tom was on one of his moody jaunts and
away. She had sat there watching as a girl on a fence might watch a
horseman gallop past in dust and hoof-thud. She recoiled as he swung in too
near.
Tom laughed. “Come! You need some more coffee,” to David. “You are
half asleep. I can’t get along without coffee. Can you? The world is so
much a dream, one’s sense of fitness makes one go to sleep beholding it. I
find I can do endless work, with endless cups of coffee. I wonder who
invented coffee. A shame, isn’t it, that the true benefactors of the human
race are nameless. The Gods tied Prometheus to a rock and set a vulture on
him, for giving us fire. The other saviors of life they have made nameless.”
He skipped nimbly from parable to fun: from apostrophe to laughter.
David found himself loving the mere exercise of following his new friend.
It was like a cross-country run with an agile pathman. Over brook and rock
he tried to leap with him. No time to look and to consider. The way was
nothing, the leaping everything.
The story was forgotten. It was shivered away in the pelt of Tom’s
succeeding words.
Cornelia was silent. She was pensive. She had stopped listening to Tom.
When he went galloping like this, he was running away from something
deep in himself. She knew. He would take this thing within him he needed
to escape and toss it far and rush after it. Let him rush.
There was David laughing. Tom no longer needed to smoke cigarettes.
David was glowing near his finger-tips.
Coffee was gone. Night had come up from the street like incense of
incantation. It curled its way into the room, it subdued the flame of the
room to a warm ash.
Tom lighted a lamp. No one spoke. A golden ray filtered about the table.
It left them in shadows. David got up to leave.
“I was so happy to be here,” he said.
Cornelia clasped his hand deeply in her own. It was warm. She found it
hard to speak. “Boy!” her heart sang to him. She managed to say: “You
must come soon again.” ... “And again and again.” Her heart had the last
word.
Tom took David down through the dark halls where gas-jets shivered
like emprisoned birds. He was not happy with this last silence of Cornelia.
It was as if she had said: “Why do you bring a guest here and then insult
him and not let him even know that this is what you have done?”
His eyes were hot, the hand that took David’s was cold.
“Good-by,” he said, “I hope we are going to be—friends?”
“Oh, yes!” exclaimed David....
David walked under swaying houses. They were aburst with broken
flame. He walked among scattered men and women driven with unbelieving
will and eyes unseeing toward these fires—toward fires that meant love to
them and warmth. It was the evening before work: the breach in the dull
circle of toil. Hearts were released. Blood surged in vain encouragement
through the habit-hardened lives of the workers. Men and women were
floods of longing torrenting the streets.... David walked under the spread
wings of his own sweet mood. Life was full. Full of the play of voices and
of bodies: full of adventure. Life was the mystery of finding....

No one else was at home, that evening. Anne brought early tea to Lois
and to David.
“It is our house to-night,” Lois was playful.
A strange exhilaration still sang and worked in him. He looked at the girl
who had shared those sweltering nights: he looked at Lois flattering his new
ease. It all seemed right to David. It was right that Anne had been there to
take. He smiled on her masterfully. The girl was fearful lest the young Miss
understand. But we can bring to our minds through intuition only such
thoughts our minds have words for. The remote amour was an unthought-of,
an impossible thing to Lois. Anne’s own senses, feeling this as they groped
forward, again came to rest.
She waited on them with a sweet dignity. It was so plain she was a
woman. A woman was a creature whose life was nourished by herself. A
creature free of the world. David felt this, as they sat munching at table. It
was the quiet serving girl who made him think of woman. With her blood
she nurtured. In her womb, at her breast, with her hands, forever her own
mute spirit giving men food. Woman was the true master of life: the
sourceless god.
David looked at Lois. A faint chill went through him. It seemed to him
that Lois was not quite woman. She was less herself, than this waiting
servant. He felt her need of sustenance, her lack in this of godhood.
