PETER 
 
 E. F. BENSON
 
 By E. F. BENSON 
 
 Peter 
 
 Lovers and Friends 
 
 Dodo Wonders — 
 
 "Queen Lucia" 
 
 Robin Linnet 
 
 Across the Stream 
 
 Up and Down 
 
 An Autumn Sowing 
 
 The Tortoise 
 
 David Blaize 
 
 David Blaize and the Blue Door 
 
 Michael 
 
 The Oakleyites 
 
 Arundel 
 
 Our Family Affairs 
 
 NEW YORK 
 GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
 
 PETER 
 
 BY 
 
 E. F. BENSON 
 
 AUTHOR OF "lovers AND FRIENDS," "dODO," "DODO WONDERS — ," 
 "queen LUCIA," "DAVID BLAIZE," ETC. 
 
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 NEW Xajr YORK 
 GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1922, 
 BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 
 
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 PETER. I 
 
 PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
 
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 PETER 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 The two who mattered were lounging on the cush- 
 ioned seat in the low window, of which the lower 
 panes had been pushed quite up in order to admit 
 the utmost possible influx of air. Little came in, 
 for the afternoon was sultry and windless, but every 
 now and then some current moved outside, some 
 trickle of comparative coolness from the grass and 
 trees of the Green Park, sufficient to stir the girl's 
 hair. On this high floor of the house of flats Lon- 
 don seemed far remote ; the isolation as of an aero- 
 plane, as of a ship at sea, protected them from exter- 
 nal intrusion. 
 
 Inside the room a party of four were assembled 
 round the tea-table; the hostess, mother of the girl 
 who sat in the window-seat, was wondering, without 
 impatience, as was becoming to so chinned and con- 
 tented a face, when Mrs. Alston would cease gesticu- 
 lating with her sandwich and eat it, instead of using 
 it as a conductor's baton to emphasize her points in 
 the discourse to which nobody was listening. The 
 -andwich had already a large semicircular bite out of 
 it, which penetrated well past its centre, and one 
 more application (if she would only make it) to that 
 capacious mouth would render it reasonable to sup- 
 pose that she had finished her tea. Mrs. Heaton 
 
 7
 
 8 PETER 
 
 herself had done so; so also had the stout grey- 
 haired man with the varnished face, and as for Mrs. 
 Underwood, she had long ago drunk her cup of hot 
 water and refused any further nourishment. But 
 while Mrs. Alston brandished her crescent of a sand- 
 wich, and continued talking as if somebody had con- 
 tradicted her, it was impossible to suggest a move 
 to the bridge-table that stood ready with new packs 
 and sharpened pencils a couple of yards away. To 
 the boy and girl in the window that quartette of 
 persons seemed of supreme unimportance both by 
 reason of their age and of the earnest futility of their 
 conversation. They talked eagerly about dull things 
 like politics and prices instead of being flippant, in 
 the modern style, about interesting things. Between 
 them and the younger generation there was the great 
 gulf digged by the unrelenting years, and set on fire 
 by the war. It was not flaring and exploding any 
 longer, but lay there in smouldering impassable 
 clinkers. 
 
 "High prices and high wages!" asserted Mrs. Al- 
 ston. "That's what is going to be the ruin of the 
 country. I've said over and over again, 'Why not 
 have an Act of Parliament to halve the price of 
 food and coal and that sort of thing, and another 
 Act, unless you could get it into the same one, to 
 reduce wages by a half also?' High prices, so every- 
 body allows, are the cause of high wages, and if 
 miners and that sort of person could buy their food 
 and their clothes at half the price they pay for them 
 now, there would not be the slightest difficulty in 
 reducing wages by a half, instead of multiplying 
 them by two every time that they threaten to strike. 
 Coal ! The root of all the trouble is the price of coal. 
 Reduce the price of coal by half, and instantly the
 
 PETER 9 
 
 price of transport and gas and electricity will go 
 down in a corresponding manner. Steel, too, and 
 linen ; it all depends on coal. The English sovereign 
 has to-day hardly more than half the buying power 
 it used to have. Hardly more than half! Restore 
 it, then, by reducing the price of everything else, in- 
 cluding wages. Including wages, mmd ! Otherwise 
 you will find yourselves in a fine mess!" 
 
 She put the rest of her sandwich into her mouth, 
 precisely as Mrs. Heaton had hoped and even fore- 
 seen. That made her mouth quite full, and for the 
 moment she was as dumb as the adder. Her hostess, 
 alert for this psychological occasion, gave a short, 
 judicial and fulsome summing-up, addressed to the 
 court in general. 
 
 "Well, dearest Mary," she said. "You have made 
 me understand it all now, a thing which I never did 
 before. So well put, was it not, Mr. Steel, and I'm 
 sure quite unanswerable. We must none of us at- 
 tempt to argue with dearest Mary, because she would 
 show us at once how stupid it was of us, and I, for 
 one, hate to be made a fool of. What a good ex- 
 planation! Quite brilliant! So now shall we get 
 to our bridge? I expect we're all going to the opera 
 to-night, and so we shall all want to dress early. 
 Dear me, it's after half-past five already ! Will no- 
 body have any more tea? Quite sure? Shall we 
 cut, then? Oh, there are Nellie and Peter in the 
 window. Wouldn't you like to cut in, too, dear?" 
 
 "No, mother, we shouldn't!" said Nellie. 
 
 The four others swooped to the bridge-table, with 
 the swift sure flight of homing pigeons, and hastily 
 cut their cards in order to give no time for repentance 
 on the part of the two others.
 
 10 PETER 
 
 "You and I, Mr. Steel," said Mrs. Heaton hastily. 
 "Quite sure you wouldn't like to play, Peter?" 
 
 "Quite," said Peter gently. "I should hate it, 
 thanks awfully." 
 
 "Well, if you're quite sure you won't — my deal I 
 think, partner. Shall it be pennies?" 
 
 Mr. Steel had a whimsical idea. 
 
 "Oughtn't we to halve our points, too, Mary?" 
 he said. "Like wages and coal?" 
 
 For a moment he was sorry he had been so rashly 
 humorous, for Mrs. Alston opened her mouth and 
 drew in her breath as if to speak on a public plat- 
 form to the largest imagmable audience. Then, 
 luckily, she found something so remarkable in her 
 hand that her fury for political elucidation was 
 quenched, and she devoted the muscles of her ath- 
 letic mind to considering what she would do if the 
 dealer was so rash as to go no trumps. Thereafter 
 the great deeps, dimly peopled with enemies ready 
 to pounce out of the subaqueous shadows and double 
 you, completely submerged the four of them. They 
 lit cigarettes as in a dream, and smoked them in 
 alternate hells and heavens. 
 
 Nellie looked at them once or twice, as an 
 anaesthetist might look at his patient to see whether 
 he was quite unconscious. The third glance was con- 
 vincing. 
 
 "It must be rather sweet to be middle-aged, 
 Peter," she said. "For the next two hours they'll 
 think about nothing but aces and trumps!" 
 
 "Sign of youth," said Peter. 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 "Because they're absorbed, like children. When 
 you were little, you could only think about one thing 
 at a time. It might be dentist or it might be hoops.
 
 PETER 11 
 
 But you and I can't think about anything for more 
 than five minutes together, or care about anything 
 for more than two. I suppose that when you're old 
 you recapture that sort of youthfulness." 
 
 He paused a moment. 
 
 "Go on : tell me about it all," he said. 
 
 Nellie did not reply at once, but began plaiting 
 her fingers together with the little finger on the top. 
 They were slender and small like her face, which 
 narrowed very rapidly from the ears downwards to a 
 pointed chin. Loose yellow hair, the colour of honey, 
 grew low over her forehead, and just below it, her 
 eyebrows, noticeably darker than her hair, made 
 high arches, giving her face an expression of irony 
 and surprise. Her forehead ran straight into the line 
 of her nose, and a short upper lip held her mouth in 
 imperfect control, for it hinted and wondered, and 
 was amused and contemptuous as its mood took it. 
 Now it half-smiled; now it was half serious, but 
 always it only hinted. 
 
 Peter apparently grew impatient of her silence 
 and her finger plaiting. 
 
 "You're making them look like bananas on a 
 street-barrow," he observed. 
 
 Nellie smoothed them out and gave an apprecia- 
 tive sigh. 
 
 "Oh, I bought two to-day," she said, "and ate 
 them in the street. I had to throw the skins away, 
 and then I was afraid that somebody would slip on 
 them and break his leg." 
 
 "So you picked them up again," suggested Peter. 
 
 "No, I didn't. I was only sorry for anybody who 
 might slip on them. I couldn't tell who it was go- 
 ing to be, and probably I shouldn't know him " 
 
 "Get on," he said.
 
 12 PETER 
 
 "Oh, about Philip. Well, there it was. He asked 
 me, you see, and — of course, he's rather old, but he's 
 tremendously attractive. And it's so safe and pleas- 
 ant, and I like being adored. After all, you and I 
 have talked it over often enough, and you knew just 
 as well as I did that I was going to accept him if he 
 wanted me." 
 
 Nellie suddenly felt that she was justifying what 
 she had done, and she did not mean to do that. 
 What she had done justified itself by its own in- 
 herent good sense. She changed her tone, and be- 
 gan counting on those slim fingers which just now 
 had introduced the extraneous subject of bananas. 
 
 'Teter, darling," she said. "If his grandfather 
 and an uncle and two children of the uncle die, 
 there is no doubt whatever that I shall be a peeress. 
 Won't that be fun? I feel that Uncle Robert and 
 the two children may easily die; they're the sort of 
 people who do die, but I doubt whether grandpapa 
 ever will. He's like the man with the white beard ; 
 do I mean the Ancient Mariner or the Ancient of 
 Days, who comes in Ezekiel?" 
 
 Peter Mainwaring rocked backwards in the win- 
 dow-seat with a sudden little explosion of laughter 
 that made all the bridge players look up as if their 
 heads were tied to the same tweaked string. Then 
 they submerged again. 
 
 "Not Ezekiel, anyhow," he said. "It's either Dan- 
 iel or Coleridge. I expect Coleridge." 
 
 "Yes, I mean Coleridge," she said. "The man 
 who stops the wedding guest; wedding guest was 
 what suggested it. Grandpapa always wanted Philip 
 to marry one of those cousins of his, who look like 
 tables with drawers in them. Long legs and bumps
 
 PETER 13 
 
 on their faces like the handles of the drawers. But 
 Philip wouldn't." 
 
 Peter ran his fingers along the line of his jaw as if 
 to be sure that he had shaved that morning. His 
 face for a man of twenty-two was ridiculously smooth 
 and hairless; it did not much matter whether he 
 had shaved or not. 
 
 "Naturally Philip wouldn't," he said, "but that's 
 got nothing to do with it. I don't want to know 
 why Philip didn't do something, but why you did. 
 I want to see your point, to do you justice. At pres- 
 ent I feel upset about it. You know quite well that 
 there's only one person you ought to marry." 
 
 "You?" asked Nellie, feeling that the question 
 was quite unnecessary. 
 
 "How clever of you to guess. You are clever 
 sometimes. Oh, I know we've talked it over enough 
 and seen how impossible it was, but when it comes 
 to your marrying someone else " 
 
 He lit a match and blew it out again. 
 
 "I know," he said. "You've got threepence a 
 year, and I've got twopence, so that in the good old 
 times we should have been able to buy one pound of 
 sugar every Christmas. Even then we should have 
 had nothing to eat with it. But what you haven't 
 sufficiently reckoned with is the fact that by the tune 
 I am a hundred and fifty years old, I shall get a pen- 
 sion of a hundred and fifty pounds from the Foreign 
 Office. But it's rather a long time to wait." 
 
 Nellie's eyes suddenly grew fixed and rapt. 
 
 "Oh, Peter, one moment!" she whispered. "Look 
 quickly at mamma's face. When that holy expres- 
 sion comes on it, it always means that she is intend- 
 ing to declare no trumps. So when I'm playing 
 against her, if it's my turn first I always declare one
 
 14 PETER 
 
 no trumps, and then she has to declare two. Wait 
 one second, Peter." 
 
 "No trumps," said Mrs. Heaton. 
 
 "There, I told you so!" said Nellie. "Yes; it is 
 rather long to wait, though I don't mean to say that 
 a hundred and fifty isn't a very pleasant age, dear. 
 The people in Genesis usually lived five hundred 
 years before they married, and begat sons and daugh- 
 ters. Anyhow, I shall be a widow before you're a 
 hundred and fifty, and then we shall be engaged 
 for three hundred and fifty years more, and then we 
 shall totter to the altar. I can't help talking drivel; 
 it's all too serious to take seriously. By the way, I 
 shall be richer than you eventually, for when 
 mamma dies I shall have two thousand a year, 
 but that won't be for two thousand years. We have 
 been bom too soon, Peter!" 
 
 Peter thought this not worth answering, but lift- 
 ing one of his knees, nursed it between his clasped 
 hands in silence. For her loose honey-coloured hair, 
 he had a crisp coal-blackness; he was tall for her 
 small slim stature, and his lips were set to definite 
 purposes, whereas hers were malleable to adapt 
 themselves to any emotion that might waywardly 
 blow on her. But both, in compensation for differ- 
 ences that were complementary, were triumphantly 
 alike in the complete soullessness of their magnifi- 
 cent youth ; without violation of any internal prin- 
 ciple they might, either of them, shoot up singing 
 with the lark, or pad and prowl with the ruthless 
 hunger of the tiger, or burrow with the mole. They 
 were Sat}^ and Hamadryad, some ancient and eter- 
 nally young embodiment of life, with whim to take 
 the place of conscience, and the irresponsible desire 
 of wild things to do duty for duty, and impulse to
 
 PETER 15 
 
 take the place of reason. Each, too, had developed 
 to an almost alarming degree that modem passion 
 for introspection, which is an end in itself, and like 
 a barren tree, yields no fruit in the ways of action or 
 renunciation. 
 
 Peter hugged his knee, and his eye grew hazy 
 and unfocused in meditation. 
 
 "Am I in love with you, do you think?" he asked 
 at length. 
 
 She laughed, quite disregarding the ears of the 
 bridge players. With Peter she was more herself 
 than with anyone else, or even than when alone. 
 
 "Oh, that's so like you," she said, "and so won- 
 derfully like me. Certainly you're not in love with' 
 me; you're not in love with anybody. You never 
 have been ; you never will be. You're fonder of me 
 than of anybody else, but that's a very different 
 thing." 
 
 "But how do you know I'm not in love with you?" 
 he asked. "I may be. You're not so unattractive. 
 Why shouldn't I be in love with you?" 
 
 "It's obvious you aren't. To begin with, you 
 don't feel the smallest jealousy of Philip. Besides, 
 though you so kindly say that I'm not so unattrac- 
 tive, you're the one person who really sees and notes 
 and mentions my imperfections. You wouldn't be 
 so critical of me if you were in love. And then, as 
 I said, you're not jealous of Philip." 
 
 "Good Lord, how could I be jealous of Philip?" 
 asked he. "I should have to want to be Philip 
 before I could be jealous of him, and I wouldn't be 
 Philip, even as things stand, for anything in the 
 world. Besides, you don't really think him so tre- 
 mendously attractive though you said so just now.
 
 16 PETER 
 
 You said that out of pure conventionality, not out 
 of conviction." 
 
 Some momentary perplexity, like a cloud on a 
 sunny windy day of spring bowled its shadow over 
 her face, and creased a soft perpendicular furrow 
 between her eyebrows. 
 
 "Peter, I think I want to become conventional," 
 she said, "and, if you wish, I will confess I was 
 practising for it when I said that. Oh, my dear, 
 we're all human, cast in a mould and put in a cage, 
 if you don't mind mixed metaphors. I'm going to 
 marry in the ordinary way, just because girls do 
 maiTy. Mamma married, so did my two grand- 
 mammas, and four great-grandmammas, and eight 
 great-great-grandmammas. In fact the further you 
 go back, the commoner marriage seems to have been. 
 Some awful human hereditary spell has been cast 
 on me." 
 
 Peter leaned forward, bright-eyed and faun-like. 
 
 "Break it!" he said. "Exorcise it! Spells don't 
 exist except for those who allow themselves to be 
 bound by them. The fact is we all weave our own 
 spells." 
 
 "But if I did refuse now, what then?" said she. 
 "If you don't obey conventions, you must have con- 
 viction to take their place, and I haven't got any. 
 Besides, if I don't marry I shall become an old maid, 
 unless I die young. Oh, we are all in a trap, we girls. 
 There are three awful alternatives to choose from, 
 and I dislike them all. I don't want to die young, 
 but if I live to be sixty I've got to be a grandmother 
 or a stringy old maid." 
 
 "You've got to be stringy, anyhow, at sixty," said 
 Peter. 
 
 "Not at all. Grandmothers are usually plump and
 
 PETER 17 
 
 comfortable: it is great aunts who are stringy. And 
 grandmothers remain young, I notice, whereas 
 elderly maiden ladies are only sprightly. I think 
 that it's because they cling to youth, and there's 
 nothing so ageing as to cling to anything. If you 
 want to retain anything, the best thing to do is to 
 drop it, and then it clings to you instead." 
 
 "That's rather ingenious," said Peter. "You may 
 go on about it for a minute." 
 
 "I was going to. It's perfectly true. All the peo- 
 ple who don't eat potatoes and sweets for fear of 
 getting fat become elephants, like mamma, who lives 
 on cracknel biscuits." 
 
 "Does she?" said Peter with deep interest. "How 
 wonderful of her." 
 
 "And all the people who take immense care of 
 themselves die at the age of forty, because they are 
 clinging to life, while those who break every ordi- 
 nance of health never die at all. And all the people 
 who lay themselves out to be brilliant are crashing 
 bores " 
 
 "Oh yes; proved," said Peter. "Let's go on to 
 something else. What's to happen to me when you 
 marry?" 
 
 "Nothing," said NeUie. "Why should it? You'll 
 go on being quite different from anybody else. 
 That's a career in itself. You aren't human, any- 
 how, however many great-grandmammas you may 
 have had. You're a wild thing, partly domesticated, 
 and when you're tired of us all, you go waving your 
 tail, and walking in the wet woods, and telling 
 nobody. Kipling, you know. Then you come back 
 rather sleepy and pleased, and allow us to put a blue 
 riband round your neck and tickle you under the 
 chin, and then you lie down on a cushion in front of
 
 18 PETER 
 
 the fire and purr. You don't purr at us, though, you 
 purr at yourself." 
 
 "Lor!" said Peter. "All that about me!" 
 
 Nellie pushed back her hair from her forehead, 
 and again plaited her fingers together. But this 
 time it was no deliberative, meditative process, but 
 a swift unconscious action. 
 
 "Yes, my dear, and there's more, too," she said. 
 "It's my swan-song, remember, for soon I am going 
 to become ordinary and conventional. I used to go 
 in the wet woods, too, you know, though we never 
 met each other there. But that has been the bond 
 between us, up till now we have been completely 
 independent. You're going to remain so, but not I. 
 Oh, Peter, there was a bond ! My dear, do you think 
 that I'm rather mad? I have serious doubts about 
 it myself." 
 
 "You always were rather mad," said he. "But go 
 on ; sing your swan-song." 
 
 "Then don't look as if you had taken a guinea 
 stall to hear me," she said. "Where had I got to? 
 Oh, yes. There was a bond; you know it yourself. 
 I've never been conscious of anybody else as I've 
 been conscious of you, nor have you ever been con- 
 scious of anyone else, as you've been conscious of 
 me. You've never been in the least in love with me, 
 nor have I with you. But we're the same kind of 
 person, and one doesn't often see the same kind of 
 person as oneself. Do you understand at all, or am 
 I simply reading out of my own book?" 
 
 He was silent a moment. 
 
 "Nellie, would you marry me if I were rich?" 
 he asked. 
 
 She made a gesture of impatience.
 
 PETER 19 
 
 "How on earth can I tell?" she said. "If you 
 were rich you would be quite a different person." 
 
 "No, I shouldn't " 
 
 "Oh, Peter, how stupid you are," she said. "And 
 how frightfully Victorian. That is so shallow. 
 Wealth is just as much part of a man or a woman 
 as brains or beauty. I don't say that a girl loves a 
 man for his brains, or his money, or his beauty, but 
 they all make a part of him. Wealth isn't an acci- 
 dent; it's an attribute. A poor man — I'm not talk- 
 ing about you and me, but only speaking in the ab- 
 stract — may be the same in character and charm as 
 a rich man, but what a gulf money makes between 
 them ! Let one man be poor, and another, his abso- 
 lute double in every way, be rich. They cease to 
 be doubles at once." 
 
 "But if you happened to love the costermon- 
 ger " began Peter. 
 
 "We can leave that out, because neither of us has 
 the slightest idea what love means." 
 
 "How about the bond you spoke of, then?" asked 
 he. "Hasn't that got anything to do with it?" 
 
 She considered this, and then laid her hand on his 
 arm. 
 
 "If I could choose now, this minute," she said, 
 "in what relationship we should stand to each other, 
 I would choose you as my brother. I haven't got 
 one; I should like to have one tremendously. And 
 yet, if I might have it all just the way I liked, I 
 think I should have you for my sister. I don't so 
 much want you to take care of me as I want to take 
 care of you. I want^ " 
 
 "Oh, come now," said Peter. 
 
 "It's true, though." 
 
 They had turned themselves about in the window-
 
 20 PETER 
 
 seat, so as to secure a greater privacy for this sur- 
 prising conversation from the party at the bridge- 
 table, and were leaning out of the window. A hun- 
 dred feet below Piccadilly roared and rattled, but 
 here the clatter of it w^as shorn of its sharp edges; it 
 was as if a stir of bees w^as swarming in some hive 
 down there. Seen like this from above, passengers 
 and vehicles alike were but crawling dots and blots; 
 everything, from the swiftest motor down to the 
 laziest loiterer, seemed to be drowsily and sound- 
 lessly sauntering. Often had Peter and Nellie leaned 
 out here looking on the traffic at the base of the 
 cliff, capturing for themselves a certain sense of isola- 
 tion. Even leaning out they could see nothing of 
 the precipitous cliff side of the house, for a couple 
 of feet below the window a stone cornice jutted out 
 some ten or twelve inches, and beyond the edge of 
 that the nearest visible objects below were the tops 
 of motor buses and the hats of the foot passengers 
 along the pavements. So still was the air that now, 
 when Peter flicked the ash off his cigarette it floated 
 down, still cohering, till it dwindled into invisibility. 
 He followed its fall with that detached intentness 
 which the surface mind gives to the ticking of a 
 clock or the oscillation of some flower-head, when 
 the whole psychic attention is focused elsewhere; 
 and it seemed that Nellie, as far as her surface mind 
 went, was trotting in harness with hun, for though 
 he had not hinted at what occupied his eyes, scarcely 
 knowing it himself, she was equally intent. 
 
 "I've lost sight of it, Peter," she said, breaking 
 the silence of a whole minute. 
 
 "Of what?" he asked. 
 
 "Of your cigarette end. You were watching it 
 too. Don't pretend that you weren't."
 
 PETER 21 
 
 'Well, if I was, what then?" he asked. 
 
 ''Nothing particular. I only felt you were watch- 
 ing it — just the bond." 
 
 He shifted himself again. Hitherto, as they 
 leaned out, his left shoulder touched hers. Now he 
 broke the contact. 
 
 "I think that's about the extent of the bond," he 
 said. "And your marrying Philip shows precisely 
 what sort of value you put on it. You've made it 
 clearer than you know, for you've defined your feel- 
 ings for me as being a desire to have a brother, or 
 rather a sister to take care of. I don't think that's 
 worth much. You defined it further by saying that 
 you couldn't tell whether you would marry me or 
 not if I were rich, because if I were I should be quite 
 a different person. If the quality of the bond would 
 be affected by that, it must be of remarkably poor 
 quality, and you're quite right to break it. When 
 you began talking about the bond I thought you 
 might be going to say something interesting, some- 
 thing I didn't know, something that, when you 
 stated it, I should recognize to be true. If that's 
 all your swan has got to sing it might as well have 
 been a goose." 
 
 Nellie's eyebrows elevated themselves up under 
 the loose yellow of her hair. 
 
 "Peter dear, are you quarrelling with me?" she 
 asked. 
 
 "Yes. No. No, I'm not quarrelling. But the 
 whole thing is such a bore. Where's my tail, and 
 where are the wet woods?" 
 
