For his thirteenth birthday, Quincy received a bicycle. With the spring, he determined to learn to ride it. And Rhoda volunteered to teach him. They went to Central Park, to the circular abandoned road-way where once, ere Quincy’s memory, had stood a statue of Bolivar and which later great quantities of stone and sand turned into a manner of Park dump. With the strangely sweet presence of Rhoda beside him, he had learned rapidly. And having learned, he found that he had learned too rapidly, since now this presence would be no longer there, beside him, as he pedalled. Having stooped from her cold estate in the excitement of teaching her brother how to ride, Rhoda lost no time in clambering back again. And so, Quincy found a new want in his heart. In his own way, he began to pay court to Rhoda. He was fully aware that he had rivals. Rhoda went to parties on many evenings. And on many others, she remained alone in the parlor with some caller whom Quincy never saw. A great curiosity came over him to see these men who were his rivals. Once, he slipped downstairs at the time when he was supposed to go up to bed, and hid in the portières. He knew that a caller was coming. But he became frightened and ran away even before the bell had rung. It was decidedly too dangerous an experiment. Quincy knew that his discovery in such flagrant badness before his sister’s caller would reflect on her. It would plunge them together into shame. Had not his mother told him that when he was bad, she always lost a bit of her prestige before her God? He did not wish that kind of sharing, with his sister. So he never stole downstairs again, to hide, when he had been sent to bed. Quincy’s way of courting Rhoda gave little promise of his subsequent success with women. Quincy did not understand his sister. It did not occur to him to psychologize beforehand the effect which his efforts would be likely to attain. It did not occur to him to find what she most wished by studying her nature, to suppress what was conflicting in himself and to feign what was harmonious. Gallantry is a sense in men capable of being tutored into art. At thirteen, it was already patent that Quincy’s sense of hearing did not promise the musician, nor his sense of sight the artist--nor his sense of pleasing, the diplomat or gallant. He was an ordinary boy. The most that one had ever said about him was that he was bright at school. Now, when Quincy received a piece of chocolate or a box of soldiers or a flower, he was very happy. Also, in his new state, he needed--though he ignored the reason--to make Rhoda happy. His way was that of a miserable logic. When he received a cake of chocolate, in lieu of devouring it as his lust urged, a greater love restrained him. He saved it. And when, in the late afternoon, Rhoda came home from a tea, he rushed up to her, held out his offering before her, and said: “Here!”