him before you all left I didn't think much of him. He seemed stupid. . . ."
"But he has faith," said Naomi, "and courage. He was for not raising a hand during the attack. He didn't want to kill, you see."
Sitting there, Philip felt them beating in upon him, mercilessly, relentlessly, and he was afraid, not of any one of them but because all of them together with the familiar sight of the room, the veneered mahogany furniture, the red wallpaper, even his father's photograph with the flowers beneath it, made him feel small and weak, and horribly lonely as he had sometimes felt as a little boy. He kept saying to himself, "I'm a man now. I won't give in—I won't. They can't make me."
And then Uncle Elmer launched the attack. His method aimed, as if by some uncanny knowledge, at Philip's weakest part. He began by treating him as a little boy, humoring him. He even smiled, an act so rare with Uncle Elmer that it always seemed laden with foreboding.
"And what's this I hear about your not going back, Philip—about your changing your mind?"
Philip only nodded his head without speaking.
"You mustn't think of it too much just now. Just forget about it and when you're rested and better everything will come out all right."
Then Philip spoke. "I'm not going back."
But Uncle Elmer pondered this, still humoring him as if he were delirious or mad.
"Of course, it's a matter of time and rest. I've always felt toward you as I would toward my own son—if I had one." (Here Aunt Mabelle bridled and