Anne helped her to cake. There she was cutting the cake, simply—
sublimely? Lois was above the table like a flower. He thought of the
strength of Anne’s abandon: of the wise strength of her withdrawal.
Wisdom and strength—for him! Cornelia came also. She, too, was more
woman. Already there was lodged the seed of dissolution in his heart for
Lois, before the climax of his caring.
Upstairs, he went far toward it. Lois’ arm was about him, the air of her
body stabbed his blood: he forgot his comparisons. He was quite sure he
loved Lois. They sat so close together, and often she placed her cheek
against his lips. He saw the fine tautness of her body hiding beneath the
flimsy frock it wore. He desired her body. He desired to break its tautness.
“Is it wrong, Lois dear, to love one’s cousin? Because I love you very
much.”
“It is extremely proper.”
A fire had been fanned in him that afternoon: fanned by Cornelia. It
burned for Lois.
He viced her shoulders in his hands and looked at her, as one stiffens
before a leap. His hands slipped upward to her head. The thrill of her skin
and her flesh flowed through his hands like blood. He held her face. He
wanted to tell her how he loved her. His own face came nearer, it was like a
death and a birth: a frenzy of change.
She thrust her head downward, his mouth sank in the mesh of her hair
behind her ear.
He was panting. “Why don’t you let me kiss you—as I must?”
Lois withdrew her body. Her mood was not changed.
“Don’t be silly, David. I can’t let you kiss me, that way.”
He was silent. He did not gainsay her. He wanted to hide his face.
Something started up in his breast and beat against his breathing, hurt him.
Not the denial of the kiss. It was the sudden pierce of her insensitiveness.
She had not cared to understand how he cared for her. And when he had
longed for her mouth, her mood had not changed!
If only it had! If only she had been moved—though it was in denial.
He had at times believed he saw her little body stir with passion when he
was near her. But so faintly, so containedly. Never a doubt of her control.
Something she tasted in exquisite moderation and enjoyed. In her denial she
was cool. It was as if her hunger for a closer kiss were a question answered
in her catechism: one she knew all about: one she had learned the answer of
by rote.
There she was smiling, chatting. She had already forgotten. He looked
away and heard the mutterings of his pain that she could be smiling,
chatting.

With dull head David went to his work.

He loved Lois and rebelled against his love. She gave him no ground on
which to hate her. Always his love was watching, watching for a pause in
which to whisper: “See? You do her injustice. She is not hard and flippant.
She is young and unknowing. She does not feel a deeper love. How much
sun can a bud hold in its tight petals?”
She was not different. She sought him out. She allowed him no escape.
One day, she said:
“Why don’t you kiss me any more?”
David took her hand and kissed that, tenderly, hopelessly. Lois laughed.
She thought he was teasing her. She fell in with his little game.
Work was already a tune David knew by heart. Fortunately, since his
head was dull. The year approached its scintillant climax. And David’s head
was dull and his heart was heavy.
One bitter cold day he stepped out for his lunch.
When he could he lunched alone. It was a problem of avoiding Duer
Tibbetts whom he emphatically did not like, but who went on blandly liking
David. It surprised David how little his own attitude and his inner mood
affected his relations with that blossoming gentleman of affairs. It was
almost as if, in the reality of their business and family connections, so slight
a thing as personal taste must fade away, did not count. He had often
lunched with other boys in the office—the sort who Duer said were not
“their sort.” He liked them, until he began in this very approach to have
discomfort in their friendship. Since the bursting of his wound with Lois he
sought to be alone. He was equally surprised by the sensitive response of
these others. They felt his aloofness in the office: they honored it. They
were different indeed from Duer.
 He walked toward the cluttered food-pen where the waitresses sweated
visibly at the arm-pits. Here lunch cost him only twenty cents. The place
was at least clean, and the food good. The eggs for instance, and the butter
—details that meant much for David. He sat huddled at a long porcelain
board. From whirling waitresses in white the dishes fell with clamorous
approximation near his place. In the rear was an endless catatonic beat of
crockery and voices. The whole place roared like the shatter of a mighty
loom that wove the calls of women into the brittle shower of china, the glint
of knives into the shuffle of feet. David sat and took his food and held his
big arms tight to his body. The fresh air as he left gave him the cumulated
picture.
