IX

Two days Quincy had been going about with a soiled handkerchief. At last

his mother noticed it, lost patience and sent him upstairs for a fresh

one. Quincy grit his teeth and went. But the philosophy behind that

handkerchief no one in the family was near to reckoning.

The truth was, he avoided his old room. Throughout the holidays, he

stepped within it as little as was possible. And there his handkerchiefs

were kept. Had he been wise, once there, he would have taken more than a

day’s supplies. But Quincy did not have that manner of shrewdness. And

even if he had, it would have been a costly risk to hide his linen in

the room below. So, at times, a hurried visit was inevitable. In the old

days, he had spent long hours there. And still, he might have, since

Jonas generally was gone with lunch, not to return until vague hours

after. But the charm and the glow of the room were dead. Enough of it

remained to have turned into a sneer and mockery. For this room had been

an altar to Quincy’s faith. In it, he had performed his services; here

he had dwelt as a priest, in the abode of his faith. And he had been

driven out and all of the temple had been sullied. And now, there was no

god at all. So that the room served merely as a cold record of present

miseries and lost illusions.

Meantime, for two weeks, he slept in a broad couch placed at the foot of

his parents’ beds. And here was a steadfast torture not to be avoided

like the room above. A dilemma confronted Quincy. He was, for some

reason, uneasy about lapsing into unconsciousness ere his parents came

to retire; and yet, to be awake when they came in was a miserable trial.

So between the two uncomfortable states, the child built up a fever of

resentments. Although he could not so have worded it, his was a feeling

more than all else of humiliation, of shame at this promiscuous

arrangement. He went to bed with a weighing smart on his soul, like the

mark of a blow that one can not avenge. And then, with gloomy prospect,

he drew the covers high over his face and lay there, staring out,

gripping his blanket, stiff with a sense of deep discomfort. And all

manner of wild, ugly thoughts raced through his half somnolent

mind--thoughts of vindication against Jonas, against his sisters,

against his parents; lurid sweeps of chastisement in which there was

neither mercy nor discrimination. Fairly, his blood boiled with his

resentment at this cavalier disposal of him and the malignant token--his

lying there!--of how well Fortune could distort his hopes. And then,

generally, his body would prevail and he would fall asleep.

But with such rivalry, sleep could not be firm. Too much passion and

reflection, thrown up by his unconscious self like the lava of a

volcano, flooded the black slopes of Quincy’s night. And in his sleep

came hectic, vivid dreams--dreams in which a burst of repressed wishes

stormed to realization. Nor were the wishes good or gentle or

composed....

In the midst of some fantasy, painting his sleep, Quincy slides across

the faint border into consciousness. There are his parents. A light

sears through his closed eyes. He will keep them closed, though it

meant never to be able again to open them. For solely by feigning sleep

can he be sure his mother and father will not address him. And the idea

of that is unbearable. How can he speak to these two tyrants about whom

his thoughts contain so many guilty reservations? He lies still,

strained, listening for all the little noises that will upset him,

waiting for the light to go and rest to come. His parents never make

mention of his name. They talk sparingly, and then of things that he

does not understand. But every sound they make seems to him a monstrous

thing. They are trying to be quiet. But of what avail, when the drop of

a shoe on the floor twinges through him like a dart? when the creak of a

bed plays on his nerves as on a jangled harp? when the repressed sound

of their voices, whispering, becomes a source of suffering worse through

the very quality of stillness and of effort?

And with the morning, the shame of getting up when they do; the grim

refusal (though the price be their completer feeling of his “badness”)

in such naked intimacy to share their life, as if he shared as well

their cruelty and their dull perceptions. The agonized last minutes

waiting under covers, though the dregs of sleep be turned into a bitter

wide-awake, until they are dressed. And then, to spring up with a sick

relief, to rush into clothes and go!... Above all, with the morning, the

consciousness of the next night.

* * * * *

So came the New Year, while the City revelled. And then, at last this

holiday of suffering was over. Jonas was gone. Quincy returned to his

room. And it had no positive reaction upon him. Simply, he was glad

that certain things were gone. Passively, he accepted the present. He

entered upon a period of calm, of seeming apathy. But this welcome state

was destined to prove meretricious. Quincy had not really attained

serenity or resignation, after his turbulent experience. His soul,

rebuffed and bruised, was not yet content to retire within itself and

glut its own demands. There was a long road, ere this, for Quincy. For

the present, unconsciously of course, he delighted in his breathing

space and with great readiness forgot the past with its poignant measure

of prophetic warning. But, in truth, his soul was merely crouching ere

it leaped out once more. It had not been discouraged. Within it, was too

much vitality for that. It was lying low, only to attempt a higher

flight, once a new object had been scented.

When Quincy was thirteen, he discovered Rhoda.

Jonas was still away--at college. Rhoda had done with school and the

idea of college for a girl was not part of the mental outfit which the

Burt family had brought along from Harriet, Long Island. Adelaide

approached sixteen. Her educational trials were not yet over. Marsden

was now literally a man. A certain surface of his mind had grown hard

and polished, so that he was clever and ingenious; able to make bearable

the largely mental life to which his body had condemned him. The depths

of his mind had died, so that he was bitter in spirit, visionless, and

well nigh content. He derived the same satisfaction from his dominion in

the household that a normal man might glean from his part in a

community. He drew joy from his ability to judge aloof; he created a

sort of life from the business of poising the lives of others.

Some time, he had been watching Quincy. But the period of their talks

was not yet ripe. For the present, he was a cold, hard, cynical

obstruction upon Quincy’s path--a creature that could sear and wither

with a word, an intimate that exploited his foreknowledge with the evil

unconcern of an outsider. Quincy hated him, feared him. For he was

powerful beyond his parents when it became his listless fancy to ordain.