 She leaned her chin on her hands, that lay along 
 the window sill. 
 
 "I wish you were in love with me," she said. 
 
 "I'm extremely glad that I'm not," said he.
 
 22 PETER 
 
 "Otherwise I suppose I should want to be Philip, 
 or. as the madrigal says, some other 'favoured swain.' 
 But for you to talk about a bond between us is the 
 absolute limit. You want everything your own way, 
 and expect everybody else to immolate himself, 
 thankfully and ecstatically, on your beastly altar." 
 
 ''So do you," munnured Nellie. "We all do." 
 
 "I? How do you make that out?" demanded 
 Peter. 
 
 "Because you object to my marrying Philip when 
 you haven't the smallest desire to have me yourself. 
 If you knew that I should say 'Yes,' supposing you 
 asked me to jilt Philip and marry you, you wouldn't 
 ask me to. You want me to marry nobody and not 
 to marry me yourself. That's not good enough, you 
 know." 
 
 Peter's mouth lengthened itself into a smile, and 
 broadened into a laugh. 
 
 "It's a putrid business," he said. "Why shouldn't 
 I take a neat header from the window and have done 
 with it? I'm twenty-two, and already I think the 
 whole affair is rot. And if it doesn't amuse me now, 
 when is it going to amuse me? It was even more 
 amusing during the war, when one came back for a 
 fortnight's leave before going out to that hell again. 
 One did grab at pleasure then, because in all prob- 
 ability one would be blown to bits very soon after- 
 wards. But now that one is not going to be blown 
 to bits very soon afterwards the whole seasoning 
 has gone out of it. No, not quite. I want to be 
 admired. What is love? Good Lord, what is love? 
 As I haven't the slightest idea, the best thing I can 
 do is to grab at pleasures." 
 
 "Or the worst," suggested Nellie, rather senten- 
 tiously.
 
 PETER 23 
 
 "Now get off the high horse/' said Peter. "Or, 
 rather, don't attempt to get on it. You can't, any- 
 more than I. Let's be comfortable. Marry your 
 
 silly Philip, and I'll— I'll Shall I take to drink? 
 
 No, that wouldn't do, for people would say I was 
 tiying to drown my despair at your marriage. I 
 haven't got feelings of that sort, and I should hate 
 anybody to think that I had. I loathe being pitied, 
 anyhow, and to be pitied for something you don't 
 suffer from would be intolerable. And though you 
 will remain just the same to me after you're mar- 
 ried, and I shall certainly remain the same, our rela- 
 tions will be altered." 
 
 Nellie let her eyes flit over him, never quite alight- 
 ing. They skimmed over his crisp hair, over the 
 handsome, smooth, soulless profile, over his shoul- 
 ders, over the knee he was nursing, over the hiatus 
 where white skin showed between his rucked-up 
 trouser and a drooping sock. At this moment she, 
 with the knowledge of the definite step that she had 
 taken in life by engaging herself to Philip Beau- 
 mont, felt far older and more experienced than he. 
 She, anyhow, could look ahead and see a placid, 
 prosperous life in front of her, whereas Peter, a year 
 older than she, was still as experimental as a boy. 
 All the same, if he wanted anything, he had remark- 
 able assiduity in the pursuit of it until he caught it, 
 but nothing beyond the desire of the moment was 
 to him worth bothering about. Her own prudence, 
 her own commitment of herself she knew to be a 
 development of to-day and yesterday, and now it 
 seemed suddenly to have aged and consolidated her. 
 But she had no answer for that voice crying in the 
 wilderness "What is love?" Or was there some sort 
 of signpost by the wayside enveloped in mist?
 
 24 PETER 
 
 She passed over that point. 
 
 "If it really all seems to you so putrid," she said, 
 "I don't know why you don't, as you say, take a 
 header into the street. But you've no intention of 
 doing anything of the sort. You would firmly resist 
 any attempt of mine to tip you out. You like life 
 quite passably as it is, you know, and also you do 
 expect something more from it. In fact, I never 
 saw anyone so thoroughly unlikely to give up living 
 or to run any risk that could reasonably be avoided. 
 You say it's a putrid business but really you find it 
 a pleasant one." 
 
 Peter sighed. 
 
 "Oh, yes, it will have to do," he said. "Don't tip 
 me out, Nellie. But don't, on the other hand, think 
 that I cling so desperately to life." 
 
 "Not desperately, but instinctively. It would be 
 silly of anybody to throw up a hand that may con- 
 tain some glorious ace without looking very care- 
 fully through it. Everyone goes on playing and 
 clutching at the new deals until he is sure that there 
 isn't an ace in the pack for him. Indeed, it's when 
 you've found the ace that you don't value the rest of 
 the hand so much." 
 
 "I don't follow. Explain," said Peter. 
 
 "Well, this kind of thing. For instance, if you 
 found the ace, that is to say, if you fell tremendously 
 in love, you might not care about the rest of the 
 hand. If the adorable was in my bedroom, two 
 windows off, and if she was locked in there, and if 
 the house was on fire " 
 
 "Any more 'ifs'?" asked Peter. 
 
 "Not one. But supposing all these things, you 
 would instantly get out on to that cornice, at peril 
 of your life, and shuffle your way along it. You
 
 PETER 25 
 
 would have to be with her. You wouldn't give two 
 thoughts as to what might happen to you." 
 
 Peter thought this over. 
 
 "I should be a consummate ass, then," he re- 
 marked. "A fellow with a grain of sense would go 
 down the passage and bash the door in." 
 
 "But let's pretend that for some reason you 
 couldn't. If the only way of reaching the room was 
 along the cornice you would go." 
 
 Peter looked at the ledge. 
 
 "And if I got there in safety, what then?" he 
 asked. "I couldn't carry her back along the ledge." 
 
 "But that wouldn't prevent your going," said she. 
 "Whatever the risk to yourself was, and however 
 useless your going was, you would go." 
 
 Peter was silent a moment, frowning. 
 
 "I feel as if all this has happened before," he said. 
 "Do you know that feeling? Did we ever sit here 
 before and talk about just this?" 
 
 "Not that I remember. No, I'm sure we never 
 have. Isn't it odd, that feeling? Does it seem to 
 you like remembrance of a previous occasion, or a 
 presentiment of a future one?" 
 
 "Or a slightly faulty action of the two lobes of 
 the brain?" said Peter. "What were we talking 
 about? Aces?" 
 
 "Yes. That's what I mean about throwing the 
 rest of your hand away for the sake of an ace." 
 
 Peter looked at his watch. 
 
 "I must go," he said. "I've got to get home to 
 dress, and rush back to the Ritz to dine early before 
 the opera." 
 
 "Oh, not just yet," said she. "But I wish you 
 wouldn't live in South Kensington. Why do you?" 
 
 Peter had a direct glance, a direct answer for this.
 
 26 PETER 
 
 "Because it's cheaper living with my father and 
 mother than being on my own," he said. "Also " 
 
 "Well?" she asked. 
 
 "I was going to say because they like having me 
 witli them," said he. "But I don't think that's true, 
 so I didn't say it. I mean if I had plenty of money 
 I should take a flat of my own, quite regardless of 
 whether they liked to have me with them." 
 
 Nellie gave a little sigh, with a click of impatience 
 at the end of it. 
 
 "There's an odd kind of honesty about you," she 
 said. "You state that sort of thing quite baldly, 
 whereas I should conceal it. If I had been you I 
 should have said that I lived at home because my 
 mother liked having me with her. It wouldn't have 
 been true, but I should have said it. Very likely by 
 saying it often I should have got to believe it." 
 
 "Nobody else would have," remarked Peter. 
 
 "You're rather a brute, my dear," said she. "Go 
 away to South Kensington." 
 
 "I'm going. But about aces for one second more. 
 Have you found your ace, Nellie? Don't bother to 
 
 answer." 
 
 "That is spoken like a rather spiteful woman," 
 was Nellie's perfectly justifiable rejoinder. 
 
 "Maybe I'm your spiteful sister," said Peter. 
 
 He walked gracefully and gently over to the card- 
 table. 
 
 "Good-bye, Mrs. Heaton," he said. "Nellie and 
 I have had a lovely talk. I hope you've won every 
 rubber." 
 
 "And three aces, thirty," said Mrs. Heaton. 
 "Good-bye, dear Peter. I suppose you'll be at the 
 Opera to-night. Parsifal. My deal? So it is."
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 Peter descended from these heights into the hot 
 dusty well of the streets, and soon was on his way- 
 home to dress and return to the Ritz, where an early 
 dinner preceded the opera and any other diversions 
 that might present themselves. On this sweltering 
 June evening the top of a bus was a cooler progres- 
 sion than a taxi, beside advancing the sacred cause 
 of economy, which he had just confessed was more 
 real to him than that of filial piety, and at Hyde 
 Park Corner he could catch a conveyance that would 
 deposit him not fifty yards from his father's house. 
 Coohiess and economy were suflSciently strong of 
 themselves to make him board it with alacrity, and 
 the detachment of a front seat just suited the medi- 
 tative mood which his talk with Nellie had induced. 
 
 Peter knew himself and her pretty well, and with 
 the admirable contributions she had made to their 
 discussion there was little to puzzle out, but much to 
 appraise and estimate. The notion that the news of 
 her engagement had been a blow of any sharp or 
 stunning quality could be at once dismissed, for 
 never had he known so well, as when she, earlier in 
 the day, had communicated the news of her engage- 
 ment to him over the telephone (that was like her), 
 how whole-heartedly he was not in love with her, 
 and how unintelligibly alien to him, as she had 
 pointed out, was that emotion. During the last 
 year which had witnessed a verj'- decent flowering of 
 intimacy between him and her, there had never been, 
 
 27
 
 28 PETER 
 
 on either side, the least attempt at love-making; 
 their relations had been wholly free from sentiment, 
 and not once had either of them tripped or stuttered 
 over the foreign use of love-language. But in ways 
 wholly unsentimental they had certainly arrived at 
 some extremely close relation of intimacy; there had 
 emphatically been a bond between them, which to 
 his mind her engagement, if it did not actually 
 loosen it, would shift, so to speak, on to a new place ; 
 the harness must be worn elsewhere. If it was to 
 be maintained, he, at any rate, must accustom him- 
 self to its new adjustment. She had defined that 
 comradeship this afternoon in a way that was rather 
 surprising, for the ideal relation of him to her, ap- 
 parently, was that of a brother, or, with greater pre- 
 cision, that of a sister. That had not struck him 
 before, but even when first presented, it did not in 
 the least puzzle him. Indeed, it satisfactorily ac- 
 counted for that elimination of sex which had always 
 marked their intimacy. She had not sought the 
 male element in him, nor he in her the female. So 
 far he was in complete agreement with the casual 
 conclusion they had jointly arrived at, but at that 
 point Peter detected the presence of something that 
 seemed to show a lurking fallacy somewhere. For 
 he had no doubt that if he had been rich, he would 
 before now have proposed to her, and in spite of 
 her provision that, since riches were an attribute of 
 a man and not an external accident, they turned 
 him into a different person, and that thus she could 
 not tell whether she would have accepted him or not, 
 he did not, for himself, believe that she would have 
 hesitated in doing so. Finally, as material to, medi- 
 tate upon, came her firm statement that though 
 Peter did not want or intend to marry her, he
 
 PETER 29 
 
 objected to anybody else doing so. With the ex- 
 treme frankness with which he habitually judged 
 any criticism on himself, he instantly admitted that 
 there was a great deal to be said for Nellie's asser- 
 tion. When it was stated brutally like that, he 
 recognized the justice of her outline. She might 
 have made a caricature of him, but her sketch con- 
 tained salient features, the identity of which, as he 
 contemplated this scribble of her inspired pencil, he 
 could not disclaim. Without doubt she had caught 
 a likeness; more tersely she had "got him." Even 
 as he acknowledged that, he felt a resentment that 
 she had so unerringly comprehended him, and shown 
 him to himself. He enjoyed, rather than otherwise, 
 his own dissection of himself, without bias or malice, 
 but he felt less sure that when Nellie was the dis- 
 sector he welcomed so deft an exposure. 
 