This day he heard a clear voice at his side speak his name in the cold
street.
He turned: there was Miss Lord.
Caroline Lord held a higher place in Deane and Company than any other
woman. These were days before the spread of advertising agents. Miss Lord
was in charge of the correspondence department. She had a little office of
her own, and a male assistant and a stenographer. She was known as a
remarkable woman.
“How do you do, Mr. Markand?” She had evidently overtaken David and
now they were walking together.
He saw her casually in and out of the long packed room where David
fumbled figures and papers. She was a remote business detail of this still
strange world. One day, Tibbetts dragged him into her little office and
introduced him. He remembered the way she sat on her desk and chatted
cannily and bit at a pencil. The smile of her white teeth was beyond the
reach of David’s comfort. He was glad to get away.
Here she was being affable again.
“I presume you were going to lunch, Mr. Markand?”
He noticed that she kept step with him. She was a big and capable
woman.
“Y—yes,” he admitted.
“Do you like your work? Perhaps you are tired at night. Am I right? Oh,
never worry about that. When you get used—more used to it, it will take
less out of you.”
 They had passed his eating place. What should he do? He began cursing
himself. It was so wide in him that he did not want to invite her to lunch. In
her, that this was precisely what she expected. He was a reed before her
silent pressure. There she was talking, as if they had an hour to be together.
“We were up on the Palisades last Sunday. You must really have some of
your friends take you——” David fumbled in his pocket. His fare
downtown that morning had broken his last dollar. He had a way of not
keeping much of his money with him. It seemed a risky thing to do in a
wild City. His pocket held ninety-five cents! Lunch for two at a decent
restaurant was a catastrophe that simply could not be! She was trudging
along: subtly pushing him toward Broadway. The lunch-places of the rich
were near.
“Doubtless you have a lunch engagement ...?”
“No. But....” He stopped, she stopped. He blushed and she smiled.
“No? Well then, we might have a bite together.”
Why could he never lie? How he despised himself!
“I—I can’t, Miss Lord. I have only ninety-five cents.”
He felt naked before her. A lady should blush and go away when one
stood naked before her. There was Miss Lord laughing: swinging her weight
back joyously on one heel the better to observe him.
“Oh, isn’t it always a joke when we find ourselves short? I understand so
well. Won’t you be my guest, Mr. Markand?”
She tilted her head back. David noticed how small her bonnet was above
the mass of her hair. “You know,” she went on, “it was really my invitation
after all.”
“Oh—I—no—I.” Her light mood was an added weight.
She was quick to understand and to redispose her forces. “Then you
must permit me to lend you five dollars. There now. I’ll be offended if you
don’t.” She dug in her bag and held out a bill. “Why should you
discriminate against a fellow?”
David paused long enough to try to see with what he thought her
generous eyes the foolish panic he was in. He gathered himself. They both
laughed. He took the bill.
“It is good of you,” he said.
“And of you,” she answered.
 She was silent and meek while the waiter took the order. He was gone.
She began.
She talked methodically. She chose her specific subject and cribbed him
in it. It was plain that Caroline Lord detested vagueness and abhorred
disorder. No wide fields to roam and to be lost in. Miss Lord was managing
this lunch. Before long she bored him.
In the emptiness of this, he could retreat a bit and see her.
She was a handsome woman. Her age was beyond David’s knowing. He
would have called her new, rather than young. She was well-kept.
“I saw a play last night I am sure would have interested you. The Blue
Daisy. Have you seen it?”
He said, No.
“Do you go to the theater much?”
He said, No, again.
Miss Lord followed her plan. She had a catalogue of non-essential
subjects: art, politics, life:—the sort to be served at amicable luncheons.
