It ended abruptly on the landing,
where she let go her hold with a cry of pain and Robert Stonehouse
rolled down the stairs, bumping his head and catching his arm cruelly
in the banisters. He was on his feet instantly. He heard Christine
coming and he ran on, down into the hall, where he caught up his little
boots, which she had been cleaning for him, and after a desperate
struggle with the latch, out into the road--sobbing and blood-stained,
heart-broken with shame and loneliness and despair.
2
His relationship with the Brothers Banditti across the hill was
peculiar. It was one of Dr. Stonehouse's many theories of life that
children should be independent, untrammelled alike by parental
restrictions and education, and except on the very frequent occasions
when this particular theory collided with his comfort and his
conviction that his son was being disgracefully neglected, Robert lived
the life of a lonely and illiterate guttersnipe. He did not know he
was lonely. He did not want to play with the other children in the
Terrace. But he did know that for some mysterious reason or other they
did not want to play with him. The trim nursemaids drew their starched
and shining darlings to one side when he passed, and he in turn scowled
at them with a fierce contempt to which, all unknown, was added two
drops of shame and bitterness. But even among the real guttersnipes of
the neighbourhood he was an outcast. He did not know how to play with
other children.
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