 The retrospect had been sufficiently absorbing to 
 make him unaware that, somewhere in Knights- 
 bridge, the top of the bus had become a strenuous 
 goal for travellers. Every seat was occupied, and 
 beside him a young man had planted himself in the 
 vacant place and was talking to a girl who had 
 plumped herself into a seat two tiers behind his. 
 Peter instantly jumped up. 
 
 "Let me change places with your young lady," he 
 said, "and then you'll be together and talk more 
 conveniently." 
 
 The change was made with a tribute of simpering 
 gratitude on the part of the "young lady," and Peter 
 with laurels of popularity round his straw hat, took 
 the single place. He knew perfectly well that he had 
 disturbed himself from no motive of kindliness; he 
 did not in the least want to please either the man or 
 the girl. His motive had been only to appear pleas-
 
 30 PETER 
 
 ant, to obtain cheaply and fraudulently the certi- 
 ficate of being a "kind gentleman." For himself, he 
 did not care two straws if the pair of sundered lovers 
 bawled at each other from sundered seats. . . . 
 
 And then as he took his new place it struck him 
 that the quality which had prompted the transfer- 
 ence of himself from one seat on the top of a bus 
 to another, was precisely the same as had led him to 
 resent Nellie's dissection of him. In the one case his 
 vanity was gratified, in the other his vanity was 
 hurt. 
 
 "That's it," he said to himself, and mentally he 
 prinked, like a girl, in the glass that had so uner- 
 ringly shown him to himself. Yet it did not show 
 him an aspect of himself that was in any way sur- 
 prising, either for pleasure or distaste, for he knew 
 well how prolific a spring of native vanity was in 
 him. He would always take an infinity of trouble 
 in order to appear admirable, or, on the other hand, 
 to conceal what was not so admirable. He would 
 always inconvenience himself in order to appear 
 kind, exert himself to appear amusing, bore himself, 
 while preserving the brightness of an attentive and 
 interested eye, in order to confirm his reputation 
 for being sympathetic. But though vanity was the 
 root of such efforts, there was, at any rate, no trace 
 of it in his acknowledgment of it. He never deluded 
 himself into thinking that he suffered fools gladly, 
 because he liked them, or desired to secure for them 
 a pleasant half-hour in which they could tediously 
 inflict themselves on him; he suffered them with the 
 show of gladness in order to be thought kind and 
 agreeable in the abstract, and in the concrete to pick 
 up the gleanings of welcome and entertainment 
 which, for such as him, lie so thick on the fields of
 
 PETER 31 
 
 human intercourse, when the great machines have 
 gone by. He had no reason to complain of these 
 gleanings; there was no one among the youth of 
 London who was more consistently in request, or 
 who more merited his mild harvestings. In a rather 
 fatigued and casual generation, tired with the strain 
 of the last five years, and now suddenly brought to 
 book after the irresponsibility of wartime, when for 
 all young men each leave snatched from the scythe 
 of the French front might easily be their last, there 
 was a certain license given, Peter had always been a 
 shining exception to such slack social conduct of 
 life. He did not, as he had told Nellie, expect much 
 from it, but as long as you were "on tap," it was 
 undeniably foolish not to present yourself present- 
 ably. Your quality was certainly enhanced by a 
 little foam, a little effervescence. 'That nice Mr. 
 Peter, always so polite and pleasant," was his re- 
 ward ; and at this moment Nellie's divination of his 
 true attitude towards her engagement was his pun- 
 ishment. 
 
 The bus hummed and droned along the Brompton 
 Road ; there was still a solid stretch before it halted 
 just opposite the side street which was his goal, 
 and there was time to consider her further criticism 
 that he went off, waving his tail, into the wet woods 
 and saying nothing to anybody. What had she 
 meant exactly by that? He had, at any rate, his 
 own consciousness that she had hit on something 
 extremely real and vitally characteristic of him. 
 Surely she meant his aloofness from any intimate 
 surrender of himself, the self-sufficiency that neither 
 gave nor sought strong affection. He had acknow- 
 ledged the vanity as of a be-ribanded cat, and now 
 he added to that his desire for material comfort, a
 
 32 PETER 
 
 quiet, determined selfishness, and the reservation 
 to himself of solitary expeditions in the wet woods 
 with a waving tail. Probably she meant no more 
 than that, and though Peter quite acknowledged the 
 justice of these definitions, he again felt a certain 
 resentment against her clear-sightedness. She had a 
 touch of these defects and qualities herself; it was 
 that which made the bond between them. 
 
 Peter let himself into his father's house in the 
 grilling, dusty street nearly opposite the Oratory 
 v,'ith the anticipation of finding a speedy opportunity 
 for a domestic exhibition of vanity, for he felt sure 
 that something ludicrous or tiresome and uncom- 
 fortable would await him ; something he would cer- 
 tainly tolerate with bland serenity and agreeableness. 
 The house, the front of which had been baking in 
 the sun all the afternoon, was intolerably hot and 
 stuffy; the door at the head of the kitchen stairs 
 had, as generally happened, been left open, and the 
 nature of the dinner which would presently ascend 
 could be confidently predicted. Beyond, at the back 
 of the hall, the door into his father's studio was also 
 open, and a languid, odorous tide of oil-paint and 
 Virginia tobacco made a peculiarly deadly combina- 
 tion with kitchen-smells, and indicated that Mr, 
 Mainwaring had been occupied with his audacious 
 labours. Just now he was engaged on the perpetra- 
 tion of a series of cartoons (suitable or not for 
 mural decoration). The practical difficulty, if these 
 ever attained completion, would be the discovery of 
 the wall that should be large enough to hold them; 
 indeed, the great wall of China seemed the only 
 destination which, though remote, was sufficiently 
 spacious. The subject of them was the European 
 war from a psychic no less than from a sanguinary
 
 PETER 33 
 
 point of view, for the series (of which the sketches 
 were complete) started with a prodigious cartoon 
 which depicted Satan whispering odious counsels 
 into the ear of the Emperor William II, who wore a 
 smile of bland unperial ambition at the very attrac- 
 tive prospects presented by the Father of Lies. In 
 the background an army corps of the hosts of Hell 
 stretched from side to side of the picture like some 
 leering, malevolent flower-bed. Thereafter the 
 series was to traverse the annals of all kinds of 
 frightfulness : Zeppelins dropped bombs on Sunday- 
 schools, submarine crews, agape with laughter, shot 
 down the survivors from torpedoed liners. All these 
 existed only in sketches ; the first, however, as Peter 
 knew, was rapidly approaching completion on the 
 monstrous scale, and took up the whole end of the 
 studio. Neither Peter nor his mother had as yet 
 been permitted a glimpse of it; the full blast of its 
 withering force, so Mr. Mainwaring had planned, 
 was, on completion, to smite and stun them. 
 
 He had heard Peter's entrance into the house, for 
 an outburst of jubilant yodelling came to the young 
 man's ears as he put down his hat. 
 
 "Tirra lirra, tirra lirra," sang out the boisterous 
 voice. "Is that my Peter? Ha-de-ah-de-ho!" 
 
 Peter's eyebrows went up, his mouth slackened 
 to a long sigh, and his slim shoulders shrugged. But 
 his voice — all of him that at present could convey 
 his mood to his father — was brisk and cordial. 
 
 "Hallo, father," he said. "Do you want me?" 
 
 "Yes, my dear; come in a moment. I have some- 
 thing to show you." 
 
 Peter closed the door of the kitchen stairs and 
 went into the studio. His father was standing high 
 on a stepladder in front of his canvas, dashing the
 
 34 PETER 
 
 last opulent brushful of sombre colour on to the 
 thundercloud which, portending war, formed so 
 effective a background of Prussian blue to the Em- 
 peror's head. He painted with swoops and dashes; 
 such things as ''finish" were out of place in designs 
 for the wall of China. . . . Even as Peter entered 
 he skipped down from the steps of the ladder and laid 
 aside his palette and brushes. 
 
 "Finito, e ben finito !" he cried. "Congratulate me, 
 my Peter! I made the last stroke as you entered, 
 an added horror — is it not so? — in that cloud. Ha! 
 You have not seen it yet; sit down and drink it in 
 for five minutes. Does it make you hot and mis- 
 erable to look at it? Yes, you'll see more of that 
 cloud and of what it holds for distracted Europe 
 before I come to the end of my cartoons. Bombs 
 and torpedoes are in that cloud, my Peter; devas- 
 tation and destruction and damnation!" 
 
 He struck a splendid attitude in front of the tre- 
 mendous canvas, and with a sweep of his hand 
 caused his thick crop of long, grey hair to stand out 
 in billows round his head. Physically, as regards 
 height and fineness of feature, Peter certainly owed a 
 good deal to his father, for John Mainwaring's head 
 — with its waves of hair, its high colour, its rich 
 exuberance — was like some fine manuscript now en- 
 riched with gilt and florid illuminations, of which 
 Peter was, so to speak, the neat, delicate text un- 
 adorned by these flamboyant additions. Peter's 
 vanity, doubtless, came from the same paternal 
 strain, for never was there anyone more superbly 
 conscious of his own supreme merits than his father. 
 Highly ornamental, he knew that his mission was 
 not only to adorn the palace of art with his work, 
 but to enlighten the dimness of the world with his
 
 PETER 35 
 
 blazing presence. Like most men who are possessed 
 of extraordinary belief in themselves, of high colour 
 and exuberant spirits, he was liable to accesses of 
 profound gloom, when, with magnificent gestures, 
 he would strike his forehead and wail over his own 
 wasted life and the futility of human endeavour. 
 These attacks, which were very artistic and studied 
 performances, chiefly assailed him when the Royal 
 Academy had intimated that some stupendous 
 canvas of his awaited removal before varnishing day. 
 Then, with bewildering rapidity, his spirits would 
 mount to unheard-of altitudes again, and brush in 
 hand, he would exclaim that he asked no more of the 
 world than to allow him to pursue his art unrecog- 
 nized and unhonoured, like Millet or Corot. His 
 temperament, in fact, was that of some boisterous 
 spring day which, opening with bright sunshine, 
 turns to snow in the middle of the afternoon, and 
 draws to a close in lambent serenity; and whether 
 exalted, depressed, or normal, he was simply, though 
 slangily, the prince of "bounders." 
 
 He clapped his hand on Peter's shoulder. 
 
 "I need not point out to you the merits, or, indeed, 
 the defects of my composition," he said, "for my 
 Peter inherits something of his father's perceptions. 
 Look at it then once more and tell me if my picture 
 recalls to you the method, even, perhaps, the in- 
 spiration of any master not, like me, unknown to 
 fame. Who, my boy, if we allow ourselves for a 
 moment to believe in psychic possession, who, I ask 
 you — or, rather, to cast my sentence differently — 
 to whom do I owe the realization of terror, of 
 menace, of spiritual horror, which, ever so faintly, 
 smoulders in my canvas?" 
 
 He folded his arms, awaiting a reply, and Peter
 
 36 PETER 
 
 cudgelled his brains in order to make his answer as 
 agreeable as possible. The name of Blake occurred 
 to him, but he remembered that of late his father 
 had been apt to decry this artist for poverty of 
 design and failure to render emotional vastness. 
 Then, with great good luck, his eye fell on some 
 photographic reproductions from the ceiling of the 
 Sistine Chapel that decorated the wall of the studio, 
 and he felt he had guessed right. 
 
 "No one but Michael Angelo," he said. "That's 
 all the influence I can see, father." 
 
 Mr. Mainwaring rested his chin on his hand and 
 was gazing at his work with frowning, seer-like 
 scrutiny. It was difficult to realize that it was he 
 who had yodelled so jubilantly just now. 
 
 "Curious that you should have said that, Peter," 
 he said in a deep, dreamy voice. "For days past, 
 as I worked, it has seemed to me that M. A. — Master 
 of Art, as well as Michael Angelo, note you — that 
 M.A. was standing by me. At times, indeed, it 
 seemed that not I, but another, controlled my brush. 
 I do not say he approved, no, no ; that he was pleased 
 with me; but he was there, my boy. So, if there is 
 any merit in my work, I beseech you to attribute 
 it not to me but to him. It was as if I was in a 
 trance. . . ." 
 
 He closed his eyes for a moment and bowed his 
 head, and then as if at the last "Amen" of some 
 solemn service he came out of the dim cathedral into 
 sunlight. 
 
 "Your mother! " he said. "We must not forget her 
 in this great moment. Is she in? Tirra lirra! Ha- 
 de-ah-de-ho! My own!" 
 