And his mother loved him with a warmth that was thrice cursed, since it

withdrew a part of her from Quincy, since it served as a common interest

to veer her toward his father and since in the last fact, the love she

did bestow upon him seemed somehow tainted and imperfect. Marsden had

not yet been _created_ in Quincy’s life. He stood there as a bitter,

impersonal condition--an element, a natural detail. In this way, a pagan

peasant might regard a mountain that stood north above his land--the

womb of storms, the treasury of frosts, a thing under no circumstance to

be explored.

Marsden’s time would come. But now, the child’s senses opened

miraculously wide to Rhoda. With Rhoda, a new Adelaide was as well

created. But in the counterpoint played by these sisters upon Quincy,

the elder had the upper hand.

It was the common mistake of most people to call Rhoda the prettier of

the two. Such are the triumphs of an aggressive spirit. For although the

younger girl was essentially the finer girl, her subdued nature shone

forth badly beside the obvious brilliance of her sister. Rhoda was tall

and dark; Adelaide was short and blonde. Rhoda’s eyes were large, brown,

pent-up always with whatever mood possessed her. Adelaide’s eyes were

small and their blue was unobtrusive; their spirit was diffident; their

suggestion of an Oriental tilt seemed somehow to conceal itself. They

were set deep and soft, seclusively almost. And the angle of their

position with the faint thickness of their lids, the short fringe of

golden lash above them (a sign of delicacy for who understood), served

with most persons as an excuse for not noticing her at all. Rhoda’s

eyes, on the other hand, squarely, unimaginatively set, came forward to

command. At eighteen, it was obvious to her mother that she was to be

what she herself termed a “belle.”

To Quincy, Rhoda became now, by degrees, a dominant and estimable

figure. The evolution of this from early hatred and mistrust, through

the period of apathy when Jonas had foregathered his affections, was of

course not a conscious one. But gradually, Rhoda entered his dreams,

later his thoughts--came in some way to merge with them and to be

welcome there. The sporadic walks which she took in Central Park with

Adelaide and him grew to be hours of anticipation. During them, this

tall glamorous creature that lived so near seemed to relax from her

haughty state and to be willing to consort with him.

Upon one occasion, he had chanced to see her as she was dressing. Rhoda

had seemed unconcerned enough at this momentous incident. She had

crossed her hands quickly upon her breasts, cried: “Go away!”--and been

otherwise unmoved. In the shock of his amazement and swift retreat, he

had seen little. Yet that little remained long, branded within the

texture of his mind. He had not forgotten the event,--although he had no

idea of what, exactly, he remembered.

For his thirteenth birthday, Quincy received a bicycle. With the spring,

he determined to learn to ride it. And Rhoda volunteered to teach him.

They went to Central Park, to the circular abandoned road-way where

once, ere Quincy’s memory, had stood a statue of Bolivar and which later

great quantities of stone and sand turned into a manner of Park dump.

With the strangely sweet presence of Rhoda beside him, he had learned

rapidly. And having learned, he found that he had learned too rapidly,

since now this presence would be no longer there, beside him, as he

pedalled. Having stooped from her cold estate in the excitement of

teaching her brother how to ride, Rhoda lost no time in clambering back

again. And so, Quincy found a new want in his heart.

In his own way, he began to pay court to Rhoda. He was fully aware that

he had rivals. Rhoda went to parties on many evenings. And on many

others, she remained alone in the parlor with some caller whom Quincy

never saw. A great curiosity came over him to see these men who were his

rivals. Once, he slipped downstairs at the time when he was supposed to

go up to bed, and hid in the portières. He knew that a caller was

coming. But he became frightened and ran away even before the bell had

rung. It was decidedly too dangerous an experiment. Quincy knew that his

discovery in such flagrant badness before his sister’s caller would

reflect on her. It would plunge them together into shame. Had not his

mother told him that when he was bad, she always lost a bit of her

prestige before her God? He did not wish that kind of sharing, with his

sister. So he never stole downstairs again, to hide, when he had been

sent to bed.

Quincy’s way of courting Rhoda gave little promise of his subsequent

success with women. Quincy did not understand his sister. It did not

occur to him to psychologize beforehand the effect which his efforts

would be likely to attain. It did not occur to him to find what she most

wished by studying her nature, to suppress what was conflicting in

himself and to feign what was harmonious. Gallantry is a sense in men

capable of being tutored into art. At thirteen, it was already patent

that Quincy’s sense of hearing did not promise the musician, nor his

sense of sight the artist--nor his sense of pleasing, the diplomat or

gallant. He was an ordinary boy. The most that one had ever said about

him was that he was bright at school.

Now, when Quincy received a piece of chocolate or a box of soldiers or a

flower, he was very happy. Also, in his new state, he needed--though he

ignored the reason--to make Rhoda happy. His way was that of a miserable

logic. When he received a cake of chocolate, in lieu of devouring it as

his lust urged, a greater love restrained him. He saved it. And when, in

the late afternoon, Rhoda came home from a tea, he rushed up to her,

held out his offering before her, and said: “Here!”

In his accent, Quincy put neither a suggestion of his sacrifice nor a

hint of the motive behind his gift. So perhaps Rhoda must be excused.

She looked at the chocolate:

“I don’t want it.” The fact was that she had eaten too much pastry at

the tea.

Quincy withdrew his offering and ate it, that night, before retiring.

On another occasion, it was a daisy that his mother gave him. It was the

evening of the great dance to which Rhoda was going and for which

preparations were on foot with the early afternoon. Now Quincy had

learned much of the mundane way. And one of the things he knew was that

when his sister went to a dance, she always wanted flowers.

So he took his daisy and held it up to her.

“Will you wear this to-night?” he asked proudly.

