he took pleasure in alluding to his son's
deformity, and was sorry that it was not more serious than his own. Mr.
Elliot had not one scrap of genius. He gathered the pictures and the
books and the flower-supports mechanically, not in any impulse of love.
He passed for a cultured man because he knew how to select, and he
passed for an unconventional man because he did not select quite like
other people. In reality he never did or said or thought one single
thing that had the slightest beauty or value. And in time Rickie
discovered this as well.

The boy grew up in great loneliness. He worshipped his mother, and she
was fond of him. But she was dignified and reticent, and pathos, like
tattle, was disgusting to her. She was afraid of intimacy, in case it
led to confidences and tears, and so all her life she held her son at a
little distance. Her kindness and unselfishness knew no limits, but if
he tried to be dramatic and thank her, she told him not to be a little
goose. And so the only person he came to know at all was himself.
He would play Halma against himself. He would conduct solitary
conversations, in which one part of him asked and another part answered.
It was an exciting game, and concluded with the formula: "Good-bye.
Thank you. I am glad to have met you. I hope before long we shall enjoy
another chat." And then perhaps he would sob for loneliness, for he
would see real people--real brothers, real friends--doing in warm life
the things he had pretended. "Shall I ever have a friend?" he demanded
at the age of twelve. "I don't see how. They walk too fast. And a
brother I shall never have."

("No loss," interrupted Widdrington.

"But I shall never have one, and so I quite want one, even now.")

When he was thirteen Mr. Elliot entered on his illness. The pretty rooms
in town would not do for an invalid, and so he came back to his home.
One of the first consequences was that Rickie was sent to a public
school. Mrs. Elliot did what she could, but she had no hold whatever
over her husband.

"He worries me," he declared. "He's a joke of which I have got tired."

"Would it be possible to send him to a private tutor's?"

"No," said Mr. Elliot, who had all the money. "Coddling."

"I agree that boys ought to rough it; but when a boy is lame and very
delicate, he roughs it sufficiently if he leaves home. Rickie can't play
games. He doesn't make friends. He isn't brilliant. Thinking it over, I
feel that as it's like