 He pranced to the door, ringing the bell, as he 
 passed, and repeated his yodelling cries. From up-
 
 PETER 37 
 
 stairs a quiet, thin voice gave some flat echo of his 
 salutation; from below a hot parlourmaid opened 
 the door of the kitchen stairs and set free a fresh gale 
 of roastings. 
 
 "Three glasses," he said to the latter. 'Three 
 glasses, please, and the decanter of port. Maria mia! 
 Come down, my dear, and if you love me, keep shut 
 your lustrous eyes and take my hand, and I will 
 guide you to the place I reserve for you. So ! Eyes 
 shut and no cheating!" 
 
 Mrs. Mainwaring, small in stature, with a porce- 
 lain neatness about her as of a Dresden shepherdess, 
 sujffered herself to be led into the studio, preserving 
 the scrupulous honesty of closed eyelids. By her side 
 her rococo husband looked more than ever like some 
 preposterous dancing-master, and if it was correct 
 to attribute to him Peter's inherited vanity, it was 
 equally right to derive from the young man's mother 
 that finish and precision which characterized his 
 movements and his manners. Easily, too, though 
 with a shade more subtlety, a psychologist might 
 have conjectured where Peter's habit of walking in 
 the wet woods and telling nobody was derived from, 
 for it was not hard to guess that Mrs. Mainwaring's 
 tranquil self-possession, her smiling, serene indul- 
 gence of her husband's whim, was the result of a 
 quality firm and deeply rooted. Self-possession had, 
 perhaps, become a habit, for her conduct seemed 
 quite effortless; but in that tight, thin-lipped mouth, 
 gently smiling, there was something inscrutably in- 
 dependent. She was like that, secret and self-con- 
 tained, because she chose to be like that; her 
 serenity, her collectedness, were the mask she chose 
 to wear. Thus, probably, Peter's inheritance from 
 her was of more durable stuff than the vanity he 
 
 O/^-C *^.« /»i
 
 38 PETER 
 
 owed to his father, for how, if his mother had not 
 been somehow adamantine, could she have lived 
 for nearly a quarter of a century with this flam- 
 boyant partner, and yet have neither imbibed one 
 bubble of his effervescence nor lost any grain of her 
 own restraint? Indeed, she must have been like some 
 piece of quartz forever dashed along by the frothy 
 turbulence of his impetuous flood, and yet all the 
 effect that this buffeting and bruising had produced 
 on her had been but to polish and harden her. She 
 went precisely where the current dashed her, but 
 remained solid and small and unpenetrable. 
 
 Such was her relation to the bounding extrava- 
 gance of her husband; he swept her along, quite 
 unresisting, but never parting from her self-con- 
 tained integrity, and all his whirlings and waterfalls 
 had never stripped one atom off her nor rough- 
 ened her surface. To him she appeared transpar- 
 ently clear, though, as a matter of fact, not only 
 had he never seen into her, but, actually, he had 
 never seen her at all. He bounced her about, de- 
 manding now homage, when the exuberance of crea- 
 tion was his, now sympathy when the rejection of 
 a picture by the Royal Academy made him a despair- 
 ing pessimist; but she never varied with his feverish 
 temperature, and on the surface, at any rate, re- 
 mained of an unchangeable coolness. His trumpets 
 never intoxicated her small, pink ears; his despair 
 of himself and the world in general never came 
 within measurable distance of sullying her serenity, 
 any more than a thunderstorm disturbs the efful- 
 gence of a half-moon that neither waxes nor wanes. 
 She still continued calmly shining behind his clouds, 
 as was obvious when those clouds had discharged 
 their violence. John Mainwaring never dreamed
 
 PETER 39 
 
 of considering what, possibly, might lie below that 
 finished surface; it was enough for him that she 
 should always be ready to pay a scentless homage 
 to his achievements, or sit quietly like a fixed star 
 above the clouds of despair that occasionally dark- 
 ened his day. She was ''Maria mia, my beloved," 
 when he was pleased with himself, and, w^hen other- 
 wise, it was enough that she should repeat at inter- 
 vals: "Fancy their rejecting your picture. I am 
 sure there are hundreds in the exhibition not half 
 so good." 
 
 To Pet-er she was an enigma to which he never 
 now attempted or desired to find the key. She 
 seemed to him quite impervious to external influ- 
 ences behind that high wall of her reserve. Nothing, 
 so far as he knew, roused emotion in her; nothing 
 excited, nothing depressed her. Sometimes, when a 
 boy, he had gone to her with a trouble to confide, 
 and she would say: "How tiresome for you, dear," 
 and perhaps suggest some sensible course of action. 
 But neither his troubles nor her own (if she had 
 any) seemed to touch her emotions; while, on the 
 other hand, if there was something agreeable to com- 
 municate, if his father sold a picture, or Peter had 
 the announcement of promotion in the Foreign 
 Office, her sympathy and pleasure (if she felt any) 
 were just as iced as her condolence had been. The 
 event — to Peter's apprehension — that most had 
 power to move her was the fact that somebody had 
 left open the door at the top of the kitchen stairs. 
 When that was "quite shut," and when all house- 
 hold cares had their sunset after dinner, her habitual 
 mode of self-employment was to read a page or two 
 of a novel (returning it to the library next day) 
 and then to take some sort of railway-guide and
 
 40 PETER 
 
 scan the advertisements of hotels situated in agree- 
 able places on the south coast or among the Derby- 
 shire Highlands. Often and often had Peter re- 
 turned from dinner to find his mother thus em- 
 ployed. His father, when in the throes of creation, 
 went early to bed in order to be fresh and spry for 
 the light of the morning hours; but she slept badly, 
 and slept best if she went late to bed. There she 
 would be then when Peter latch -keyed 'himself into 
 the house on his return from dining out, or even, 
 occasionally, when he returned far later from a 
 dance, with the Bradshaw in her hand open among 
 the advertisements of hotels. She would put a paper 
 knife in the leaves to keep her place while she ex- 
 changed a few words with him ; then, when he went 
 to bed, she would resume her reading. Quite nat- 
 urally and warrantably he had always considered 
 this a "sad narcotic exercise" on her part, producing, 
 it was to be hoped, the drowsiness which she was 
 wooing. A more promising device for dulling the 
 activity of the brain, than reading about unknown 
 hotels at unvisited places, could hardly be desired, 
 and so reasonable a process provoked no curiosity on 
 his part. 
 
 But the door at the top of the kitchen stairs was 
 the most active of her interests, and took precedence 
 in her mind of any mood of her husband's. So when 
 to-day he led her with a prancing processional 
 movement to a throne of Spanish brocade at a suit- 
 able focusing distance from the finished cartoon, she, 
 with nostrils open though with shut eyes, gave the 
 door to the kitchen stairs the first claim on her atten- 
 tion. 
 
 "That door has been left open again," she said.
 
 PETER 41 
 
 "How careless Burrows is ! Please shut it, my dear. 
 I will keep my eyes tightly shut." 
 
 It struck Peter at this moment that both he and 
 his mother treated his father as if he had been a 
 child. They both played his games, treating them 
 with due seriousness, lest they should damp the 
 excited pleasure of the young. She was playing now 
 without collusion for, led in as she had been, with 
 closed eyes, she had no idea that Peter was present. 
 Ihen, faintly up the kitchen stairs came the jingle 
 of the 'glasses, and Burrows entered with the tray 
 that had been ordered, once more leaving that fatal 
 door agape. By some exercise of domestic intuition 
 Mrs. Mainwaring divined the sort of thing going on 
 round her, and with eyes still honourably closed 
 said: 
 
 "Be sure you close the door at the top of the stairs, 
 Burrows, when you go down again." 
 
 John Mainwaring, with a wealth of gesticulation 
 in order to enjoin silence on Peter, and with much 
 stealthiness of action, completed his festive prepara- 
 tions. Demanding from his wife steadiness of hand 
 and no questions, he thrust between her fingers a 
 brimming glass of port, took one himself, and filled 
 a third for Peter, In obedience to his pantomime 
 Peter stood on one side of his enthroned mother and 
 elevated his glass. 
 
 "Open your dear blue eyes, Maria mia!" ex- 
 claimed John Mainwaring, "and before you say a 
 single word drink to your husband's offering to 
 Art!" 
 
 Mrs. Mainwaring opened her eyes, and found as 
 she had already guessed from previous experience, 
 her brimming glass. 
 
 "I couldn't possibly drink all that, my dear," she
 
 42 PETER 
 
 said, "but I will sip it with pleasure before I say 
 anything. There ! Dear me, what a fine great pic- 
 ture! All success to it! So that's what has kept 
 you so busy all these days when I wasn't allowed to 
 come into your studio. Oh, there's Peter! Are you 
 going to dine at home, dear? I thought you said 
 you were going out." 
 
 "I've only come home to dress," said he. 
 
 "I see. Now let me look at your father's picture. 
 Why, there's the German Emperor! And what a 
 quantity of other people. Dear me! And who is 
 that whispering to the Emperor? What a horrid 
 expression he has!" 
 
 The artist drank his glass of port at a gulp, and at 
 another the rest of hers. 
 
 "Horrid? I should think it was. If you had said 
 devilish you would have been even more on the 
 bull's-eye. Now you shall be our Moliere's house- 
 maid. Speak, voice of the British public! Tell me 
 and Peter what you see before you." 
 
 Mrs. Mainwaring, with the aid of her glasses, and 
 the slight hint already given, was perfectly certain 
 that it must be Satan who was whispering to the 
 Emperor, and that all those dreadful faces behind 
 must have something to do with him. Then there 
 was that huge dark cloud in the background. 
 
 "The Emperor and Satan," she said with a sort 
 of placid excitement, like an adult trying to guess 
 a child's riddle. "Now wait a minute, my dear. 
 Yes, I'm sure that dreadful thunder-cloud behind is 
 the war, and if the Emperor wouldn't listen to 
 Satan it would go away. But he's looking pleased 
 and proud ; he is listening. I suspect that Satan is 
 telling him that he will win the war and be Emperor 
 of the earth, as you've always said he would have
 
 PETER 43 
 
 been if the Germans had won. Well, I do think it's 
 clever of you to have made me think of all that. 
 Such a few weeks, too, to paint such a big picture! 
 How well you kept your secret! You only told me 
 that you were very busy, and that I mustn't come 
 into your studio. I never thought that when you 
 allowed me in again I should see anything so large 
 and remarkable. Most striking! Isn't it, Peter?" 
 
 ''Splendid!" said Peter. Then he wondered if he 
 had put enough conviction into his voice to satisfy 
 the gourmandise of his father. 
 
 "Quite splendid ! " he said, rather louder. 
 
 Then it was Mrs. Mainwaring's turn in this game. 
 
 "And it's only the first of a series," said she. "You 
 must send it to some exhibition at once, John, in 
 order to make room for the rest. So large, is it not? 
 It fills up all the end of the studio. Such an im- 
 portant picture. Dear me, how wicked the Emperor 
 looks! And what will the next picture be?" 
 
 "War. Picture of war. Allegorical. Shells burst- 
 ing into shapes of devilish malignity." 
 
 He leaned on the back of the throne, regarding 
 the picture intently. 
 
 "It will kill me, painting the rest of them," he 
 said with a fell intensity. "I've got to go through 
 the hell of it all myself before I can paint them." 
 
 The calm of Mrs. Mainwaring's voice was un- 
 touched by this gloomy prospect. 
 
 "No, dear, it won't kill you," she said consolingly. 
 "That's your artistic temperament. You will have 
 a good holiday afterwards. You must be sure to do 
 that. I see ; the other pictures will all come out of 
 that dreadful thundercloud. Such a poetical idea! 
 And I hope you'll have a picture of Peace for the 
 last one. Everything quite serene again, and the
 
 44. PETER 
 
 thundercloud vanished, and no Emperor at all, 
 unless you paint a very little figure of him in the 
 background to show how small he has become. Just 
 him in the background, somewhere in Holland." 
 
 John Mainwaring left his domestic position, lean- 
 ing on the throne, and strode up and down the studio. 
 
 "Ah, that intolerable happy ending!" he said. 
 "That's the convention that spoils all art. Art's a 
 stern, bitter business; you mustn't expect to find a 
 bit of sugar at the bottom of your cup. Art, as the 
 Greeks said, is meant to move pity and terror." 
 
