The World of Chance by William Dean Howells

In the morning Ray woke resolved to brace up against the nerveless / suspense he had been in ever since he had left his manuscript with Mr. / Brandreth, and go and present the letters that some people in Midland / had given him to their friends in New York. At least he need not suffer / from solitude unless he chose; he wondered if it would do to present his / letters on Sunday.

He breakfasted in this question. Shortly after he went back to his room, / there was a knock at his door, and when he shouted "Come in! " it was set / softly ajar, and Mr. Kane showed his face at the edge of it.

"I suppose you know," he said, ignoring Ray's welcome, "or if you / haven't been out, you don't know, that this is one of those Sunday / mornings which make you feel that it has been blessed and hallowed above / all the other days of the week. But I dare say," he added, coming / inside, "that the Mohammedans feel exactly so about a particularly fine / Friday."

He glanced round the little room with an air of delicate impartiality, / and asked leave to look from Ray's window. As he put his head out, he / said to the birds in the eaves, "Ah, sparrows! " as if he knew them / personally, before he began to make compliments to the picturesque / facts of the prospect. Then he stood with his back to Ray, looking down / into the street, and praising the fashion of the shadow and sunshine in / meeting so solidly there, at all sorts of irregular points and angles. / Once he looked round and asked, with the sun making his hair all a / shining silver:

"Has any one else been shown this view? No? Then let me be the first to / utter the stock imbecility that it ought to inspire you if anything / could. " He put out his head again, and gave a glance upward at the / speckless heaven, and then drew it in. "Yes," he said, thoughtfully, "a / partially clouded sky is better for us, no doubt. Why didn't you sit / down with us last night? I saw that you wished to do so. " He faced Ray / benignly, with a remote glimmer of mocking in his eye.

Ray felt it safest to answer frankly. "Yes, I did want to join you / awfully. I overheard a good deal you were saying where I was sitting, / but I couldn't accept your invitation. I knew it was a great chance, but / I couldn't."

"Don't you know," Mr. Kane asked, "that the chances have a polite horror / of iteration? Those men and those moods may never be got together again. / You oughtn't to have thrown such a chance away!"

"I know," said Ray. "But I had to."

Mr. Kane leaned back in the chair he had taken, and murmured as if to / himself: "Ah, youth, youth! Yes, it has to throw chances away. Waste is / a condition of survival. Otherwise we should perish of mere fruition. / But could you," he asked, addressing Ray more directly, "without too / much loss to the intimacies that every man ought to keep sacred, could / you tell me just _why_ you had to refuse us your company?"

"Oh, yes," said Ray, with the self-scorn which Mr. Kane's attitude / enabled him to show. "I was so low-spirited that I couldn't rise to the / hands that offered to pull me out of my Slough of Despond. I felt that / the slightest exertion would sink me over head and ears. I had better / stay as I was."

"I understand," said Mr. Kane. "But why should a man of your age be in / low spirits?"

"Why? Nobody can tell why he's in low spirits exactly. I suppose I got / to thinking the prospect for my book wasn't very gay. It's hard to / wait."

"Was that all?"

"I was a little homesick, too. But wasn't the other enough?"

"I can't say. It's a long time since I was your age. But shall I tell / you what I first thought your unhappiness was, when you confessed it / just now?"

"Yes, by all means."

"I wonder if I'd better! I supposed it was not such as any _man_ could / inflict. Excuse me! " He kept his eyes smilingly on the young fellow's / face, as if to prevent his taking the audacity in bad part. "I don't / know why I should say this to you, except that it really went through my / mind, and I did you the wrong to wonder why you should mention it."

"I can forgive the wrong; it's so very far from the fact" -- Ray began.

"Ah, you've already noticed _that_! " Mr Kane interrupted.

"Noticed what?"