Rhoda laughed. “Here,” she said, “--wear it yourself,--” and pinned it

upon his blouse.

Quincy left it there. But he felt the condescension in her retort. Had

he seen the bower of roses that one of the callers brought with him,

after he had gone to bed, he might have understood. But also, he might

not have gained much solace from his added wisdom, since roses were so

pathetically far beyond his reach.

And so, time and again, Quincy’s assiduous courtship failed, not only of

impression but of notice. Gradually, Quincy began to realize that his

desire to be an entity in Rhoda’s life was for some reason quite as

monstrous and preposterous as had been his kindred wish with Jonas. His

mute attempts to share in the lives of those whom he was so apt to love,

his efforts to inspire them to share in his, seemed, for some cause, to

partake of the nature of a jest--of an extravagance.

Once more, his vital energies swirled and stormed and veered within him,

hopeless of goal or outlet. His affection for his sister had at best

been vague. Quincy had no conception of the deep ties and firm hold

which a response in her would have called forth. He had no idea of the

undirected force which this thwarting had thrown wildly back upon

himself. All that he knew, was that life, somehow, hurt; and that his

mother was indubitably right when she called him “bad” and constantly

“growing worse.”

And meantime, near Rhoda, in whose cold, perverse, spoiled beauty his

ironic instinct had caused him to seek a haven, there was another

sister, yearning for his companionship.

But Adelaide’s eyes were diffident, and her way was quiet. Quincy knew

about her only that she was in Rhoda’s graces, and therefore to be

tacitly envied and resented.

X

With Quincy’s fifteenth year came a flare of recognition. But it was

brief. By it, he saw his sister, Jonas, his parents, as they were. But

the light had no fuel to subsist on. His untutored, indomitable needs

flushed forth and drowned the momentary blaze of disillusion. And once

again he was unable to see the futility of wishing and of striving in

these barred directions. Wherefore, despite his sense of the sequel, the

story of Rhoda, and Adelaide, and his mother was scarce begun.

For a long time it had hurt the boy to be forced witness to Marsden’s

pampering and his sister’s demonstrations. It had hurt him to see the

pointed, exclusive _camaraderie_ between Jonas and his father, to feel

the apologetic pitying note in his mother’s love for him. But during

this long time, all these proofs of his want had not made him bitter.

Gradually, he had poised and judged the value of these things he lacked.

But his first impulse had not been to cry out, not to turn inward in

dismay. A natural sense of justice is born in most of us. It is a part

of our natal logic. One of our greatest blows comes from the late

experience that that sense which we have transferred from our own heart

to the heart of the world really does not obtain there. So with Quincy.

Viewing these favors that were showered upon others, that seemed so

strangely always to escape himself, his impulse was to believe the

others right, to fix the fault within himself. Much of the impulse that

had driven him toward Jonas and toward Rhoda was the desire to gain

these things he lacked--or thought he lacked; was his wish to qualify

within the circle where favors were dispensed. He had accepted that the

fault was his. He had made his mute endeavor to correct it.

Now, however, came the grey, shivering spectre of defeat. And then, for

the first time, Quincy was disposed to spare himself and to blame those

who denied him what they seemed so lavishly able to give elsewhere.

* * * * *

This was the year of Quincy’s warfare--a scant _guerilla_. And its

result? Consider the pre-conceptions of those within the house, and it

must be clear that they seized on this new hard Quincy to justify the

feelings they had already nurtured for the old. Their attitude, their

lack of sympathy, by dint of an incessant effort through the years, had

brought about this show of sullen animosity within him. So now they

quoted this show of animosity as cause of their longstanding attitude

and lack of sympathy. It is a common habit of mankind--an infinitely

common.

It had its unhindered fling with Quincy. His family were not loth of the

chance he offered them to justify their feelings. And it was to be a

long time ere the effect of that short year would leave them, however

poignant in reality and more true to type were the years that followed

or preceded.

His father’s old resentments flared. Finding Quincy unresponsive,

silent, disagreeable, he turned to Sarah and asked what, after all,

_her_ child was likely to be good for. Rhoda came to feel in him a

deep, glowing animosity that showed in the curl of his lips when she

appeared in a ball gown, or in his refusal to look and join the chorus

of admiration, when she received a present or a compliment. She tossed

her head and decided that Quincy was an ugly little fellow with no

respect for beauty or superiority--a little fellow whom she must in

consequence ignore. Jonas discovered that when he wished to tell his

brother some loathsome, funny story, Quincy declined to be dazzled or

bewildered or amused. He learned to dislike heartily the cold aloofness

with which, during that year, Quincy received his visits from college

and rebuffed his chance efforts at attention. So Jonas also resolved to

ignore his brother. It did not occur to him that he had already killed

the boy’s love of fellowship with him; it did not occur to Rhoda that he

needed protection from the anguish which her ways had brought to his

rapt admiration. To the family, it was plain that a discordant element

was within it. And that was all.

Sarah did not understand. She was almost won over by the very prevalence

of the opinion that Quincy’s manner was a natural weed and the sole

cause of his own tribulation. But although she was not mind-proof to

this insidious crowd-psychology, her heart had power against it; and it

bled at the breach which, at last, she had been brought to see. However

she might feel called on to remonstrate with him, she was intuitively on

Quincy’s side.

Of course, in the very fact of her remonstrance, she defeated the good

her sympathy might have done. Quincy wished for no pity. He demanded

full understanding. Her way was not whole-hearted enough; was too

finite; was too eloquent of the influence of the “other side.” Deprived

of most, Quincy had become more exacting than ever. Feeling his mother’s

sense of his own fault, a tendency in her to see a shred of right

against him, he rejected her. And this he did cruelly, coldly,--without

explanation; so that the bewildered Sarah wrung her hands and ate out

her heart. In the boy’s breast smouldered not agony alone; but with it a

need of vindication. The family were so far from him that he knew well

the futility of reaching them. Even his resentment, he was aware, could

not attain them. And so it was that not only his instinct for affection

had been starved; even his sense of injury, since it was unblazoned, had

been injured also.

