Chapter III: Part ONE: The Unwelcome Man (3)

Never had there been so deep a silence. With outstretched body, it was to Quincy as if he had been swept beyond the bed. He seemed afloat, astride two worlds, strangely apart from the one in which he had been incontinently dropped. And then a thought of what had happened--a whispered thought like a dim memory--brushed him back into the actual living. With his face hot in fever, his mind seething in visions that burst out and vanished ere they had been caught, all of his life came to him in a clear, ghostly light. He saw the household, below stairs, joyously seated at the gleaming table, eating good things. He felt hungry. He wished to go out and steal some food. He wished to crash through the floor and fall, dead and mangled, upon that board of mocking plenty. But through it all, he managed still to smile.

And then, he looked up. His mother had come in, holding a tray.

“You were very naughty, Quincy,” she said in a voice that went up and down, “but I have brought you some dinner.”

Quincy was still smiling. He reached out his arm for a pillow and flung it at his mother. It fell short, doing no harm. Sarah placed the tray precipitately on a chair and rushed to the bed.

“Darling, darling!” she cried, “why are you like this? Tell mother, won’t you? What is it? Why? Why?”

She kissed his face. She pressed his hands. She clamped his ears so that they hurt deliciously. And Quincy lay silent, happy; his smile lost at last in the sweet tears.

Then, something came over his mother. She stopped.

“I must go now,” she said hurriedly. “Father was angry even at this. He said for Bridget to bring it up. He’ll be mad, dearest, if I stay.”

She leaned over and kissed her son, once more. He lay now, stiffly again and sternly. Then the door closed behind her.

For some time Quincy remained upon the bed. His face was a screen to a bitter battle. Bitterness had the victory. He jumped up and uncovered the dishes on the tray. Roast-beef soaking in gravy, peas and sweet-potatoes, apple-sauce and angel cake. Calmly and slowly he took a dish, moved to the low casement window, opened it, and threw out the contents. And in this gesture he continued, going back and forth, eyes bright with fever, mouth parted with passion,--until all of the food he craved had disappeared into the grey, deep night.

* * * * *

So Jonas went away to school, and the agony of this period in Quincy’s life set in--the end of the Reign of Jonas.

For the most part, it was the feeling of a void; to fill it, the creating of a fancied Jonas. And this, being in its essence art, Quincy discovered to be painful. In his relations with his school-mates, with his sisters, with Marsden, he missed him most. And the Jonas whom he regretted was a bland, kind brother, not reasoned-out but clear through the pleasing memory that he inspired. In brief, Quincy was longing for a brother he himself had invented. And to this creation went little fact beyond the name of Jonas. If this new brother’s face was one with the old, at least his expression was so different as to transfigure it. If his voice was one, the words he spoke had varied even that. Besides, Quincy was happy with his creation. Had Jonas never returned, never shown his real face, his real spirit, doubtless Quincy would have prospered with his auspicious figment. And though life had turmoiled him in a dozen other ways, he would still have clung close to his dream, derived from it sustenance and so hewn out an indomitable faith. For no actual occurrence could have attained to splinter it. Jonas alone was so empowered.

Quincy had troubled his mother enough to know on what day Jonas was coming for his Christmas holidays. At first, knowledge of the day had sufficed. He had aimed his existence at that day. It had seemed a small enough target. But when the day came, Quincy realized his error. He learned of the vague, broad desert that a day can be. He felt the irony of implacable dimension when one’s heart strains toward a pin-point. He awoke in the morning with a bound of fear. What if Jonas was already there! He lay in bed and listened. No stirring. It was not too late. For Jonas always made a noise. And then, as a sense of gratitude came over him, it was dispelled at once by a succeeding sickish thought. His vacation did not begin until the morrow. He would, then, have to spend the morning--half of the day--out of sight and beyond watch. During that time, Jonas might walk in! The idea froze him. He thought of playing sick--just so sick as to be able to remain at home. He did not care even if it did mean doctoring him. His fervor laughed at castor-oil. Once more, a glow of satisfaction, such as one feels after a great invention. But this also, was short-lived. The mournful countenance of duty had thrust in at the door. The school, that morning, was giving a Christmas Exercise. He had his rôle in the festivities. There was to be a masque of the nations, assembled to wish America a happy new year. In this great ceremony, Quincy was to take the part of Mexico. Leggins, sombrero, tasseled vest and practice in rolling out “carramba” had gone toward the occasion. He could not shirk this austere duty. The vision of staying luxuriously at home, of waiting in the warm house for Jonas, had disappeared.

And so, since he must run risks, he faced them. He jumped out of bed although it was a full hour before breakfast. He dressed and went downstairs. Perhaps Jonas might come in early--and he be there, alone, to greet him! He was disappointed. And then his mother appeared.

“You down so early?” she asked, looking for something wrong.

“Mama, when does Jonas come?”

“Today.” She went toward the pantry to signal the cook.

“Yes, Mama. But _when_ to-day?”

Sarah looked at her little son as he stood there, all serious and expectant.

“I don’t know. Don’t bother me. By suppertime, I guess,” and she went out.

Breakfast went fast, since the threat of school was at its termination. And then, he and Adelaide were shuttled off in the brand-new limousine.

