“Quincy,” it said, “turn on the lights.”
The lad jumped up and complied. The cold glare of the electric beat out the gentle color of the dusk. But already, his brother’s tone had dispersed the dream which that dusk had nurtured. Quincy went back to his chair. But he was very wide-awake, now; and his thoughts were pragmatic. How he did spin nonsense to himself! A double resentment was on foot: against reality purely as such, and also as the disturber of his fancies. He looked at Marsden in the cruel light and found that he despised him. Rhoda was smugly smiling over a magazine she had now resumed. He hated her, for that. She had not felt the sting in Marsden’s order, or, if she had, it was with a feeling of approval. It required no more than this to turn the edge of Quincy’s mood. Jonas began to talk. He was boasting of a college celebration; of his friends. He alluded slyly to a girl. Rhoda, in her new magnanimous contentment, nodded her sympathy for his crass pranks. To Quincy it was as if all of his brother’s triumphs had been related to draw attention to his own social poverty. So he resented Jonas. And since even Marsden’s fastidious attention had been drawn, he blanketed in his bitter sense of exclusion all of those whom but a minute before he had been glowing to embrace. Adelaide, meantime, had actually fallen asleep. Her head was thrown back on the upholstered couch. Her lips were parted. Quincy observed how small and white her teeth were. He found her stupid.
There was a step in the hall. Josiah brushed into the room. He wore a wide-brimmed, black, slouch hat—such a hat as the owner of a Western mine, born in Long Island, is likely to deem appropriate.
“Good evening, my dears,” he said. And then, he met the sharp gaze of Rhoda.
“Can’t you remember the hat-rack, downstairs?” she reprimanded him.
Josiah swept the hat from his head, with a big, red hand. His hair was streaked with grey. But still, his face had retained freshness and vitality despite its bulk and the ponderous chin that sagged over the low collar. Josiah was fifty-eight. He winced slightly at his daughter’s just remark. And then, he espied Quincy, still ensconced in his big chair. In the boy, was an outlet for his irritation caused by the episode of the hat. To display it toward Rhoda was unthought of.
“Here,” he pointed with his hand toward Quincy, “bring my hat downstairs.” And then, having thrown out his remark, as to a lackey, he turned toward Marsden. “Well, my boy—and what sort of a day did you have?”
A general conversation sprang up. Quincy stepped up to the table where his father had flung his slouch and went on his errand. He did not mind the errand. But his father’s tone fitted too painfully well within his growing mood.
It was out of a sense of pride that he returned to the room, the hat deposited. Every instinct in his body drove him to go upstairs to his own floor,—every instinct save this new one that led him back into the overbearing presence.
As he resumed his seat, Josiah asked: