oks, and it seemed
forever since Amory had met any one who did; if only that St. Paul's
crowd at the next table would not mistake _him_ for a bird, too, he
would enjoy the encounter tremendously. They didn't seem to be noticing,
so he let himself go, discussed books by the dozens--books he had read,
read about, books he had never heard of, rattling off lists of titles
with the facility of a Brentano's clerk. D'Invilliers was partially
taken in and wholly delighted. In a good-natured way he had almost
decided that Princeton was one part deadly Philistines and one part
deadly grinds, and to find a person who could mention Keats without
stammering, yet evidently washed his hands, was rather a treat.

"Ever read any Oscar Wilde?" he asked.

"No. Who wrote it?"

"It's a man--don't you know?"

"Oh, surely." A faint chord was struck in Amory's memory. "Wasn't the
comic opera, 'Patience,' written about him?"

"Yes, that's the fella. I've just finished a book of his, 'The Picture
of Dorian Gray,' and I certainly wish you'd read it. You'd like it. You
can borrow it if you want to."

"Why, I'd like it a lot--thanks."

"Don't you want to come up to the room? I've got a few other books."

Amory hesitated, glanced at the St. Paul's group--one of them was the
magnificent, exquisite Humbird--and he considered how determinate the
addition of this friend would be. He never got to the stage of making
them and getting rid of them--he was not hard enough for that--so he
measured Thomas Parke D'Invilliers' undoubted attractions and value
against the menace of cold eyes behind tortoise-rimmed spectacles that
he fancied glared from the next table.

"Yes, I'll go."

So he found "Dorian Gray" and the "Mystic and Somber Dolores" and the
"Belle Dame sans Merci"; for a month was keen on naught else. The world
became pale and interesting, and he tried hard to look at Princeton
through the satiated eyes of Oscar Wilde and Swinburne--or "Fingal
O'Flaherty" and "Algernon Charles," as he called them in precieuse jest.
He read enormously every night--Shaw, Chesterton, Barrie, Pinero, Yeats,
Synge, Ernest Dowson, Arthur Symons, Keats, Sudermann, Robert Hugh
Benson, the Savoy Operas--just a heterogeneous mixture, for he suddenly
discovered that he had read nothing for years.

Tom D'Invilliers became at first an occasion rather than a friend. Amory
saw him about once a week, and together they gilded the ceiling of
Tom's room and decorated the