She had already done books.
“Why—it’s the story of two brothers. Let me see, what is their name?
Daysplaings—Gass-tong and Rah-ool Daysplaings. There’s the eldest who
has a beautiful estate in Normandy. The young one is sort of a poet, a
dreamer, you know—wanders about, mostly with his brother’s wife while
——”
David knew he was going to hear the entire story. She was a handsome
woman.
There were no curves in her face. Her chin was square and her mouth
was straight. The poise of her forehead was straight and the look of her eyes
was square.
“Well, you can imagine what happened then. But it didn’t. The idea was
there. That is bad enough. The husband was quite right, I think....”
Miss Lord was a pattern of symmetry: a study in balance and rule.
Her body was not angular. She sat very straight in her chair. “Then, the
curtain falls.” She was tall, and sitting she topped David. “The way it was
acted had a good deal to do....” She came forward a little. Her hands were
half shut and flanked her head. Her arms were two columns propping some
splendid official building.
 “Of course,” she was saying, “that sort of thing seems to be common in
France. They’re a decadent race, you know. Clever, though!”
Yes: her body was indeed not angular like her face. Her arms were
ample. David could see the suggestion of flesh bursting the plain white
sleeves. Her bosom was voluptuously full. Were these not feminine curves,
these suave rounded masses? He felt the solidity of Miss Lord more
somehow than her sex. Sex is an aura, not a form. Women understand this
best. But a certain lack puzzled David. It was strange for him to sit so close
to this lovely woman and not feel her lovely: to see her flawless and be
unwarmed.
“ ‘Oh,’ the Irishman pointed, ‘she’s an Irish bull.’ ”
He should have laughed at this joke. He was full of the pain of Lois.
Suddenly, he was thinking of Lois.
“And what do you say,” it was the first question she had asked him in
many minutes, “to Tammany’s victory! After three years of splendid
reconstruction?”
It was part of Miss Lord’s program to discuss politics. Miss Lord was no
“crank on women’s rights,” as she put it. That was too serious a view of the
thing. Above all, or under all, she wanted you to know that she was a
woman: she wanted you to treat her as a woman. But a strong, wise woman.
One who could, unblushing, talk of adultery in a French play or of the
degradation of a Tammany campaign.
“Why,” David answered, “I don’t know. I can’t understand. If all these
things were true about Tammany Hall.... There must be something else
behind it all: some reason why Van Wyck was elected.”
Miss Lord smiled. This was his opinion: a fledging’s she could take with
indulgence. She wanted no more of it. Now she could deliver her own. She
started.
David was thinking of Lois. Little lovely Lois. Why must his mind fill so
compellingly with Lois, when he lunched with Miss Lord?
“The thing is, you see, the people do not think. Catchwords and Sunday
picnics win them over. Really, popular government——”
This woman. That girl. Could two creatures be more different? Why then
the idea of a comparison. Did they have something, did they lack something
in common?
 “... so far at least a failure.”
Their ideas were one. Here was Miss Lord trying to conceal the
impression that she earned her living: trying with might and main to be like
Lois. An older, more settled, equally virginal Lois?
He half-closed his eyes. It did not matter. Such subtle things as eyes half-
closed were beyond Miss Lord. Beyond Lois? He heard her voice. “The
City had to pay ten cents a-piece for coat-hooks! A-piece! When you can
buy them anywhere retail for a nickel.” He heard her voice. It was so unlike
her stalwart strapping body that he had not noticed it until now when his
half-shut eyes saw less. Miss Lord’s voice was high, was girlish! It too had
that ring which, though David knew no such rule, goes with an emotionally
empty life. Wise, cool Miss Lord. Did she have really more of the wine of
feeling than pampered Lois? Was she more alive, after all?
She was earning her living. While Lois lolled at teas, and waited for her
début. Earning one’s bread—David knew what that meant, in the world. It
meant the heights and the depths. It meant nobility. The man who earned his
bread was a man: the man who did not was less than a woman.... Did it
really mean these things?
