It may have been his mother, the net of impulse which she spun, that
swept Quincy home. But in his act, spontaneously sprang to knowledge a
new state--the sense of challenge. Indeed, the smouldering, grim
awareness deep within him that he had a right to home, a right there to
remain and make demands, had lain upon his mind since the beginning. It
had been co-ordinate there with the sentiments that drove him back. It
had, at that outset, been a sentiment itself, rather than a conviction
shot through with thought. It had been leaven to his strong emotions and
had made active the unarguing voice which ordered his return. But in
that period of germination and later, carrying-out, this sense of
challenge was at best subliminal. He could not have quoted a program by
it; he could not have numbered his rights or his capacities for claiming
them. This was a later birth--the coming into consciousness of this. But
as his finger pressed the bell, and the moment stood before him in all
its painful nudity, a great shock went through Quincy. And with it,
Quincy’s sense of challenge grew articulate. All of his powers needed at
such a moment to be summoned. All of his weapons he needed in his hands.
And what was more, he needed not merely to find them there, but a
conscious grasping them and a sharp perfection. Else, he had foundered.
And so, in this general calling forth to arms, to service, of whatever
lay within him, this sense emerged. He felt a state of right; he knew an
order of demands. The door opening for him, there was Challenge in place
of Sacrifice, as he stepped inside.
* * * * *
The door was opened by his father. He was in his vest. By this sure
sign, Quincy learned that he had been anxious. For Josiah always gave
way to worry by taking off his coat. But Quincy did not guess the nature
of his concern. It would not have flattered him. He saw his father’s
face, cold, solemn, bitterly relieved, who stood there, slightly to one
side, waiting for words. Quincy met his arrogant gaze an instant. He
felt that he had given answer, in his own expression. Spontaneously, he
stepped past and went up the stairs.
The door to the sitting room was open. He felt behind him the astounded
figure of his father still near the door, too outraged to act. Within
the sitting room, ere he was on a level to look in, he felt the
congregated presence of the others. Their mood seemed one with the cold
gleam they sat in, and which reached him from above as he marched up the
stairs. He turned down the hall. It was darkened. It gave accent to the
light of the room where now he saw the others. There was a piercing note
to his walking through that narrow, darkened passage, braving the glare
where they were, in order to pass them and mount higher. His mother
stood in the threshold. She called forth his name. And then, rushing
into the hall, she caught him up.
He gave way to her warm, silent arms. He allowed himself gladly to be
pressed and kissed and strained against her. For a moment, challenge
went down.
And then, holding him at arm’s length, she looked at him with
questioning eyes. Within, the others sat, mutely, coldly, interested.
“Why did you run away, Quincy?” his mother asked.
The boy was hurled back upon himself.
He felt the curious attention of those others within the room.
Their almost perceptible craning forward to catch his answer ate
like acid into his heart. Below, he heard his father’s steps
approaching;--approaching, it seemed to Quincy, in order to complete
the audience. And he the spectacle--he the victim, while his mother
served to show him through his paces! Why was she so cruelly stupid?
Why must she have asked that searing question? Why could she not have
understood how he yearned really to answer it for her, how her asking
it now--under such conditions, before these!--made that answer vain,
and his desire a mockery? Her embraces given without calculation, had
been better. Then, for the moment, she had been on his side--been as
he wanted her. But now, she had fallen over. She might not have meant
it. But did her ignorance allay his pain--bring back to life the sweet
impulse she had killed? She was serving them, siding with them; and
through her hold and his expectancy of better, proving the worst of
them all!
He hated her for it. He hated her for her stupidity; and for the love he
bore her. He hated her for the hope she had, one moment gone, inspired
in him....
He shoved her aside and rushed upstairs--all of the scene, she, they of
the sitting room, his father, like a wide burn upon his brain.
As he reached his room, he heard her sob. And for her suffering, as he
flung himself upon his bed, he hated her the more.