"Don't say a word; I'm tired and pepped out." Tom looked at him queerly and then sank into a chair and opened his Italian note-book.

Amory threw his coat and hat on the floor, loosened his collar, and took a Wells novel at random from the shelf.

"Wells is sane," he thought, "and if he won't do I'll read Rupert Brooke." Half an hour passed.

Outside the wind came up, and Amory started as the wet branches moved and clawed with their finger-nails at the window-pane.

Tom was deep in his work, and inside the room only the occasional scratch of a match or the rustle of leather as they shifted in their chairs broke the stillness.