 Mrs. Mainwaring stepped from her throne. 
 
 "Well, I shall think of a peaceful picture for my- 
 self, then," she said, "and when I have looked at 
 all yours I shall imagine my own. After all, the war 
 is over, and it's had a happy ending for us, since 
 the Germans have been beaten and Peter has come 
 back from it all safe and sound. That's my end- 
 ing." 
 
 He projected his fine grey hair again with a dex- 
 terous sweep of the hand. 
 
 "Well, well," he said, as if he was an adult play- 
 ing with a child, whereas certainly the relation was 
 the other way about. "I will do my best for you, 
 Maria. But I make no promise, mind. Remember 
 that." 
 
 As Peter started off again for the various enter- 
 tainments of the evening he tried to imagine him- 
 self in serious sympathy with either of his parents, 
 and ruinously failed. Beginning with his father, he 
 surveyed with the critical clear-sightedness of his 
 terribly sensible nature those hysterical daubings 
 of paint, those mysteries as to what his father was 
 engaged on, those prancing port wine ceremonies 
 when his labour was finished, that crystal confidence,
 
 PETER 45 
 
 never clouded, in the worth of his fatuous achieve- 
 ments. Long ago it had soaked into his soul that 
 his father was a magnificent buffoon, who, decking 
 himself in the habiliments of Hamlet, had no idea 
 that instead of being engaged in heroic drama, he 
 was a figure in a farce so outrageous that you could 
 not really laugh at him ; you could only marvel. Had 
 his pictures, every one of them, been masterpieces, 
 his own enthusiasm over them would have verged 
 on the grotesque. As it was they were preposterous 
 and childish performances, inspiring the observer 
 with pity and terror for the perpetrator rather than, 
 in the sense of Aristotle, whom his father so often 
 quoted, for the works themselves. How was it pos- 
 sible to feel in sympathy for one whose impenetrable 
 egoism burned radiantly unconsumed like that? 
 Yet, while he rejected that possibility, Peter found 
 himself somehow envying the temperament that 
 transmuted life for its owner into an endless orgy 
 and carouse. Even the deepest despairs into which 
 reaction plunged his father were psychical feasts to 
 him, served up with the same sauce of transcen- 
 dental egoism as were his raptures. That was like 
 some pungent essential oil of so ammoniacal a 
 flavour that it pervaded its whole accessible atmos- 
 phere. No neutral quality on the part of others, no 
 individual indifference was permitted to exist, or, if 
 it existed, it was either wholly unnoticed or, if 
 noticed, sublimely pitied. Peter's father, so it struck 
 the young man, galloped through life ''like a ramp- 
 ing and a roaring lion," the king of the beasts. 
 
 It was no manner of good to attempt to sympa- 
 thize with so predatory an animal, and from the 
 thought of his father Peter switched off to the 
 thought of his mother, who was the habitual prey
 
 46 PETER 
 
 There he was confronted with the mild enigma, of 
 Vvhich he had not the faintest comprehension, and 
 for the hundredth time, guessing out of a dubious, 
 incurious twilight, he wondered if there was, could 
 be, anything to comprehend. He tried to sum up 
 his knowledge of her. She ordered dinner, she wore 
 day and night some family inheritance of her own of 
 splendid pearls, she read advertisements in railway 
 guides of hotels on Cornish Rivieras and Derbyshire 
 Switzerlands. That she should order dinner and 
 wear her own pearls was an accidental happening, 
 because she was mistress of a house and had some 
 pearls, but beyond that she receded, as far as Peter 
 was concerne<:l, into a dreamland without logic. 
 Indeed, as he devoted his mind to her now, the most 
 illogical thing about her was that for twenty-three 
 years she had contrived to live with his father, and 
 had preserved a certain personality of her own. It 
 seemed frankly impossible that anyone who had 
 lived so long with that maniacal egoist should not 
 have been in any way affected by him. But there 
 she was. His father had neither crushed her nor 
 vitalized her, and whatever her real personality 
 might be, Peter felt sure that the ramping and the 
 roaring lion had not invaded an atom of it. If his 
 father sustained himself on the flamboyance of his 
 own existence, she, none the less, was self-sufficient, 
 demanding neither sympathy nor comprehension 
 from others. The chasm that yawned between him- 
 self and his father was a mere rabbit-scrape com- 
 pared to the abyss on the other side of which there 
 sat his mother, delicate and immovable, covered 
 with hoar frost and decked with her pearls, and 
 reading her railway guide. 
 
 Peter owed that deep-seated vanity of his to his
 
 PETER 47 
 
 father; to his mother he owed that aloofness which 
 was no less characteristic of him. But to himself he 
 seemed to have nothing to do with either of them; 
 they both appeared to him to be distant and ancient 
 phenomena, and he waved a mild salutation to them 
 as acknowledgment of the debt of his own existence. 
 Between them they had projected him, but his own 
 individuality swamped that as completely as his 
 father's egoism drowned all other flavours. Was it 
 always like that nowadays? Were all the last gen- 
 eration so far sundered from the adolescent present 
 as he from his father and mother? . . . Was there 
 a new plan of life, a new outlook, a new everything?
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 Peter's dinner at the Ritz was no dinner-party, 
 and there were but three young men, of whom he 
 was one, and their hostess who assembled in the 
 Yawning-place. People always yawned there; they 
 were either waiting for somebody to come, or they 
 were waiting for somebody to go away. . . . 
 
 His hostess to-night was the perennial Mrs. Trent- 
 ham, with whom a party of herself and three young 
 men was a favourite form of entertainment. She 
 always professed a coquettish contrition at not 
 having been able to get some girls to meet her young 
 men — which, indeed, she had been quite wonderfully 
 unable to do, since it never occurred to her to take 
 the preliminary step of asking them, and no nice 
 girl would come to dine with Mrs. Trentham with- 
 out being asked. So the girls, not being asked, 
 stayed away, and Mrs. Trentham apologized. 
 
 She was considerably older than the rest of her 
 youthful assemblage; but she looked almost as 
 young as any of them, and might charitably have 
 been supposed to be a sister, or a wife, or something. 
 She had only one real passion in her excited life, and 
 that was to dine as publicly as possible with several 
 young men, sending her husband, to his great con- 
 tentment, to amuse himself comfortably at his club. 
 There he talked politics and played Bridge, and the 
 very number of these public entertainments on the 
 part of his wife, and the diversity of the youths 
 who partook of them were guarantee against any 
 
 48
 
 PETER 49 
 
 breath of scandal sullying herself or anybody else. 
 With perfect justice, nobody believed anything 
 against her; yet this delightful immunity from 
 gossip rather annoyed her. But, in order to give 
 colour to compromise, she would have been obliged 
 to descend to duets in quiet corners, which would 
 have been no fun at all. The loss of publicity; the 
 loss, too, of the pleasing phenomenon that batch 
 after batch of young men, in groups of two or three, 
 so constantly accompanied her to one of the most 
 strategic tables at the Ritz, would not have been 
 compensated for by the added chance of scandalous 
 talkings. After all, London was not so violently 
 likely to care what she did, especially since she did 
 not care either, and it was far more agreeable to 
 continue doing what she liked rather than gain an 
 entirely spurious loss of reputation by less enjoyable 
 methods. She had a pleasant, prurient mind, and 
 her morals were beyond reproach. She called atten- 
 tion to her age, when she was with the young, in a 
 somewhat excessive manner, and often alluded to 
 her beautiful hair, which had been grey before she 
 was thirty. "Such an old woman as me," was an 
 ungrammatical phrase which she often affected, and 
 this was a preventive measure against anybody else 
 thinking of such a thing. Her favourite subject of 
 conversation was love. 
 
 Mrs, Trentham was not really quite so silly as 
 she sounded, though her immense sprightliness often 
 seemed to plunge her into the nethermost depths of 
 fatuousness. During the war she had taken to 
 dressing in the uniform of a nurse, which she dis- 
 covered suited her, though, for fear of witnessing 
 distressing sights, she kept well away from hospitals; 
 since then, having realized the decorative value of
 
 50 PETER 
 
 black and white, she had adopted a garb which 
 seemed to indicate that she was a widow, though not 
 quite recently bereaved. An occasional bright note 
 of colour in her hair or round her charming waist 
 seemed to have forgotten about her widowhood and 
 was extremely becoming. ... So garbed, so 
 minded, she awaited Peter, who was the last of her 
 conspicuous party of young men. He was certainly 
 late for her appointed hour, but she did not dislike 
 that as the Yawning-place was full, and, instead of 
 scolding him, she had her usual apologetic greetings 
 volubly ready. 
 
 "My dear, you will be furious with me, I know," 
 she said, "but I simply couldn't get hold of any girls, 
 so you and Charlie and Tommy will just have to put 
 up with an old woman until we go to the opera, and 
 then you will breathe loud sighs of relief, and I shall 
 see you no more. Why are you so late, Peter? 
 Whom have you been flirting with?" 
 
 "My father and my mother," said Peter. "He has 
 just finished the largest picture in the world." 
 
 "How sweet of him ! Ah, they have brought some 
 cocktails at last." 
 
 She waited till the servant was well out of hear- 
 ing. 
 
 "But how stupid the waiter is," she said. "I am 
 sure I told him to bring three not four. Shall I taste 
 it? Shall I like it, do you think?" 
 
 It seemed not too optimistic to hope that she 
 would, for, otherwise, she would long ago have ceased 
 not only tasting the fourth cocktail which she was 
 sure she had not ordered, but consuming it so com- 
 pletely that the strip of lemon-peel overbalanced 
 against the tip of her pretty nose. 
 
 "My dear, how strong!" she exclaimed. "I feel
 
 PETER 51 
 
 perfectly tipsy, and one of you must give me your 
 arm, as if you were a nephew or something, if I 
 stagger or reel. Let us go in to dinner at once. I 
 promised Ella we would get to Mrs. Wardour's box 
 by the beginning of the opera." 
 
 ''Who is Mrs. Wardour?" asked Charlie Harman. 
 
 "Oh, quite new," said Mrs. Trentham. "Hardly 
 anyone has seen her yet. Rich, fabulously rich. Her 
 husband was one of the hugest profiteers — not eggs 
 at fourpence, but steamers at a quarter of a million. 
 He bought up everything that floats and sold it to 
 the Government, and most of it got sunk. He died 
 a couple of years ago. Too sad." 
 
 "More about her, please," said Peter. 
 
 "I haven't seen her yet, my dear, but Ella Thirl- 
 mere is being her godmother — sponsor, you know — 
 and she asked me to take people to her box and her 
 dinners and dances. Her name's Lucy: it would be. 
 I shall begin by calling her Lucy almost immedi- 
 ately. There's no time nowadays to get to know 
 people. You have to pretend to know them inti- 
 mately almost the moment you set eyes on them." 
 
 "And pretend not to know them afterwards, if 
 necessary," said Peter. 
 
 May Trentham gave a hasty glance round the 
 room and, becoming aware that quite a suflacient 
 number of people were looking at her and her party, 
 slapped the back of Peter's hand with the tips of her 
 fingers, and gave a scream of laughter to show what 
 a tremendously amusing time she was having. 
 
 "You naughty boy!" she said. "Is he not cynical 
 about Lucy? I shan't talk to you any more. 
 Tommy, my dear, tell me what you've been doing. 
 You look flushed. I believe you're in love." 
 
 "No. I've been playing squash," said Tommy.
 
 52 PETER 
 
 "What is squash? I believe it's one of your 
 horrid new words and means flirting. Who is she?" 
 
 "She is Charlie. At least, I was playing squash 
 with Charlie," said Tommy, with laborious pre- 
 cision. "He didn't like it." 
 
 Charlie fingered two little tails of blond hair that 
 grew directly below his nostrils and formed his 
 moustache. Otherwise his face was completely 
 feminine — plain and pink and plump. He gesticu- 
 lated a good deal with his hands, flapping and dab- 
 bing with them. 
 
 "Odious game," he said, showing a great many 
 teeth betwen his red lips. "You go on hitting a 
 ball against a putrid wall until you're too tired to 
 hit it any more, and then Tommy says 'One love.' 
 When you've done that fifteen times, he says 'Game,' 
 and then you begin again. I hoped I should never 
 hear of it again." 
 