He had earned his living since he was fifteen years old. For five years
done this; for five years thought nothing about it, thought nothing about the
world. That was strange. He had loafed three weeks near an idle lake and a
world was born. Was earning one’s bread perhaps a trick of the hand, like
placing the spokes in a wheel? What had the droning hours in the shop
brought to him? Did he not go out into the breathing fields and watch his
mind stir to expand? Until there had been three weeks of this and his mind
had expanded. He liked work. Was it perhaps a trifle like a drug that one
gets used to, that eases one off from the world? Here he was, juggling with
steamship deliveries and tinkering accounts. Brainier work than welding
handle-bars? Life could not be this. Perhaps this wise woman who earned
her living did not know life after all.
At least, she did not know him. She had bored him: she was boring him
now. David felt he knew her somewhat. He was not boring her....
“It has been such fun, Mr. Markand. After all, we can’t get along, can
we, without fresh points of view? They mean success in business. Not
plodding counts, you will find: always the fresh point of view....”
 Her judgments were cleaner-cut than his. A rubber-stamp is dear. What
lay, in truth, behind the patter of her phrases: “France is corrupt but clever.”
“People vote according to picnics and catchwords.” “After all, there is
something clean, something big which America stands for, that no other
country can rival”?
Lois also had her occupation. She received no salary for it: she was
apprenticed to it still. She would get her place in the world, if she pursued it
well. It too would mean money and ease and position. She too was going
through a trick that was far from the free winds of living. Did not both these
women belong to Deane and Company?
He loved Lois. He said to himself he loved her. This woman he did not
love. So he saw her clearly. Let him swing this clear-seeing back into the
dim place of his heart that hurt! It was impossible. He could not diminish
Lois after all. The result of his effort was to dispose him more pleasantly
toward Miss Lord. Here he was smiling at her with a new attention that a
less wise woman might have been wise enough to mistrust....
He came away with a gnawing sense of doubt. He was heart-sick more
deeply than ever. Miss Lord and his cousin were creatures of a single world.
They performed different parts of a single service. Both of them were
supposed to uphold the prestige of this system that made money and spent
it: to submit to its standards of deed and thought, to further its dominions.
For this, Miss Lord had her wages, Lois her keep.
He too! He too had been taken in for service! For service rendered he too
would receive the means of sustaining life. David had seen a coat-of-arms
heralding a strange device on the façade of a great commercial building. It
had puzzled him. He had forgotten it. Now he recalled it and understood it.
He marveled at its telling word. It had said: “Spend me and defend me.”
A great fright was being born in David....
 V

T OM RENNARD and his sister stood under a house with a high straight
stoop like a dozen alongside it. They looked up. Behind them their
passing through Stuyvesant Square. The sky was very deep and warm
on the moldering housetops, beyond the cool clouds. These skimmed their
shadows across the Park’s shut green. They threw small puffs of gray on the
gleaming creepers of the Church. They dropped to the squat red meeting-
house of the Friends and lightened its brick with their dark. They went
westering over the bleak dense City.
“This is the number.”
They mounted the stoop.
Each had a hand on the iron rail that rusted under crumbling paint.
A piercing rumble lay in the Park. Jangle of horse-cars, stir and laughter
of children, the dry gasp of life hot over the Park from four dense sides, as
over a cool well. And the Square merging with these the distances it caught
on its church-steeple: hoot of river craft, gashes of dull speed echoing into
sharpness as an elevated train passed through muffled houses. All of it
funneled down the narrow eastward street that fell from the Square to the
River: rose above the shoulders of these two: flattened back against the
reticence of brownstone walls.
“Not a bad house,” said Tom. “Relic of Knickerbocker glory. Some less
brilliant Stuyvesant cousin may have lived in it once.” He pulled a bell-
handle: its call pierced and lingered in the old mansion’s depths. The house
stood unmoved like a ventriloquist.
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.”