He was tall and thin. A derby hat that seemed too small for him disclosed a height of forehead. He walked on, his head turned westward. He had but glimpsed the figure on the bench. And as he spoke now, he did not face the boy. “A splendid night!” The man’s remark, for some reason, had a ring far deeper than the banal usage of his words. “New York’s at her best, when she’s bathed in a blue gloom. Ever notice that?--Blue’s her color.” He stopped, still gazing, his back full on Quincy. The night seemed, for a moment, hushed. It was as if, before this subtle audience, it wished to show its best. The mists gyred before the battlements of light. And the Park breathed deeply. Quincy wished to get up and leave. Somehow, he failed. And an impression of his discomfort must have struck his anonymous companion. The man turned. Then, he stepped forward. “Why,” he exclaimed, “you’re only a lad!” He came closer. “Tall, though, for your age.” Quincy clasped the bench with his two hands. The man stood before him, calmly observant. “What’s wrong?” he said. His voice was cool but interested. It had in it the poise of a physician who is concerned yet unharassed. Quincy could not speak. “Have you run away?” the man went on. And then, he began to laugh--quietly, to himself, as if in retrospect upon some joke. “Good for you,” he continued. “Good for you.... Tell me, can’t stand your father?” “That’s not so!” Quincy choked out, indignant yet ignoring exactly why. “Oh, I see! Father can’t stand you.” The boy had craned forward. This stroke thrust him back, almost huddled on his bench. And the man thought he had guessed true. “I ran away once,” he began, musingly aloof. There was a pause while he thought. And then, as if for the first time, he seemed to espy the boy. He stepped still farther forward and grasped his shoulder with a wiry hand. Of a sudden, he was serious and intense. And he uttered his words as a man speaks an order in a quick emergency. “Good for you,” he said. “Good for you, to have come away! And now--no weakening! No getting sentimental! Ah--I see it. Don’t start thinking about mother--about how mother’ll carry on. Every man for himself. Mothers keep you for themselves. Give you a penny-worth of love for the privilege of sucking your soul. Keep you, but don’t sustain you. Keep you, but don’t protect you. I know. Tears--that’s their weapon. A coward’s--as you’d know in any one save a mother. You must be sixteen. Am I right?” “Fifteen--” Quincy was awed into response. “Good! Now, heart of steel; thin lips curled slightly downward--that’s armor to hold you tight. I went back. I thought that was more heroic, harder, nobler. Well, perhaps it was. Also, it was damn-foolishness!” He stopped and released Quincy’s shoulder. And again, in a flash, his mood transformed.