 "You shan't, my dear; but don't be such a cross- 
 patch. I know you're annoyed with me for not get- 
 ting you some pretty girl to talk to. You must talk 
 to Peter. He's in disgrace with me. Oh, Peter, is it 
 true about Nellie Heaton's engagement?" 
 
 "Perfectly," said Peter. 
 
 "Then why aren't you broken-hearted? I don't 
 believe any of you young men have got hearts now- 
 adays." 
 
 "That accounts for their not being broken," said 
 Peter. 
 
 It was time to laugh loudly again in order to 
 remind the rest of the diners what a brilliant time 
 she was having, and May Trentham did this. 
 
 "There he goes again!" she said. "Is he not shock- 
 ing? My dear, have you had a dreadful scene with 
 her?"
 
 PETER 53 
 
 "No. I only had tea with her." 
 
 "Oh, don't pretend you weren't desperately in love 
 with her. But never mind. I will find some other 
 girl for you, who will adore you so violently that you 
 will lose your heart to her, though you say you 
 haven't got one. She shall be rich and lovely, and 
 we shall all be frantically jealous of her. And you 
 shall both call me Aunt May, because I have brought 
 you together." 
 
 "Thank you. Aunt May," said Peter. "Go on 
 about her, please." 
 
 "No, I've talked to you long enough. Tommy is 
 feeling left out. When the opera is over, by the way, 
 I want you all to come on to Ella Thirlmere's dance. 
 I promised to bring you all. Mrs. Wardour is sure 
 to be coming, and she will certainly have plenty of 
 motor-cars to take us. Oh, there is that marvellous 
 Spanish boxer, is it not, dining alone with Ella. How 
 gentle and kind he looks! Darling Ella! I wonder 
 if she will have six rounds with him in the middle 
 of her dance. I would certainly back her: look at 
 her chest. But how daring of her to dine with him 
 here! They say he man'ies again after each of his 
 fights and settles all the money he has won on his 
 new wife. But, after all, I suppose it's just as daring 
 of me to dine with three such attractive young men 
 as for her to dine with just one Solomon like that!" 
 
 Tommy puzzled over this for a moment. He was 
 very good-looking, but there was no other reason for 
 him. 
 
 "Solomon?" he asked. 
 
 "Yee, my dear; think of his wives. I was talking 
 to Anthony Braille to-day, who makes all those won- 
 derful tables about population, and what encourages 
 and hinders it. He said the only chance for England
 
 54 PETER 
 
 was to close all the music-hall bars and introduce 
 polygamy. Every Englishman, after this dreadful 
 ^-ar — you know I was a nurse during the war — must 
 have fifty children a year for two years — or did he 
 say two children a year for fifty years? — in order to 
 bring up the population again to its proper level. It 
 was all most interesting — if he only didn't stutter so 
 much!" 
 
 "He seems to have stuttered out the main facts," 
 said Peter. 
 
 ''Oh, I couldn't tell a young man half the things 
 he said to me. We ought all to be Patagonians and 
 polygamists. The birth-rate among Patagonians is 
 colossal. They behead all women of the age of 
 thirty-five who aren't married, and all bachelors at 
 the age of forty. It has something to do with 
 eugenics." 
 
 The intoxication of a restaurant now crowded with 
 people had gained complete ascendency over Peter's 
 hostess. She never felt quiet and contented unless 
 she was surrounded by a host of friends, acquaint- 
 ances, and people she knew by sight, and had to 
 shout at the top of her voice in order to be heard 
 above the roar of other conversations and the blare 
 of a band. It was equally necessary for the estab- 
 lishment of this tranquil frame of mind that several 
 young men, and, if possible, no women, should be 
 with her, and that she should constantly be con- 
 vulsed by shrieks of laughter, and should have both 
 her elbows on the table. A finer nuance in success 
 was that she must appear wholly absorbed in the 
 brilliance of her own table, and quite unconscious 
 of the hubbub round her, though presently, when 
 she got up, she would seem to awake to the fact that 
 she was in a crowded restaurant, and would blow
 
 PETER 55 
 
 kisses all over the room, and have dozens of little 
 smiles and words for all those whose position be- 
 tween her and the door she had unerringly noted. 
 Just a sentence or two for each, reminding her "my 
 dears" of a meeting to-morrow, or a meeting yester- 
 day with a phrase of flattery and a bit of whispered 
 scandal and the conclusion : "I must fly ; those boys 
 will be so cross with me if I keep them waiting. 
 Meet you at dearest Ella's? Yes? Lovely!" . . . 
 All this was faithfully performed on her part, and 
 her face, with its pretty little features all bunched 
 together in the middle of it, like the markings in a 
 pansy, had expanded and contracted again sufficient 
 times before she reached the door of the restaurant 
 to enable a weary conclave to express itself as it 
 waited for her. 
 
 "Parsifal, too," said Charlie. 'Thank God we've 
 missed the first act. Aged stunt — flower maidens 
 and grails. Can't we get away, Peter? Come home 
 with me. Say we're busy at the F.O.. German com- 
 plications. Bolshevists on the Rhine." 
 
 Tommy stood first on one leg scratching a slim 
 calf with the other instep, and then on the other leg 
 scratching in a corresponding manner. 
 
 "You simply can't," he said. "How am I to deal 
 with her and Lucy? And Parsifal?" 
 
 "Polygamy and Patagonians," said Peter, with a 
 vague remembrance of the preposterous conversa- 
 tion that had garlanded their dinner. "Flirt, Tommy. 
 Can you flirt? Hold hands. Sigh. Beam. Can't 
 you manage it?" 
 
 "No," said Tommy. 
 
 "Then Tommy and I will go away," said Charlie. 
 "After all, she doesn't want us, except as a stage
 
 56 PETER 
 
 crowd. She wants you most, Peter. I say, I like 
 your studs. Who?" 
 
 "Nobody. I liked them, too, so I got them. But 
 we've all got to go on. After all, we've had dinner." 
 
 "All the more reason for not going on," said 
 Charlie. 
 
 "That's no good. It doesn't pay. Besides, she's 
 awfully decent " 
 
 "Don't be priggish, Peter. I say, is Nellie really 
 going to marry Philip Beaumont? Do you mind?" 
 
 This atrocious conversation was interrupted by 
 the sprightly tripping advent of their hostess, who 
 put her fingers in her ears, which she knew were 
 "shell-like," as she passed through the direct blast 
 of the band, and consoled them for her want of 
 appreciation of their professional functions by dis- 
 tributing more of her little smiles. 
 
 "Now I know you are all going to scold me," she 
 said, "because I've kept you waiting. But there 
 were so many dears who insisted on my having a 
 word with them. They nearly tore my frock off. 
 Let's all cram into one taxi, and I will sit bodkin. 
 And after Ella's dance we'll all go on to Margie Clif- 
 ford's. She specially told me to bring all of you, 
 and scold you well first for not having talked to her 
 on your way out. I don't know what everybody will 
 think when I appear at the Ritz and the Opera, and 
 two dances with the same young men. I shall have 
 to tell my darling Bob that the Morning Post hasn't 
 come, or he'll storm at me. What a lovely white 
 lie." 
 
 There flashed through Peter's consciousness at 
 that moment an insane wonder as to what would 
 happen if he said calmly and clearly and genuinely, 
 "My good woman, who cares? As for the compro-
 
 PETER 57 
 
 mising young men who accompany you, they are 
 all dying to get away, and only the debt of the excel- 
 lent dinner you gave us, of which I reminded them, 
 prevents us from doing so." There was the truth 
 of the matter, and it was all rather mean and miser- 
 able. Her guests were spending the evening with 
 her and ministering to her hopeless delight in daring 
 situations simply because she had, on her side, 
 administered the nosebag. They consented, with a 
 grudging sense of honourable engagement, to plough 
 their way in her wake merely because she had fed 
 them. If she had asked them severally or collec- 
 tively to drop in after dinner, in the way of a friend, 
 for conversation and soda water, none of them would 
 have dreamed of gratifying her. And now, when 
 they had fed deliciously at her expense, they would 
 all have preferred to go back to Charlie's room in 
 Junger Street or to Tommy's flat (Peter's house 
 was handicapped by the presence of parents), 
 rather than trail along to Parsifal, and to a dance, 
 and yet another dance. The dances, perhaps, 
 might be amusing, for there would be girls, and 
 some sitting about on stairs, and some sliding 
 about on slippery floors, and an irresponsible 
 atmosphere, and certainly some more champagne. 
 You had to get through the night somehow, 
 and nowadays you could smoke while you were 
 dancing, and you needn't dance much. The 
 nuisance — rather a serious one — was that Mrs. 
 Trentham would be there all the time, screaming and 
 dabbing at them to show how amusing and brilliant 
 they all were, keeping them firmly planted round 
 her while she told them that they must go away and 
 dance and make themselves agreeable to others 
 rather than hang round an old woman like her, and
 
 58 PETER 
 
 continually whistling them back if they attempted 
 to do anything of the sort. She would take up a 
 position where she could most advantageously be 
 seen and heard, and get them all plastered about 
 her, swiftly talking to each in turn, so that he could 
 not possibly go away as long as she so volubly told 
 him to. She had that artless art to perfection; no 
 one had such a gift for making young men adhesive 
 as she, while all the time she was scolding them for 
 wasting their time on an old woman. . There was 
 no semblance of sentiment in these proceedings; 
 the entire objective of the manoeuvres was to dem- 
 onstrate to the world that these boys insisted on 
 crowding round her and not leaving her. That was 
 her notion of a successful evening, and since they 
 had signed their bond by eating her dinner, she man- 
 aged to exact the full pound of flesh. 
 
 The curtain went down on the first act of Parsifal 
 precisely as Mrs. Trentham led her shrill way into 
 one of the two boxes that bore the name of Mrs. 
 Wardour. She tripped in, all feather fan and stock- 
 ings, like some elegant exotic hen, proudly conscious 
 of the brood of most presentable chicks, though not 
 of her rearing, which followed her. The house at 
 that moment started into light again, and black 
 against the oblong of brightness were the backs of 
 two female heads, both of which turned round at the 
 click of the opened door. One of them had a great 
 tiara on, sitting firmly on a desert of pale sandy hair. 
 
 May Trentham advanced with both hands held 
 out. 
 
 "My dear, how late we are," she said. "You must 
 scold these boys, for they kept me in such shrieks 
 of laughter at dinner that I had no idea of the time. 
 Dearest Ella has so often talked to me about you;
 
 PETER 59 
 
 always asking: Haven't I met Mrs. Wardour yet? 
 Was it possible I had not met her great friend Lucy 
 Wardour? Charmed!" 
 
 In the hard light of the theatre, Mrs. Wardour's 
 face appeared to her to be quite flat; the shadows on 
 it looked like dark smudges applied to the surface 
 with a brush, rather than markings derived from 
 projections and depressions. This apparition of a 
 diamond-crowned oval of meaningless flesh was 
 slightly embarrassing, and she turned to the second 
 occupant of the box. There, in the younger face, she 
 saw what Lucy might, perhaps, once have been like, 
 before the years had flattened her out. Obviously 
 this was a daughter, though Ella Thirlmere had 
 altogether omitted to mention such a thing. Then, 
 with her rather short-sighted eyes growing accus- 
 tomed to the staring light. Mrs. Trentham observed 
 that her first impression of her hostess's face was an 
 illusion, though founded on fact; just as when the 
 figure of a man resolves itself into a hat and coat 
 hanging on the wall. There was nothing, in fact, 
 abnormal about Mrs. Wardour's countenance : it was 
 just blankish. She had large cheeks of uniform sur- 
 face, a nose of small elevation, no eyebrows, and 
 eyes set in very shallow sockets. Then another 
 shadow came on to her face; but this time, without 
 delay, May Trentham saw that it was her mouth 
 opening. When she had opened it, she spoke, but 
 she did not conduct both processes simultaneously. 
 
 "Well, I'm pleased to see you," she said; "but 
 there are so many friends of Lady Thirlmere — Ella, 
 I should say; she told me always to say Ella — there 
 are so many of Ella's friends visiting me to-night 
 that I don't quite seem to know your name." 
 
 May Trentham felt that her brain was giving way.
 
 60 PETER 
 
 Here was a perfectly empty box, except for Mrs. 
 Wardour and her daughter, and yet here was Mrs. 
 Wardour assuring her that so many friends of Ella 
 were here. . . . Where were the friends? Were 
 they invisible? Was the box crowded in reality with 
 unseen presences? ... 
 
