Here, Quincy’s mother was an opportunity of Nature. In her lack of a splendid giving, she was inadequate. At least, she offered a chance for him to retrieve his sense of injury. She was near enough to be hurt. So a sad satisfaction came of injuring his mother, who alone would receive his injury. The boy was cruel, cold to her. He knew it. He could not help it. But the knowledge that he was making miserable the one whom he loved most, brought Quincy’s cup to overflowing. Sarah took his attacks in disarray. She did not understand them. And Quincy raged that she did not understand. He yearned for her help against himself. He received merely tears and lamentations which, far from softening him, gave satisfaction to the appetite which had called them forth. Had he been able to cry: “Mother, mother! Don’t you understand? It is because I am near to you whom I love that I can hurt you. It is because I am far away from those who hurt me, that I cannot hurt them. My ugly passions are not meant for you. Understand them. Then, they will cease. Come unreservedly, my mother. Come, and take me!”--had he been able to cry out thus, his problem would have been less vexed. But he was only a child. Or had Sarah been able to say to him: “Darling, I understand your cruelty to me. It has no effect. I love you. There is nothing else!”--she would have found a truer Quincy, tearful but happy against her breast. But Sarah had other loves. And Sarah had little understanding. And so, the year swerved on, miraculously void of light, shot through with pities. And Quincy grew less friendly, less boyish, almost less alive. He was become almost an inhabitant of the house, rather than a member of the household. Of course, only a severe observer could have caught this truth. For in a child of fourteen the difference is a _nuance_. And if its subtle tragedy were open to the casual observer, man would be more horrified at the thing’s prevalence. Quincy sought solitude. But he found no real comfort in his loneliness. Simply, he had reached a stage in his life’s struggle, where he did not care for comfort. He felt that there was merely a choice of pains. He had lost the sheer idealism that admits of a pure happiness. And of the choice of pains that he envisaged, he preferred the rarefied, controllable sort that solitude fermented to the sharp improvisations of other people. So he remained alone as long as possible. He nursed and refined his misery. He grew used to it. He came almost to cherish it.