Here, Quincy’s mother was an opportunity of Nature. In her lack of a

splendid giving, she was inadequate. At least, she offered a chance for

him to retrieve his sense of injury. She was near enough to be hurt. So

a sad satisfaction came of injuring his mother, who alone would receive

his injury. The boy was cruel, cold to her. He knew it. He could not

help it. But the knowledge that he was making miserable the one whom he

loved most, brought Quincy’s cup to overflowing.

Sarah took his attacks in disarray. She did not understand them. And

Quincy raged that she did not understand. He yearned for her help

against himself. He received merely tears and lamentations which, far

from softening him, gave satisfaction to the appetite which had called

them forth.

Had he been able to cry: “Mother, mother! Don’t you understand? It is

because I am near to you whom I love that I can hurt you. It is because

I am far away from those who hurt me, that I cannot hurt them. My ugly

passions are not meant for you. Understand them. Then, they will cease.

Come unreservedly, my mother. Come, and take me!”--had he been able to

cry out thus, his problem would have been less vexed. But he was only a

child.

Or had Sarah been able to say to him: “Darling, I understand your

cruelty to me. It has no effect. I love you. There is nothing

else!”--she would have found a truer Quincy, tearful but happy against

her breast. But Sarah had other loves. And Sarah had little

understanding.

And so, the year swerved on, miraculously void of light, shot through

with pities. And Quincy grew less friendly, less boyish, almost less

alive. He was become almost an inhabitant of the house, rather than a

member of the household. Of course, only a severe observer could have

caught this truth. For in a child of fourteen the difference is a

_nuance_. And if its subtle tragedy were open to the casual observer,

man would be more horrified at the thing’s prevalence.

Quincy sought solitude. But he found no real comfort in his loneliness.

Simply, he had reached a stage in his life’s struggle, where he did not

care for comfort. He felt that there was merely a choice of pains. He

had lost the sheer idealism that admits of a pure happiness. And of the

choice of pains that he envisaged, he preferred the rarefied,

controllable sort that solitude fermented to the sharp improvisations of

other people. So he remained alone as long as possible. He nursed and

refined his misery. He grew used to it. He came almost to cherish it.

He had simply transferred upon his family the rôle that they had seemed

intent on giving him. Though he had combatted consciousness of it

through the years of his naïve endeavors, they had forced him to see

himself as an intruder. Instinctively, he reversed the order. He made of

himself a world, and a society. And they who came upon him were the

intruders! He had gone out with love and been refused. Here, in his

world-reversal, was his mother’s part. She came to him with love. She

was rejected.

The machinery of his mood worked now despite himself. Though he longed

for tenderness, he could not be tender; though he longed for his mother,

he could not be gently passive for her advance. Something within him

that was wounded turned his tenderness to spite; his inarticulate love

into an expressed rebuff. The old way he had tried--of giving in the

faith that he would receive, of going forward in the faith that he would

be taken up. The sprouting sunward was turned in. The perfume was

crushed. The tendrils were thorns.

Yet what a flimsy farce was this new, lonely world of Quincy! Its very

nature was the proof of his enduring need still to go forth, to love, to

harmonize with others. The pith of every condition is a ground common

with its opposite.

* * * * *

Thus came the summer.

His mother’s strict surveillance over him was lifted. He was getting

old, now! He was allowed to go alone on walks. And summer meant country.

So far, however much he loved the wide fresh sky and the sense of cheer

that country meant, it had served rather to sharpen the boy’s moods than

to assuage them. For he had been hindered from meeting it alone. The

tantalizing charm within the fields and woods which, left to himself, he

must have grasped, evaded him, surrounded as he was by the ties of

home. And these ties were strict. Had Quincy been chief in the

affections of his parents, his mother could not have been more nervous,

more loth to set him free. Freedom had not come as recompense for

solitude.

But now, at last, one day, when the mood seized him to stroll, he was

not prevented. He followed the road out of the village. And then, as if

a long restraint on a long hunger had suddenly been lifted, he dashed

into the thick woods.

At first, his strongest sense was one of fright, of discomfort, almost

of embarrassment. His soul did not know what to do. His mind was

conscious, dominantly, that he had not expected this reaction of

_malaise_. What had his mind expected? Whence had it been prompted to

expect anything? What could be rational in a sense of disappointment,

sprung from nothing?

Vaguely, Quincy came to feel that he had set hopes upon the woods, that

he had built upon these murmurous companions, fondly, unconsciously, a

hope of solace and of haven. What a strange feeling it was, as he

trudged on, over the uneven path of rock and root, to know that this

deep heart of Nature with its accent of green had dwelt, unknown, within

his own heart and there persevered, a bulwark of promise against the

blast of his reality! Yet, poignantly, was this true. A great urge in

the lad’s soul had swept back from life in the city to the rural setting

that preceded it. Man will have his happiness, though he distort

childhood, fabricate history, to attain it. The usual happy conception,

in man’s mind, of childhood is an example. Quincy, miserable with the

present, had been forced back in his search of that mystic Eden which

each man and each race must cherish, to make of it a goal and pattern

for the future. And in his innocent regression, what could he fix on

better than this fringe of his life, vague and therefore easily

idealized? He could not fix, for this purpose, on any member of his

family. They were still with him; they had already fought--as if with

all their powers--against this zealous effort. The one great distinction

between the unhappy present and the past that he willed to serve as

contrast, was this same gentle, all-pervasive thing--the woods, the

meadows. Here was an element which had disappeared with his fictitious

happiness.

