There had been this scene at home--the new home--the Frondham mansion, as they let their guests know. “If your father commutes, I don’t see why you can’t.” “But Mother, Father doesn’t have to be in town until so much later.” “Well,--you’re so much younger. That evens matters.” “Perhaps Quincy doesn’t want to live at home any more,” Adelaide suggested. “I guess that’s it,” from Quincy. “It’s a good chance to strike out alone.” “Very well, my son.” Josiah whipped himself into a state of being injured. “Go, by all means. But if you leave the house--you pay your own way.” “I can afford to. I’m making twenty dollars a week.” “Go, then,” said the old man. “It’ll do you good.” Sarah sighed. Adelaide, who suffered most, was the one who did not cast a dart by way of godspeed. “You’ll come out week-ends, dear?” she said, placing her hands about his face. But Quincy was angry at the ease with which his father seemed to shake him off. “If I have nothing better to do,” he exclaimed, stepping away from Adelaide. His mother clasped her hands at this. And his father shook his head angrily, thinking thus to token his indifference. “You may come when you like--or stay away!” he said. “So this is how I am repaid! This is how I am repaid!” cried Sarah. “Why, Mama--” “Don’t talk to me! I’m beginning to see how right your father used to be. Come, Josiah.” She was the more severe, because, that season, Quincy had been the more amenable. Only parents who are not fond are not bullies. Meantime, Marsden, knowing long ere this that he had lost his short-lived disciple, whistled a tune. For there had been many things prior to this brief and trenchant consummation. But this was the immediate way that Quincy came to live alone, that autumn, in a boarding house in Murray Hill. It was a natural step to take with his family an hour from the City. And this, his family knew. He had even mentioned contemplating it, that summer. There had been no talk then. But it would have been unseemly to their particular etiquette not to have protested at the moment of action. Had Quincy succumbed to their formal outburst and remained, he would have won for it no praise or grateful comment. Nor, in the stand he made, did he incur a serious blame. The family was sure to forget the strained discomfort which, by tradition bound, it was required to inject on any move, any decision whatsoever. Quincy would not be harshly judged. Quincy would not be less welcome. He knew that this being disagreeable merely eased a family, that the throwing its weight to “Nay” and tarnishing a normal impulse with its inertia’d hue and cry went always, by its nature, before accepting. That first evening, he had seen Clarice. He had taken her to dine at one of the French restaurants that garnish the side-streets of Broadway. He was aglow in the momentum of his self-freeing step. He had found his friend at first remarkably atune to the glad impulse in him.