moods and he felt that though he was capable of recklessness and audacity,
he possessed neither courage, perseverance, nor self-respect.

Vanity, tempered with self-suspicion if not self-knowledge, a sense of
people as automatons to his will, a desire to "pass" as many boys as
possible and get to a vague top of the world . . . with this background
did Amory drift into adolescence.

* * * *

PREPARATORY TO THE GREAT ADVENTURE

The train slowed up with midsummer languor at Lake Geneva, and Amory
caught sight of his mother waiting in her electric on the gravelled
station drive. It was an ancient electric, one of the early types,
and painted gray. The sight of her sitting there, slenderly erect,
and of her face, where beauty and dignity combined, melting to a dreamy
recollected smile, filled him with a sudden great pride of her. As they
kissed coolly and he stepped into the electric, he felt a quick fear
lest he had lost the requisite charm to measure up to her.

"Dear boy--you're _so_ tall . . . look behind and see if there's anything
coming . . ."

She looked left and right, she slipped cautiously into a speed of two
miles an hour, beseeching Amory to act as sentinel; and at one busy
crossing she made him get out and run ahead to signal her forward like a
traffic policeman. Beatrice was what might be termed a careful driver.

"You _are_ tall--but you're still very handsome--you've skipped the