“Will you wear this to-night?” he asked proudly.
Rhoda laughed. “Here,” she said, “—wear it yourself,—” and pinned it upon his blouse.
Quincy left it there. But he felt the condescension in her retort. Had he seen the bower of roses that one of the callers brought with him, after he had gone to bed, he might have understood. But also, he might not have gained much solace from his added wisdom, since roses were so pathetically far beyond his reach.
And so, time and again, Quincy’s assiduous courtship failed, not only of impression but of notice. Gradually, Quincy began to realize that his desire to be an entity in Rhoda’s life was for some reason quite as monstrous and preposterous as had been his kindred wish with Jonas. His mute attempts to share in the lives of those whom he was so apt to love, his efforts to inspire them to share in his, seemed, for some cause, to partake of the nature of a jest—of an extravagance.
Once more, his vital energies swirled and stormed and veered within him, hopeless of goal or outlet. His affection for his sister had at best been vague. Quincy had no conception of the deep ties and firm hold which a response in her would have called forth. He had no idea of the undirected force which this thwarting had thrown wildly back upon himself. All that he knew, was that life, somehow, hurt; and that his mother was indubitably right when she called him “bad” and constantly “growing worse.”
And meantime, near Rhoda, in whose cold, perverse, spoiled beauty his ironic instinct had caused him to seek a haven, there was another sister, yearning for his companionship.
But Adelaide’s eyes were diffident, and her way was quiet. Quincy knew about her only that she was in Rhoda’s graces, and therefore to be tacitly envied and resented.
X
With Quincy’s fifteenth year came a flare of recognition. But it was brief. By it, he saw his sister, Jonas, his parents, as they were. But the light had no fuel to subsist on. His untutored, indomitable needs flushed forth and drowned the momentary blaze of disillusion. And once again he was unable to see the futility of wishing and of striving in these barred directions. Wherefore, despite his sense of the sequel, the story of Rhoda, and Adelaide, and his mother was scarce begun.
For a long time it had hurt the boy to be forced witness to Marsden’s pampering and his sister’s demonstrations. It had hurt him to see the pointed, exclusive camaraderie between Jonas and his father, to feel the apologetic pitying note in his mother’s love for him. But during this long time, all these proofs of his want had not made him bitter. Gradually, he had poised and judged the value of these things he lacked. But his first impulse had not been to cry out, not to turn inward in dismay. A natural sense of justice is born in most of us. It is a part of our natal logic. One of our greatest blows comes from the late experience that that sense which we have transferred from our own heart to the heart of the world really does not obtain there. So with Quincy. Viewing these favors that were showered upon others, that seemed so strangely always to escape himself, his impulse was to believe the others right, to fix the fault within himself. Much of the impulse that had driven him toward Jonas and toward Rhoda was the desire to gain these things he lacked—or thought he lacked; was his wish to qualify within the circle where favors were dispensed. He had accepted that the fault was his. He had made his mute endeavor to correct it.