Though the act was unconscious, Quincy fixed on Clarice Lodge to solve these problems, answer these questions. She had no part in his emotions. She seemed solid and dependable to Quincy. He did not know that when she also had been drawn into the furnace of his feeling, she also would swirl with the fire and fumes. Childishly confident, he fixed on her, being unaware that at his age to attach upon another is really to absorb that other and burn that other up. Even so does flame fix on a twig. But Quincy was sure that he would learn everything from her and that his interest was scientific. She was known as a pretty girl. And until one time when he really saw her, this had seemed the right term to Quincy. Thereafter, it appeared to him to be injustice. It was at their house. Adelaide was below the porch, trimming the roses that had drooped too low. Clarice leaned over the porch railing. Quincy was to one side and unobserved. He had stepped out through the door. The two girls chatted brightly. Clarice led the conversation. She was coaxing her friend to admit that red was far more beautiful than blue. In a prim, white jumper, with Dutch neck, she bent her alert body downward. The pressure of the rail below her waist drew the frail cloth tight against her breasts. She was bending toward the left. When she laughed--which was half the time--a tremor went through her body as if it too were laughing. When she talked, she swayed gently, her whole form together, to and fro against the railing that first ate hard upon her and then gave her up. In this way the fluted railing spokes marked out their pattern against her body. Her right knee was forward and her right foot dangled. This gave accent to her rhythm. The discovered leg with its black silk stockings, pointed with tiny, white-canvas slippers, was straight and strong and fleshless. It cut like a tangent movement to the misty sway of her body. And here, Quincy kept his eyes enchanted. In the slow, steady rhythm of her body, to and fro against the railing, while her words sparked brightly, there seemed a faint, voluptuous deliberation. Her voice was a moist crystal. The nape of her neck was a nook with tiny and bronzed ringlets. He did not see her face. But now, in the pause, the girl’s subtle sense came into play. She felt him there; she straightened and turned toward him. And their eyes met. Both of them felt the burn of their blushing. With a soft hand, Clarice smoothed her skirt in front from the waist down--slowly. It had been very faintly ruffled. But the fact that her consciousness was there, drove Quincy’s eyes to her face, though in his quandary they had once more fallen. He did not know how to take them entirely away. At that moment, it came about that he discovered it unjust to call Clarice merely pretty. With a sudden fervor, he had said to her: “Will you go walking with me, tomorrow?”