Yet, doubtless, a something deeper than these reasonings gave Nature her

deep place in Quincy’s heart; doubtless, the sole fact of herself, of

her still depths and her mystic penetrations, of her transcendent

eloquence and her calm, stately love. No child could live within the

murmur of her breath, within the perfume of her energies, and utterly

escape her. For the swaying of trees is a blessing; and the wind in

their laced branches is a prayer; and the stirring of life packed with

myriad simpleness throughout the reaches of the wood is an unforgettable

music. And to sleep where the air comes brushing, be it only from the

dryest grass or the lowest shrub, is to have slept in an embrace that

neither mortal love nor hatred can abolish.

And now, Quincy was walking in the woods, dazed and abashed, as might be

a man in sudden presence before the woman of his forgotten dreams. He

felt nothing deeply. He and the woods seemed very separate. And

curiously, of them the woods seemed the more personal and alive. He took

in, with his undiscerning eyes, the intricate recurrence of design, the

sumptuous harmony of sky and ground and forest, the minor notes, as of

universe in universe, traced by moss and vine and flower within the

sweeping whole. But, though he strove to feel his measure in this whole,

a sense of nervous fear prevented him. He walked on, against his

instinct to turn back and keep the road. Something within him seemed to

know that it took time to grow used to one’s divinity. And even so, as

he marched on, he came to unlimber. A lump within him thawed and he was

bathed in a glow that had still a tang of frost. But, yet, his mind had

never been so vacant.

And then, a new thing happened.

It was as if the trees had bent down, of a sudden, and possessed him; as

if their acrid juices had been shot within him; as if their leaves were

brushing upon his face like amorous fingers. The woods were a vibrant,

sinuous form against his body, pressing it to a sweet numbness like a

mother’s breast. Quincy’s blood tingled. A madness gripped him, mounted

him, spurred him into flight. He ran. There was nothing else. The woods

were in him. And they were an ecstasy. So, sustaining it, he ran.

And then, breathless, capless, he stopped. All of it seemed not

over-strange. He knew it would be useless to seek his cap. Besides, he

did not care. He turned instinctively toward where he thought the road

must lie. He rejoined it. And then, he made for home. Half way, he grew

conscious of a slight pain in his left foot. He looked down and was

impressed to find that the shoe was torn and that blood lay thick-matted

with the dust upon the stocking that showed through. Immediately, he was

aware that the pain had been with him long; that it stung frightfully.

He began straightway to limp. And as the pain grew stronger, the charm

that had made his visitation in the woods seem natural and calm, wore

gradually out. He looked back, now, with wonder upon his frenzied

running. What had happened? how long and why had he done as he had done?

But at best, amazement was feeble. He accepted the corybantic mystery.

It filled him now with a strange satiety. Even the foot that made him

limp did not deter his startling consciousness of being happy. And the

cottagers he passed, who gazed at this strange apparition of the Burt

boy, hatless, dishevelled, limping, failed to arouse him from his

reverie. In this manner, he reached his home.

Adelaide was knitting on the porch, alone. She looked up and saw her

brother, dirty, torn, wounded--lost in a glamor of recollection which

she at first mistook for the daze after an accident. She threw her work

aside, rushed down to him, and though he was nearly as tall as she,

carried him bodily to the porch.

“Why, Quincy!” she exclaimed, “what has happened?”

The lad was still too far away for an answer. But Adelaide had seen the

wound. In a flash, she had brought water and cotton. Tenderly so that it

scarcely hurt, she drew off his stocking and cleaned his wound. There

was considerable blood, much dirt, no depth. A sharp twig had torn a

gash between the toes. Silently, she set to work, rinsing the cut and

disinfecting it. While this was to be done, after all, there was no need

in asking her brother questions. He was sitting quietly enough.

At last, in her task, Quincy grew aware of her, kneeling at his feet,

caring for him. He watched her silently, as she worked. The pain was

there, but it was dull, now, and quite unobtrusive. What a strange sweet

afternoon it was! And why, a pain with it?

He looked down at his sister. And now, she glanced up at him. Their eyes

met and held. With one hand upon the bandage, the other clasped about

and bracing his bared leg, she paused.

“Thank you, Adelaide.” The boy spoke with an accent of maturity that may

come at any age, with a real emotion.

“Don’t be silly, dear,” Adelaide replied. And then she added: “How did

it happen, brother?”

“I don’t know.”

The girl smiled, actually as if she understood.

“Perhaps you were running too fast, eh?”

Quincy looked sharp.

“Did you ever run in the woods?” he asked with ill-concealed excitement.

“Yes, indeed,” she confessed.

Quincy was silent. Adelaide drew a clean stocking over the bandaged

foot, and then, a hand-knitted, crimson slipper.

“See if that’s comfy, now,” she said.

“Whose slipper is that?”

“Mine. You don’t care ...?” She spoke with a strange respect.

Quincy got up and walked. “It’s all right.” And then, facing Adelaide,

he stopped. Once more, he was embarrassed. He wished he had been

elsewhere.

“Thank you, sister,” he said with effort.

The girl looked at him lingeringly. It was a curious, beautiful look. It

came through tears--at least, so it seemed to Quincy--like the sky

through thin clouds. And this made him grope vaguely back within his

soul for something he had forgotten.

And then, again, came an unaccountable impulse. Adelaide had put out her

arms. His impulse was to rush within them. It was as if he would cover

many wounds, if he did that. He thought of this. And in the instant of

thinking, doubt slipped within--doubt and the looming presence of the

house, the memory of those within it, of what they were to him and of

that which they had done. He must guard himself against a fresher

wound--one of a sort different from this which Adelaide had bandaged. He

must beware. He must consider the tribe of Adelaide, with her seeming

love and her eyes that feigned a plea. He must remember the

impossibility of this which appeared to be before him--the impossibility

of love, of understanding; the reality of disillusion. He must cut

through this day-dream....

There was a cloud of resolution. With it, the boy’s face hardened. He

turned about and limped upstairs--like a wounded wild thing, afraid with

returned vigor, of the good Samaritan that had succored it.

And Adelaide sank back to her chair. She forgot to remove the signs of

Quincy’s accident. She forgot to knit. She remembered her father and

Rhoda. And then, her breast rose stertorously, and she began to sob. For

what she had felt, she understood.

* * * * *

The family returned early in September to New York. For Josiah and Rhoda

had strong within them a country family’s lust for the City. And with

the first burning of the leaves in autumn, they missed the streets and

the traffic and the theatres and the hotel-lobbies. Nor was Marsden

loth. He was able to move about New York, in their motor; he was able

even to visit Broadway since the Burt finances made feasible the

purchase of a theatre-box. But Marsden did not care really for these. He

preferred New York to the country, with the first burning of the leaves

in autumn, merely because he had just been in the country. By Christmas,

he would welcome a visit to Atlantic City or Bermuda; by April, he would

again be longing for the mountains. The Burt family never summered at

the sea-shore. It was too like Long Island. And so, the big house near

Central Park, where the leaves die greyly instead of burning out, was

made ready. And Quincy was hurried back--so it seemed to him--to live

the year’s most passionate season in the City.

All of the summer, the mark had remained of the strange encounter with

Adelaide and with the woods. He had avoided the woods, he had been shy

with Adelaide. Several times, they walked forth together. But the girl’s

efforts to make a breach in his world had been avail-less. They had

marched on, silent for the most part; helpless utterly. And Nature was

very far away.

She had ached for inspiration and she had failed. She blamed herself.

Adelaide was no tactician. When she forced activity on her desire, she

was even less expressive than when it lay painfully quiescent within her

heart.

Yet there was an issue to her inspiration, even if she was not to be the

one who gained. With the fall came a new spurt of hope and confidence to

Quincy. It was still Rhoda. The boy ignored, of course, that the fuel

for this new hope had come from Adelaide; that his _élan_ toward Rhoda

was due to Adelaide’s encouragement. He had never looked on his younger

sister in a warm light. The fire with which Rhoda touched him had never

ceased to burn. And it was the season of lost passions--the season of

burning leaves. Adelaide saw the event with conscious eyes--its irony,

its hopelessness. It was she who had yearned and who had planned; it was

Rhoda who ignored and who received.

And then, of course, came the same result. Quincy made ready for a still

surer, harder state of disillusion.

* * * * *

The climax of sullen naughtiness was over.

After all, his condition had been chiefly due to his own sense of

weakness, to his lack of pride. There had been so little impetus to

pride! It was not that he was an unremarkable boy. He was. But most such

feel distinction at least within their family. The illustriousness that

the world will, of course, deny them, they receive at the hand of a

parent, or a sister--a little world. And this little world they coax

into sufficiency so that the basic need of holding up one’s head is

answered; and, often to tragic consequence, the cold outer world comes

to be ignored.

This was not Quincy’s case. He had succeeded poorly in judging his

family’s view of him to be a blind one. Now, however, matters changed to

a degree.

Quincy was at an age to sound the springs of manhood, and to glean

childish joy therefrom. Above his poverty of gifts, there arose now a

sense of power and of promise that thrilled him the more for its bare

setting. Quincy was to be a man--a tall, strong master endowed with all

the honors of his sex! This was something to one who had been an

unpetted child in a large family. And the new feeling brought

revolution to his ways and views. The new element that entered in was

one of confidence--potential self-assertion. It was a sickly, scarce

noticeable thing. It was not strong enough to appear in its own light.

But it gave to Quincy a sense of a reserve, a flair of a future. And

however vague, this was a vital thing in one whose soul had been so

constantly flung back upon a fancy-builded past.

A laborious task is the nurturing of pride in one who has lived long

without it. Its growth is an imperceptible evolving. No member of the

household--not Marsden who saw through idleness, not Adelaide who saw

through love--was well aware of it in Quincy. To them, he was merely

“behaving better.” His moroseness was less militant. His silence had

less of a sneer and a scowl. But silence it was still. Quincy scarce

knew of it himself, until the climax that with one shock bared his

transfiguration. But until that climax, it seemed none the less to

Quincy that life’s pain had subsided; that his surroundings were more

bearable. He still felt the selfish attitude of Rhoda; his father’s

stretches of ignoring him and sudden spurts of tyranny still wracked

him; his mother was no less inadequate; Marsden was still the mordant

sphinx. But now, a new element within him told him to abide his

time--bade him grow and hope.

It was not until the spring that he learned how pervasively this new and

hidden sense had fretted all of his being; how strongly it had attuned

the fibres of his soul to its own message.

* * * * *

It was April and late afternoon. All of the Burt children were in the

sitting room, on the second floor. Jonas was in town for the Easter

holidays. And Rhoda had just returned from a visit to Savannah where,

incidentally, she had become engaged. So there was a general human glow

about the place.

It was a conventionally furnished room, eloquent of the overpaid

house-decorator. The walls were a thick, red silk above high panellings

in oak. Two sets of curtains, red-plush and cream-colored net, shut out

the gleam of the low sun that fell athwart the street. The chairs were

lavishly upholstered, in light green with silvered wood. In the right

corner of the room was Adelaide’s piano--Rhoda did not play. The center

table was covered in brocade, bronze tinged. Upon it were

ornaments--sculptured book-racks in mahogany, sumptuous paper cutters, a

fan of ivory lace, a leather sécrétaire embossed in gold--all of it

curiously travestied with a litter of cheap magazines. Against the left

wall was a sofa and on it sat Adelaide, and Jonas puffing a pipe. At his

left was a great settle with collapsible back, book-rest and

foot-guard--the throne of Marsden. Rhoda had drawn her chair beside him.

