And a gay parley would take place between them. Here was one invulnerable nucleus; another, three-fold, centered upon Marsden, whose sisters found confession and admiration good, at his indifferent shrine. Rhoda had noticed Marsden intent upon a book that she knew nothing of. But his intentness augured well to a curious impulse in herself. She desired to read a book provocative of such. “I guess not,” says Marsden. “Please!” “Mother would never forgive me, if I let you,” he smiles maliciously. “Oh--you will--” she pleads, tittering a bit at the point of his cajolery. “Well, I can’t stop you.” And Rhoda, titillated strangely by her prospect, jumps half out of her seat to embrace her brother. “Here,” cries father, looking up in mock anger from his colloquy with Jonas. “Back in your place there! Mother’ll be here.” And as if with one accord, a faint, vague sneer,--a parting of lips, a twinkle of eyes--steals over the entire company. Quincy alone is excepted. He does not understand. But again there presses upon him the sense of a piteous discord crying against life’s rhythm. Jonas tells an amusing incident from school. Father laughs broadly; Marsden laughs to the best of his ability, his flavor of acid for the nonce repressed; Rhoda laughs, feeling the fellowship of Marsden, and Adelaide giggles, following the lead of Rhoda. And then, the door opens and mother re-appears with the stew. It is as if a hushing pall had fallen. Quincy does not understand--once more. But the dinner nears completion. With the dessert, there is a shifting of places. The meal’s decorum breaks. Natural tendencies evolve still further. Jonas jumps to his father’s knee. He is busy stealing whiffs of smoke as it shoots past his nose. Rhoda and Adelaide flock to Marsden. He is their god, and in this fact their parents find delight and no small measure of solace for their son’s misfortune. Marsden’s hair is fine and black and long. Rhoda discovers with a shriek of delight that it is getting thin. Yet Marsden is not nineteen. The two girls pass their fingers over his head. Marsden growls and utters sharp words, basking, the while, in their devotion. Mother moves back and forth in the business of clearing the table. And Quincy sits alone, desolate, ignored, while father talks fishing with Jonas and his two sisters vie with each other at their new sport of making braids in Marsden’s hair. The minutes pass. Quincy cannot hide his interest in this shared spectacle of love wherein he has no part. A dull regret, as for something he has never had, yet something perpetually desired and observed, weighs on him. And through the shroud of this deep, yet inchoate want upon his soul, darts now and then a flare of anger, a cut of pain. But the anger shoots off into a formless gloom. So Quincy remains still, doing nothing, mindful of little, articulate not even in resentment. And his mother passes to and fro, clearing the table, too busy to see.