And in reply, he wrenched his head from her grasp and bent it so low that she could not see his face. He felt her hands lifting his shoulders. And in this way, he came to his feet.
“Big boy, why do you hang your head?”
He raised it. In a flash, she lay in his arms. But he did not touch her.
“I want you,” he cried and then was silent.
Julia stepped away from him. A joy was in her face that he could not mistake.
And then, she took his hand. And she seated herself. And somehow, Quincy was at her feet with his head upon her lap. This seemed exquisitely right. Yet, though he thrilled with joy and the near warmth of her body intoxicated him, he sobbed. She held his head and his shoulders as if he needed sustenance until this ecstasy of relief was over. And so he remained, until his eyes were dry and his heart spoke dear within him, like a bell.
She held him until the morrow. She nursed him and cherished him as if he had been sick. She hid him while the unknowing waiter brought food into the sitting-room. And then, laughing with her joke, she shut out the world once more, which had been permitted to intrude with the staid dress and visage of the lackey, and served him herself.
Avid for sleep, the big boy slumbered in her arms all of the night—a sleep broken with jewel-like gleams of consciousness wherein, waking from dreamless rest to a dream-like reality, he could clasp his fantasy and breathe her breath and feel the murmurous rhythm of her body against his and, twining his fingers through her vagrant hair, slumber afresh.
When she let him go, she took his hand and held it under her heart.
“Will your mother have worried at your absence?” She felt the worry, as if she had been the mother she had never met.