They were looking together at a comic weekly, and munching from a box of

candy conveniently between them. On the room’s other side, near the

piano, was Quincy,--relaxed far back in a high arm-chair, his legs

dangling.

* * * * *

Marsden and Rhoda were seriously at their jokes, enjoying the candies

together. Jonas pulled at his pipe, a smirk of ruddy satisfaction on his

face. Adelaide was drowsy. She had set aside her book. There was little

general conversation. And yet, an atmosphere of contentment pervaded the

heavy, over-furnished room.

Quincy, also, was drowsy. He had just stepped in for a magazine. An

impulse that came seldom had prompted him to stay. No attention had been

paid to him. So he had seated himself, half resolved to read. And now,

he was contemplatively taking in the scene. The hour was between day and

evening--in happier climes, the twilight. But New York has no stomach

for _nuances_. With her greatness, the Metropolis has driven out the

gentle hour wherein night’s mystery comes to meet the day’s

assertiveness. It was already evening in the room. In the street, it was

still day. The City’s life came muffled, as from another world.

Quincy’s mood made him observant. A touch of comradeship was in the

motive that made him stay. He was hoping someone would talk to him. And

in his wish, he studied the shadowed features of those from whom he

seemed almost to be desiring a grace.

Quincy remarked how scant Marsden’s hair had become. Marsden was

twenty-four. But he looked immeasurably old. Quincy observed that there

was a discomforting presence in Rhoda. Her eyes were big and soft, yet

what came from them was hard and--it came almost in its true terms to

Quincy--mean. Her mouth had a fire about it; yet the broad lips did not

suggest that the fire was contained. In looking at Rhoda, Quincy was

minded of an iceberg swimming in a sea of flame. It was a fascinating

thought. And he could not keep from thinking that if one were in the

flame the ice would smart deliciously; whereas, if one were on the ice,

the flame would be a balm. He did not understand very clearly about

Rhoda. He knew that it was rather disconcerting to look long at her. He

knew that her pale, dark face was beautiful. Just now, a stray gleam of

the sun stood orange on her hair. And her body, tight beneath its dress

of silken crêpe, seemed strangely sweet and secret. He remembered then

what he had seen on that one occasion. And then, he grew ashamed.

Beside her, Marsden was almost fearfully grotesque. His forehead bulged

and his hair had a streak of grey. His eyes were now dull, now

glistening. And his fingers were very long and made an irritating sound

as he clicked them against his chair.

Jonas was a man of a dead mystery to Quincy. His ruddy, flashing face

had been fully fathomed. He was a stranger whom once Quincy had been

eager to know. The eagerness had died. The rather stout mass of his

body, the weak puffiness of his lips, his nasal slang and his coarse

straight hair were to Quincy an impersonal assortment.

With Adelaide he felt curiously unaroused. If this girl moved him at

all, it was unpleasantly. There was a cloying, humble atmosphere about

her. Quincy did not care for her. Frequently, he would forget that she

was in the room.

And now, it had grown too dark, even for comic pictures. Marsden and

Rhoda whispered together; his raucous chuckle chimed well with the cold

ring of her laughter. And the night rose above them. Quincy’s mind went

leaping through it as if light were a barrier at last effaced. He was

comfortable in his chair. He wondered whether, perhaps, he was not face

to face with a more comfortable future. His heart went out to his

brothers and sisters, so eager was he to prove his dream’s

verisimilitude. One so beautiful as Rhoda could not be hard of heart;

nor one so rubicund as Jonas, nor so suffering as Marsden, nor so meek

as Adelaide. Oh! if they but gave him a chance--how good and kind and

loving he would be! He was getting old now. He was fifteen. He could

find ways to be of use. He could make his new happiness efficient. He

could read to Marsden when he was tired; he could try to learn jokes to

tell to Jonas; he could run errands for his sisters. He would use his

body and his mind to show his gratitude, to prove his worth. Quincy went

swimming through the element of his desire. The hum of the Elevated

trains, the croon of the cars past the street, the rattle of a wagon

merged into a varied harmony, all pliant to his gentle mood. The little

fellow clasped the arm of his chair as if to hold on to this fleet state

of happiness and so sustain it....

Marsden’s voice cut into him, like a knife.

“Quincy,” it said, “turn on the lights.”

The lad jumped up and complied. The cold glare of the electric beat out

the gentle color of the dusk. But already, his brother’s tone had

dispersed the dream which that dusk had nurtured. Quincy went back to

his chair. But he was very wide-awake, now; and his thoughts were

pragmatic. How he did spin nonsense to himself! A double resentment was

on foot: against reality purely as such, and also as the disturber of

his fancies. He looked at Marsden in the cruel light and found that he

despised him. Rhoda was smugly smiling over a magazine she had now

resumed. He hated her, for that. She had not felt the sting in Marsden’s

order, or, if she had, it was with a feeling of approval. It required no

more than this to turn the edge of Quincy’s mood. Jonas began to talk.

He was boasting of a college celebration; of his friends. He alluded

slyly to a girl. Rhoda, in her new magnanimous contentment, nodded her

sympathy for his crass pranks. To Quincy it was as if all of his

brother’s triumphs had been related to draw attention to his own social

poverty. So he resented Jonas. And since even Marsden’s fastidious

attention had been drawn, he blanketed in his bitter sense of exclusion

all of those whom but a minute before he had been glowing to embrace.

Adelaide, meantime, had actually fallen asleep. Her head was thrown back

on the upholstered couch. Her lips were parted. Quincy observed how

small and white her teeth were. He found her stupid.

