In the novel A Separate Peace, what is the contrast between the two windows at leper's house?

In Chapter 9 of John Knowles's A Separate
Peace, Phineas receives a telegram from Leper telling Finny that he
has escaped and needs help.  Gene takes the telegram from Finny, "facing in advance
whatever the destruction was."  Knowing that no soldier "escapes" from the army, Gene
realizes that Leper must have escaped from something else.  So, he makes the journey to
Leper's house in Vermont, thinking perhaps that Leper has escaped from spies.  As the
Lepellier house is outside town, Gene must walk to it over the hills.  As he approaches,
Gene sees a house resting on the top of a slope with long and narrow windows "like New
England faces," Gene observes.  In one of these windows, there hangs a star that
signifies that a son of the house serves in the country, and behind the glass of
another, there stands Leper. 

The contrast of the two
windows creates a contradiction of meaning regarding the house.  For, the star indicates
that a son is serves in World War II which is waged in Europe or in the Phillipines,
not, certainly, in Vermont.  That Leper stands in another window clearly suggests, not
only a contradiction, but something very problematic.