Why had Stephen so shut himself up?
The question was as new to Lester as a question of the cause of the law of gravity. It had never occurred to him that perhaps Stephen had not been born that way.
But even a sullen stronghold of badness was better than that dreadful breakdown of human dignity. Lester felt he could never endure it again to have Stephen look into his face with that slavish, helpless searching of his eyes. No self-respecting human being could bear that look from another.
Could there be human beings—women—mothers—who fattened on it, fought to keep that slave’s look in the eyes of children? He turned from this thought with a start.
Well, what good did all this thinking do him? Or Stephen? What could he do now, at once, to escape out of this prison and take Stephen with him?
With a heat of anger, he told himself that at least he could start in to make Stephen feel, hour by hour, in every contact with him, that he, even a little boy, had some standing in the world, inviolable by grown-ups, yes, sacred even to parents.
He breathed hard and flung out his arm.
For the first time he desired to get well, to live again.
Chapter 12
HELEN and Henry Knapp were skipping home from school, hand in hand, to the tune of