It was perhaps all for nothing, useless, he thought, and worthless. It was Marianne that Papa cared for now. And he remembered how he had sometimes thought that Papa was so young that one could imagine him with a very young wife, a young girl like Addie's cousins, a girl like . . . Marianne.
So it was to happen . . . Papa and Mamma . . . would separate . . . and . . .
He felt the sadness of it all . . . and his heart was very heavy . . . and his lips became still more compressed because he did not want to cry. He wanted to stand firm against the cruelties of life; and, if Papa could do without him, if Mamma also thought it better so, if perhaps it was also better for Mamma and would make her happier, why, then it was all right and he could bear it with strength and fortitude. He was a child, a boy; but he felt vaguely that soon the world would open before him. He must forget everything therefore: everything about his parents, their ill-assorted lives, in which he had been the only comfort and consolation. No, it would all be different in future; and, if nothing else could be done, well then, it must be like that. When Papa, later on, was tired or in the blues or anything, he would not lay his head on Addie's knees, just like a little brother, and go to sleep: Marianne would comfort him instead.
Addie tried to suppress that feeling of jealousy, but it kept on shooting through him, like a painful,