Before he had gauged the event, he was on his feet. The thought of Jonas had lurked in a strategic corner of his consciousness. And it had gathered to it the energy which might have gone to stage-fright.

Before him lay countless amorphous rows of children, with stern sprinklings of teachers. He began. It was as if his voice went on of itself--uncontrolled, aloof from him, so that he heard it from afar. He had studied his rôle too well. It left no fear of his forgetting it. And in the relief, back stole the thought of Jonas, the possible catastrophe if he returned, while Quincy stood there droning out his duty. If his duty was to be done, at least it could be gone through quickly. The words flowed. He hurried them, as if pursuing from behind. It was a way of getting back. And then, suddenly, his words stopped. He realized that there were no others. He sat down.

He received little praise for his performance. His teacher, a stout, florid creature, came up to him showing her teeth, as she did always when she was irritated. She found fault with his rendition. But what bothered Quincy was the thought that his hurrying had not brought nearer his return. It had been useless.

He did not hate the woman only because of his indifference. About him was a bustle of holiday excitement. Children laughed and ran about. Teachers relaxed and Quincy noticed that when they became smirkingly human they were still more disagreeable than when they had been teachers. It was as if they had taken off their clothes. Greetings of “Merry Christmas” interspersed the general murmur of voices and light feet. It was all like a great, dim wave on the edge of Quincy’s consciousness.

At last, however, the wave broke; the voices scattered; the eddies lessened. And then, Quincy came home.

Jonas was not there. So he ate his lunch, tossed between gladness at not having missed him and hollow perturbation at the deep-shadowed future. For in this state, the coming home of Jonas was Quincy’s future.

His mother had said to Rhoda:

“Dear, if you have nothing to do, will you take the children for a short walk in the Park?”

Rhoda had consented. The remainder of the meal was torture to Quincy. But out of his new anguish was born a device. For he was resolved not to go out, that afternoon.

As soon as the company had gotten up from the table, Quincy went bravely up to Rhoda who stood alone in a corner. Rhoda was seventeen--a remote, resplendent creature. She was dark and tall and very cold and very occupied in her own mysterious affairs. Quincy looked up at her with admiration, but with distance. He felt that she was beautiful. He felt that he would not have minded had she kissed him--which she never did; that he would have been glad, had she noticed him--which occurred scarce more often. Now, however, he was inspired. So he went up to her unhesitant, reached for her wrists, clasped them, and spoke.

“Sister.”

“Well?”

“Please, sister--make Mama not make you take me out, to-day.”

“What’s wrong?” She looked down, interested.

“Please, sister--I want to be here when Jonas is coming.”

He looked up piteously. And Rhoda laughed.

“All right. I don’t care, I’m sure. I’ll see to it.”

So Quincy went up to his room. He did not take out his toy engine or his soldiers. He knew he should not be able to do his vacation homework. For some strange reason, he was prompted to look at Hercules and Venus. But mostly, he waited. Waiting was by now the atmosphere he lived in. His mood had grown so wide, he scarcely noticed it, for want of something to contrast it with. His strain toward Jonas had grown so intense, he scarce saw him, felt him, thought of him any longer. His subconscious mind seemed to be the active one. So he merely waited, doing few external things, aware of few external qualities. And among those that went were time and Jonas. All that remained was the abstract waiting for him.

And then, a noise below. For a moment, it meant nothing. Then it flashed on him palpably that Jonas had arrived! He rushed to the door. He was downstairs. Jonas was before him.

“Brother!” he cried, aching to be caught up.

Jonas looked down at the intrusion.

“Oh, hello, Kid. How are you?” He had outgrown kissing. He threw his coat on a chair, lounged into another, lighted a cigarette and then went on: “Say, Ma--I’m hungry.”

* * * * *

If there was a shred of hope left, it went that evening.

The scene took place directly after supper. It took place before Quincy. And, most horrible of all, Quincy was its cause. Jonas objected to sharing a room during his vacation with a twelve year old child. That was the crux. He explained amply what he meant. He had had a different sort of a room-mate at school. He was sorry now, that he had not accepted his invitation to go with him to Chicago. He’d not have been placed in the nursery, _there_. When fellows came home from “work” at Christmas, their families were expected to be a little considerate of them. Some had their breakfasts served in bed. He didn’t demand that. He wasn’t selfish. But there were certain indignities one had to draw the line at! He was not proposing to spend his vacation by going to bed with the chickens--or the babies. He expected to have “late dates” every night; “late sleeps” every morning. He did not wish to be disturbed. He was used to smoking in his bedroom, before sleep, before arising. This also, was a habit dear to his manhood. But, most important of all arguments, he simply _would not have it_! If the Kid stayed where he was, he, Jonas, would wire to his chum and take the sleeper to Chicago. Just watch and see if he didn’t! Didn’t he have cash enough in his pocket?

All this, Quincy heard, sitting quiet and alone in a corner, while his hero paced the floor, using his name, ignoring his presence, soiling his soul. And now, Rhoda chimed in, agreeing. And now they all agreed!

The broad sofa in the parental room was to be improvised at once into a bed. This would do for Quincy, during the vacation.

The servant was summoned, the deadly order given. Jonas called out a general “good-bye” that somehow did not include his brother in the corner, since he had not turned in that direction. He left the house to meet a friend, downtown.

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.