There was a step in the hall. Josiah brushed into the room. He wore a

wide-brimmed, black, slouch hat--such a hat as the owner of a Western

mine, born in Long Island, is likely to deem appropriate.

“Good evening, my dears,” he said. And then, he met the sharp gaze of

Rhoda.

“Can’t you remember the hat-rack, downstairs?” she reprimanded him.

Josiah swept the hat from his head, with a big, red hand. His hair was

streaked with grey. But still, his face had retained freshness and

vitality despite its bulk and the ponderous chin that sagged over the

low collar. Josiah was fifty-eight. He winced slightly at his daughter’s

just remark. And then, he espied Quincy, still ensconced in his big

chair. In the boy, was an outlet for his irritation caused by the

episode of the hat. To display it toward Rhoda was unthought of.

“Here,” he pointed with his hand toward Quincy, “bring my hat

downstairs.” And then, having thrown out his remark, as to a lackey, he

turned toward Marsden. “Well, my boy--and what sort of a day did you

have?”

A general conversation sprang up. Quincy stepped up to the table where

his father had flung his slouch and went on his errand. He did not mind

the errand. But his father’s tone fitted too painfully well within his

growing mood.

It was out of a sense of pride that he returned to the room, the hat

deposited. Every instinct in his body drove him to go upstairs to his

own floor,--every instinct save this new one that led him back into the

overbearing presence.

As he resumed his seat, Josiah asked:

“Where’s your Ma?”

Marsden thought he knew: “She’s shopping with the machine.”

“She is not!” replied Josiah, emphatic through his own importance,

rather than by virtue of the subject. “I had the car. Farrel said she’d

dismissed him at four o’clock until the time to call for me.”

“Well, then I don’t know.” Marsden raised his brow to show that also he

did not care.

Josiah stood pondering. “That’s funny,” he said. And once more, he

espied Quincy, unobtrusively lost in his great chair.

The thought of not knowing his wife’s whereabouts distressed him; again,

out of his need of knowing everything, rather than by virtue of any warm

solicitude. He felt strongly ill-at-ease, there in his own room, before

his children, who paid no attention to him. He had already been

reprimanded by his daughter. And now, it seemed that he was generally

misinformed. Sarah’s absence was of no significance. It was not late.

But the smug posture of his children, seated, while he stood--first

scolded, then found ignorant--heightened his sense of umbrage. It had

been a close, busy day. And his head had ached. Moreover, there was

Quincy, snug in his chair--on his face a look of supreme unconcern.

“Quincy,” he called out in a voice unnecessarily loud, “suppose you go

down and asked Farrel where your Ma is. I think he’s waitin’.”

Quincy jumped up again. Fatally, he caught the spirit behind his

father’s words and his father’s tone. Unmistakably, he knew that he was

being used, that moment, as a release for his father’s mood, for his

father’s aches and for his father’s uncomfortable, silly sense of

humiliation. All this hurt--this seeing clear. But none the less, he

moved stiffly to the door in order to comply. His legs moved laggardly.

Something within him repelled this motion of obedience. It was not fair

to be exploited as a release for an old man’s aches and tempers and

sense of limitation! And in addition, he felt the cold eyes of the

company upon him, indifferently watching him on his way, ignorant of his

misery, careless of its cause. But now, he was at the door. He opened

it. And then, the impulse that said “Nay!” moved something in him,

something perverse, ineffectual, foolish, so that he spoke. He knew the

folly of this compromise between his sense of duty and of justice. But

it was too late. The words came:--

“Suppose the chauffeur doesn’t know?”

For the moment, there was a pause. Marsden, Jonas and Rhoda turned in

gleeful expectation toward their glowering father. They knew the

outburst such inanity must occasion. And Adelaide, who alone felt fear

and pain in this lull of fever, broke into a nervous giggle which Quincy

totally misunderstood.

Josiah’s face was scarlet. He had need of just this outburst for a bath

of temper wherein to wash away the day’s accumulated irritations.

“Suppose the chauffeur doesn’t know, eh?” he half-sneered, half-shouted.

“Then--find out!”

The door shut behind the boy....

The shower of temper had had the wished-for result. At once, Josiah was

in an excellent mood. He dropped into the chair that had held Quincy,

spread himself amply and began to talk--convivially, cleverly,

cheerfully, as was his way when he desired to overcome an earlier

impression. The others joined him, now, with truer participation. And

so, half an hour sped.

Then once more, there was a step in the hall.

The door opened, and Sarah entered. She wore furs, despite the season. A

bewildering creation of flowers and feathers, rimmed in black velvet,

sat square upon her head. As she stepped in, Josiah jumped with unwonted

speed from his comfortable place. This, in itself, was enough to cause

Sarah to stand still and look.

“Adelaide,” said Josiah, without greeting his wife, “go upstairs and see

if Quincy’s in his room.”

He spoke nervously, quickly, sweetly withal. Rhoda and Jonas rose,

seeking his eyes, impelled also by a sudden thought. Even Marsden smiled

uncomfortably.

Adelaide flew out, on her mission. And Sarah, flinging her furs aside,

stepped forward, as if to ease some necessary action. The ominous,

knowing concert of all these eyes brought panic to her ignorance.

“Josiah!” she began. “Where’s Quincy--? What--”

“Shut up!” cut in her husband. “Don’t get excited!”

“What have you--” Sarah’s heart had read the uncommon fear on her

husband’s face.

Just then, Adelaide returned.

“Quincy’s not there,” she said in a high voice that came out above her

angry breathing. Instinctively, she ranged herself beside her mother.

For a moment, Sarah stood swaying, before her husband. And then, in a

burst of passion she rushed upon him.

“Oh! Oh!” she cried. “So at last you’ve done it! So at last, you’ve

driven him away! You’ve driven him away!”