The frantic look in the kid’s eyes warned Joe not to put out his hand. He might explode.
Wilfred had been down to Staten Island. The Aunts approved of these Sunday excursions. For once they were of a mind with Wilfred about something. To-day he had discovered a lovely spot called Willow Brook, which in its wild beauty and solitude might have been a thousand miles from New York, instead of actually within the city limits. It had been a good day.
Upon entering the house, his heart sank, recognizing from the tones of his Aunt’s voice that there were strangers in the drawing-room. One could not get past the open door without being seen. And he did want to get to his own room to think. He debated sneaking out again, and entering by the basement, but his Aunt called him in her company voice. The second time she called, he was obliged to enter the room.
He was astonished to see a boy of his own age, sitting with his back to the windows. He examined him with eager curiosity. When the boy arose and came towards him, Wilfred’s heart failed him. That boy of the East Side!—cleaner now, and better dressed, but the same boy! Wilfred turned sick inside. This was a hallucination, of course; that wicked, bold, long-nosed face had haunted him, these past weeks. This was the Tempter; the destroyer of his peace! Well, it was all over then; this was the end; he was done for!
Then his Aunt May introduced them to each other in her silly-sounding voice, and Wilfred realized that Joe was no apparition. He looked at him in helpless confusion. By what trick of fate had he come to be sitting in the drawing-room of the prim Aunts as if he belonged there? The explanation when it came was natural enough:
“This is the boy who brought me home when I sprained my ankle on Thursday night.”
Wilfred’s heart sank lower still; for this looked like the direct interposition of Fate or whatever Power there was, on the side of the enemy. If this boy had actually gained a footing in his own home, how could he, Wilfred, hope to withstand him, and all that he represented? . . . He didn’t want to withstand him. He was lost. After the first glance, the black-haired boy avoided looking at Wilfred. He was as demure as a cat. He knew his own power. Wilfred glanced at the roses with a painful sneer. Faded ones, of course, because they were more pathetic.
An awkward constraint fell upon the quartette. Aunt May, having introduced the two boys with as much as to say: You two ought to be friends, had become silent and fidgety. It must be apparent now, even to her fuzzy wits, that we couldn’t be friends, thought Wilfred. There was some desultory conversation between Joe and Aunt Fanny. The black-haired boy was exercising a horrible fascination over Wilfred. Fairly well dressed now, Wilfred perceived how good-looking he was. A healthy, pink color showed in the bold, thin profile; the whole head expressed a power of cynical hardihood. This boy doesn’t care what he does! thought Wilfred. In body, too, Joe’s shoulders were wider than Wilfred’s, and under the shoddy pants the line of a trim thigh was revealed. Joe’s comeliness sickened Wilfred. He has every advantage of me! he thought despairingly.
As from a distance, Wilfred heard his Aunt May saying to him in the manner of a rebuke: “Joseph has been telling us about himself. He has had a hard life. . . . I don’t know. . . . It is very interesting to hear. . . . Huh?”