That recognition that they had given him before was there now.
With a scramble and a lurch, desperate, heedless in its risks, he was in his mother's lap.

Then he crowed.

He crowed for all the world to hear because now, at last, he had become its citizen.
Was there not then, from some one, disregarded and forgotten at that moment, a sigh, lighter than the air itself, half-ironic, half-wistful regret?
.