He shoved her aside and rushed upstairs--all of the scene, she, they of the sitting room, his father, like a wide burn upon his brain. As he reached his room, he heard her sob. And for her suffering, as he flung himself upon his bed, he hated her the more. PART TWO I The fall of his eighteenth birthday, Quincy went to college. He had completed his examinations in June; and he had passed them with a single deficiency. Although his college was out-of-town, these hours of trial had been set in the city--in a vast, cold gymnasium filled with little stubby tables and larded with apparatus that in their similarity to instruments of torture seemed appropriate enough. Here he sat, weighed down with the stupid sense of the authority about him. He had gazed at the printed slips with their silly, circumscribed demands upon his knowledge and been impressed with the irrelevance of higher education. In one instance, he had been impressed too well. He had failed. And for the purpose of passing off this failure, he had now to start from home two days before the beginning of the term. He took his leave in the sitting room. The family had just returned from the country. The room was still muffled in camphor draperies and grey-blue covers. There were no curtains. And the cleaning to which the sedulous Sarah had subjected it had robbed the room of the one glow of ease and warmth it might have kept--the dusty deposits of the summer. The room, then, was cold and harsh. The table shone out with its bare mahogany red. All else was under the protective cloths. Quincy came down, suit-case in hand. Upstairs, he had applied the last minute attentions, putting off the ultimate plunge with a zealous mania for details, much as a diver sticks his toe into the water. Thrice he had locked his suit-case and reopened it--to brush his hair again, to take out a letter of announcement for the Dean, to see if aught was missing. Long he looked at himself in the mirror, adjusting his fresh collar and his tie. Then he unfastened his silver watch from its leather chain and placed it before him on the bureau for constant consultation. Changing his mind, fearful lest he forget it, he replaced it in his pocket. This also, made him nervous. He wished to track the lapse of time. So once again, the watch was out before him. He wondered if his watch was right. It was really too early to leave for the train. But perhaps it was five minutes later than he thought. In a trice, he had convinced himself of this imagining,--was ready to act upon it. He flung on his coat, strapped his suit-case and made for the stairs. He descended, clumsily, conscious of his feet. He placed his suit-case in the hall and entered the room, where his mother and Adelaide were seated. “Well, is it time to go?” his mother spoke. “Or can you sit down a few minutes?” “I’m afraid not, Mama.” The boy shifted nervously from foot to foot. With this Adelaide got up.