to them. His present trouble was aggravated by the cross-complication of Eliza’s thrusts at his father, and the latent but constantly awakening antagonism of mother and daughter. In addition, he bore directly Eliza’s nagging and carping attack. All this he was prepared for—it was the weather of his mother’s nature (she was as fond of him as of any of them, he thought), and the hostility of Helen and Luke was something implacable, unconscious, fundamental, that grew out of the structure of their lives. He was of them, he was recognizably marked, but he was not with them, nor like them. He had been baffled for years by the passionate enigma of their dislike—their tenders of warmth and affection, when they came, were strange to him: he accepted them gratefully and with a surprise he did not wholly conceal. Otherwise, he had grown into a shell of sullenness and quiet: he spoke little in the house.
He was wearing ragged from the affair and its consequences. He felt that he was being unfairly dealt with, but as the hammering went on he drew his head bullishly down and held his tongue, counting the hours until his holiday should end. He turned silently to Ben—he should have turned nowhere. But the trusted brother, frayed and bitter on his own accord, scowled bitterly, and gave him the harsh weight of his tongue. This finally was unendurable. He felt betrayed—utterly turned against and set upon.
The outbreak came three nights before his departure as he stood, tense and stolid, in the parlor. For almost an hour, in a savage monotone, Ben had tried deliberately, it seemed, to goad him to an attack. He had listened without a word, smothering in pain and fury, and enraging by his silence the older brother who was finding a vent for his own alien frustration.
“—and don’t stand there scowling at me, you little thug. I’m telling you for your own good. I’m only trying to keep you from being a jailbird, you know.”
“The trouble with you,” said Luke, “is that you have no appreciation for what’s been done for you. Everything’s been done for you, and you haven’t sense enough to appreciate it. Your college education has ruined you.”
The boy turned slowly on Ben.
