And so, the year came to an end.
He had turned away his face from it—from all that it contained—from Julia. He thought that by so doing, he was turning his face forward.
PART III
I
Beauty is a rose that needs tears to keep it fresh. Sensing the purport of this, Quincy resolved that there be no more crying.
He was in an office—a huge, dinning, polished office of which the remote head was an acquaintance of his father, a man avid, according to Josiah’s warning, for youths who were alert, and relentless against youths with any but “serious” ideas. He was a capitalist. And since, by circumstance and lack of soul, all of his life had been expended in leash to a grindstone, he was convinced that just this fact, and it alone, contained the essence of good and right. The business wherein he had lived he made to be a temple wherein he might worship himself. And there was no temple but his temple, no success but his success. His obtuseness was the cornerstone, his narrowness the nave, his greed the altar, his purblind word the choir of that temple. His limitations were its creed, and his life’s chanceful directions were its law. He moreover, taken in form, was apotheosis. He was the sentimental sort of business man, the type known by America as “hard-headed and conservative.” No sex-bound woman could have been more moved by a romance than he, by a failure. Indeed, to his feeling, dabbling in stocks was as gross a sin as, to the feeling of the priest, adultery. His name was Amos Cugeller. And Josiah Burt was rather surprised at himself for having done Quincy so good a turn. But Quincy was convinced that his “serious” days were come, his worthless period over. He believed himself now capable of putting Marsden and his father to blush with his materialism. He had screwed himself tight and rigid, calling this confidence.
With Mr. Cugeller, of course, the archetype of “seriousness” was the cog of a machine; the nadir of “worthlessness” was to stand alone, making no money—like a wild-flower.
The first year of his new life, Quincy was at home. It was the family’s last year in town. The Frondham mansion had been purchased and was in process of redecoration. Upon the following fall, with Jonas comfortably married, Quincy’s parents and Adelaide and Marsden were to move back to the land. New York had never really welcomed them. The period of dazzlement was over. The period of sheer discomfort had long since set in. And it had been enhanced by their ignoring that New York never really welcomed anyone. They moved away then, with a feeling of resentment. And thereby, Quincy came to live alone. So this new year of sharing life at home was to become a vivid one, when, later, it was seen to be the last.