“I will look for you, Mildred.”
All of them are seated: all of them are laughing at my words, for even as I hear them, my voice is solemn. What nonsense is this? I accept as real and right this comfortable group of laughing persons, dear to me, who mock from the bright assurance of their world matriced in black, my gesture as I rise to seek the dawn at midnight.
“Look at him,” cries mother. “He’s really going to look. Doctor Stein, what will we do with my boy?”
My father sneers in his kindliest way, and Mildred’s laughter like a precious stone says nothing to me. But I am up from my chair.... And I am near the window.
“Will you know,” says Philip, “how to look for it?”
I do not answer.
Mr. Fayn starts another game.
“I’m foolish,” he announces seriously. “You never win twice in one sitting.”
“There’s a good law,” says Doctor Stein, “to break.”
Mr. Fayn shakes his head.