The boy had not changed for his sister. He resented her lack of vision into his revolution. Something unconscious within him must have told him that if Adelaide failed to see it, it could not, after all, be so very deep. This made him strike an imperious and patronizing air.
“Of course I do!”
“You never seemed to be turning in that direction.”
“I had no direction at all, my dear. Now, I have one.”
Adelaide leaned forward, her hands supporting her head.
“Why, Quint!” she said, “You talk as if business were the one direction possible.”
“Well—” he combatted her in this easy way of combatting himself, “what other direction is there?”
“You ask me? I—I—thought you might study—something.”
Her vagueness pleased him. It made her easier to confound. “Study something! That just about expresses it.”
She knew that the Deerings were forbidden ground. She was untaught in leading up to such without an immediate trespass. So she was silent. But here was a chance for Quincy to deal a blow at that self of him which he had buried partially alive. He went on, with eloquence.