 "I'm Mrs. Trentham," she said, clinging firmly to 
 that sure and certain fact. "May Trentham. Ella 
 told me you would expect me." 
 
 Mrs. Wardour appeared to be making an effort of 
 recollection. This, in a few moments, seemed suc- 
 cessful. 
 
 "That's correct," she said. 'T remember; and this 
 is my daughter Silvia." 
 
 For a moment her face slipped off its sheath of 
 meaninglessness, and something homely and kindly 
 and simple gleamed in it. 
 
 "I've got two boxes to-night, Mrs. Trentham," 
 she said. "This and the next, as Lady Thirlmere — 
 Ella — so kindly sent along such a quantity of her 
 friends. That's what it is; and so Silvia and I 
 (didn't we, Silvia?) we left the other box, seeing 
 that it was so full, and came in here, for, naturally, 
 I wanted to put my guests where they could see the 
 play, and Silvia and I, we wanted to see, too. Mrs. 
 Trentham was it? And I'm sure I'm very glad to 
 see you and your young friends. I should like them 
 all to be introduced to me and Silvia." 
 
 Charlie had hung up his hat and coat during this 
 amazing conversation, and now came forward. 
 
 "How-de-do?" he said. 
 
 "I haven't caught the name yet," said Mrs. War- 
 dour. The sheath had gone back over her face again. 
 
 "This is Lord Charles Harmer," said Mrs. Trent- 
 ham.
 
 PETER 61 
 
 "Indeed. The son of the Marquis of Nairn?" 
 asked Mrs, Wardour. 
 
 Charlie opened his mouth very wide. 
 
 "Brother!" he exclaimed, as if he was saying 
 "Murder!" on the Lyceum stage. 
 
 Tommy and Peter were less important ; the latter, 
 when the introductions were over, found himself 
 sitting between Silvia and her mother. On the 
 further side of Mrs, Wardour was May Trentham 
 between the other two young men and already 
 absorbed in identifying the occupants of boxes op- 
 posite and blowing kisses. 
 
 "There! There's just room for all of us," said 
 Mrs. Wardour, "without squeezing each other. We 
 v/ere too squeezed in the other box, weren't we 
 Silvia? There's six in the other box, and now we're 
 six here. Let me think; there's Lord Poole and 
 there's Lady Poole. There's Mrs. Heaton, and 
 there's Miss Heaton, and there's Mr, Philip Beau- 
 mont, That's five. Miss Heaton is engaged to Mr. 
 Beaumont; isn't that it, Silvia? I want to get it 
 clear." 
 
 "Yes, that's right," said Peter. 
 
 "Indeed! Do you know Miss Heaton?" asked Mrs, 
 Wardour, 
 
 "Yes, very well," said he, 
 
 "That's what's so pleasant," said she, "Just to 
 sit here and know everybody. That's what we want, 
 Silvia, isn't it? Just to sit and know everybody. 
 But that only makes five. Who's the other one? His 
 name began with F, and he was very fat." 
 
 "Perhaps that was his name," said Peter. He was 
 beginning to enjoy himself; the whole thing was such 
 complete nonsense. What kept up the high level of 
 it was that Mrs. Wardour replied with seriousness:
 
 62 PETER 
 
 "No; if his name had been Fat, I should have 
 remembered it," she said. "It wasn't Mr. Fat, nor 
 Lord Fat. He seemed to know everybody, too. He 
 just sat there and knew everybody." 
 
 From Peter's other side, where Silvia sat, there 
 came some little tremor of a laugh, hardly audible, 
 and turning, he saw that her face dimpled with 
 amusement. It was singularly sexless; the curve of 
 her jaw, the lines of her mouth were more like a 
 boy's than a girl's; boyish, too, was her sideways 
 cross-legged attitude. If she was laughing at her 
 mother's remark, her amusement was clearly of the 
 most genial kindliness. 
 
 Mrs. Wardour continued in a perfectly even voice 
 that almost intoned the words, so void was it of 
 inflection. 
 
 "It's a pity your party has missed so much of the 
 opera," she said. "There's been a lot of pretty 
 music; some of it reminded me of being in church 
 and hymns. It'll seem quite strange going to a dance 
 afterwards. A lot of knights singing hymns. Par- 
 sifal, you know. Some say it's the best opera Wag- 
 ner ever wrote. 
 
 This time Silvia certainly laughed, and again 
 her laugh had not the smallest hint of satirical en- 
 joyment ; she was just amused. Peter found himself, 
 though he had scarcely yet glanced at her, somehow 
 understanding her. He recognized in her amuse- 
 ment all that he himself failed to feel with regard 
 to his father's cartoons and his mother's readings in 
 Bradshaw. He knew intuitively that Silvia had got 
 hold of the right way to regard absurdities; to see 
 comedy without contempt. Whether she knew it or 
 not (it was quite certain that she did not), she had 
 given him a glimpse, a hint, an enlightenment, not
 
 PETER 63 
 
 only of what she was, but of what he was not. Look- 
 ing at her now directly for the first time, his hand- 
 some face caught some reflection of her boyish 
 brightness. 
 
 "And what do you think of Parsifal?" he asked. 
 
 She raised her eyebrows. 
 
 "How can I tell?" she asked. "I never saw an 
 opera before." 
 
 "I envy you," said Peter. 
 
 "Why? For not having seen one, or because I 
 am at last seeing one?" she asked. 
 
 Peter, as usual, found himself wanting to make 
 a good impression. If he had been in a lift with a 
 crossing-sweeper he would certainly have tried to 
 make the crossing-sweeper like him, and have 
 exerted his wits to hit upon something which the 
 crossing-sweeper would think to be admirable, even 
 though on arriving at the next floor he would never 
 see him again. He quickly decided now that the 
 girl would not admire mere drivel. . . . She hap- 
 pened to want to know what he envied her for. 
 
 "For both," he said. "For getting a new impres- 
 sion. That includes both. You mustn't have seen 
 an opera before, and you must be seeing one now." 
 
 She looked at him with perfectly unshadowed 
 frankness. 
 
 "I believe you meant the first," she said. "I be- 
 lieve when you said you envied me, that you meant 
 I was lucky in not having spent a quantity of boring 
 evenings." 
 
 "In any case, I don't mean that now," said Peter. 
 
 "Ah, then you did. Why do you mean it no 
 longer?" 
 
 Peter found himself criticizing her. A conversa- 
 tion between the acts of an opera was not meant
 
 64 PETER 
 
 to degenerate into a catechism. You talked in order 
 to mask the ticking of the minutes. But as he was 
 in for a catechism, it was better to be an agreeable 
 candidate. 
 
 "Why?" he asked. "Because I expect that you 
 never spend boring evenings. Probably you are not 
 a person who is bored." 
 
 Clearly, as he suspected, she was not going to 
 commit herself to any statement without considera- 
 tion, even when so violently trivial a subject was 
 under discussion. Her eyebrows, much darker than 
 the shade of her hair, like Nellie's, pulled themselves 
 a little downwards and inwards, so that they nearly 
 met. 
 
 "Oh, I could easily be bored," she said. "A lot 
 of bored people would infect me and make me 
 bored." 
 
 She leaned a little forward towards him, again 
 with that boyish appeal. 
 
 "Please don't be bored," she said. "Be interested 
 and amused. Make yourself into a sort of disin- 
 fectant to protect me." 
 
 "Is there an epidemic?" he asked. 
 
 "Yes; the place is reeking with it. My mother, 
 for instance, detests music. Isn't it darling of 
 her?" 
 
 "How very odd of her, then " he began. 
 
 He stopped because, in some emphatic, intangible 
 way, the girl retreated from the platform of intimacy 
 on to which she had stepped. She moved her chair 
 an inch or two away from him, hitching it back with 
 her foot, but that was only a symbol of her change 
 of attitude. What to Peter made the significance 
 of that small steering was a certain quenching of 
 light in her face, as if, over it, she had put up some
 
 PETER 65 
 
 mask of herself that might easily have been mis- 
 taken for her, if the beholder had not, for a glimpse 
 or two, seen her unmasked. She shifted from the 
 personal ground on which, for a minute, they had 
 met, and became Miss Silvia Wardour, generalizing 
 in small talk, in the usual imbecile and social man- 
 ner. She also became much more feminine. . . . 
 
 "I wonder how many people in the house, who 
 have come to hear Wagner, really dislike it," she 
 said. "Probably w^e all of us like some species of 
 noise, and dislike another species of noise. If you 
 like the Beethoven noise, you probably dislike the 
 Wagner noise. Only nobody will say so. They come 
 to look at each other." 
 
 She had carried back the conversation on to the 
 personal platform again, as if she was sorry to have 
 slipped off it so suddenly. But she carried it on 
 to another part of the platform. Quite clearly she 
 did not intend to discuss her mother's presence at 
 the opera. 
 
 'Tell me," she said. ''What sort of noise do you 
 really like? This or somebody else's?" 
 
 Peter wondered for the moment whether she was 
 to prove to be the earnest sort of girl, who, what- 
 ever you said, insisted on discussing your random 
 statements, until you contradicted yourself (which 
 usually happened quite soon), and then, vouchsaf- 
 ing a gleam of daylight, found an explanation for 
 them in order that you might be encouraged to en- 
 tangle yourself further. The earnest girl, the in- 
 quisitorial girl; he did not like that type. . . . They 
 gave you pencils and pieces of paper after dinner 
 and made you write acrostics; they took letters out 
 of a box and gave you eight of them, from which you 
 had to make a word ; they divided the guests up into
 
 66 PETER 
 
 equal numbers, told them that this was "Clumps," 
 and that two people were going to leave the room 
 and guess whatever had been thought of. These 
 were their lighter, intellectual motions, and you 
 feverishly played "Clumps" in order to avoid intoler- 
 able abstract discussions. Yet Silvia had not the 
 sleuth-hound expression that usually accompanied 
 these hunters after intellect. 
 
 "What a searching question," he said. "But, 
 really, I'm omnivorous about noises. I like the noise 
 I'm listening to. I like it particularly." 
 
 There was not in her face the smallest conscious- 
 ness that he might conceivably be alluding to the 
 fact that she was talking to him. She let her eyes 
 sweep across the crowded theatre. 
 
 "That noise?" she asked. "All those people talk- 
 ing? I love it, too. Oh, wouldn't it be interesting 
 to be somebody else for a minute, and know what 
 he meant, what he felt like when he said anything?" 
 
 Clearly she had used the masculine gender quite 
 unconsciously. Peter's answer, on the other hand, 
 was deliberate. 
 
 "Yes, I should love to know what she feels like, 
 even over the most trivial speech," he said. 
 
 Silvia dropped on to this with a precision that 
 only showed how complete her own unconsciousness 
 had been. 
 
 "She?" she asked. 
 
 "Certainly 'she,' " he said. "I know well enough 
 the kind of thing which men feel like." 
 
 She leaned forward again. 
 
 "Oh, tell me about that," she said. 
 
 Certainly they were together on the personal plat- 
 form again. Peter was quite at home there; his 
 passion for making a good impression on new
 
 PETER 67 
 
 acquaintances, his rather uncanny skill in extracting 
 intimacy from them, gave him a confident gait on 
 these boards. He felt that this queer, attractive girl 
 did not in the least wish to be talked to in the ordi- 
 nary, nonsensical manner. In the gabble of the ball- 
 room, and in the more intimate duologue on the 
 stairs outside it, girls, the generality of them, liked 
 to be told that men thought exclusively about them, 
 and spent their waking and sleeping moments in the 
 contemplation of their divinity and pricelessness. 
 Nellie, of course, was an exception, for between them 
 there certainly was some peculiar bond of under- 
 standing; but the majority of girls, so ran his indo- 
 lent and incurious creed, just wanted to be told that 
 they were too priceless for anything, and some 
 v/anted to be kissed. It was all nonsense ; they knew 
 that as well as he did; but such was the inherited 
 instinct, or, if you wished to be precise, the inherited 
 instinct acting on the new conditions. But he knew 
 that Silvia was not like that; there was some eager, 
 friendly quality about her. She was not quite the 
 normal girl of the ballroom ; nor again, was she the 
 earnest girl, who wanted to explore your brains and 
 prove that you hadn't got any. She seemed merely 
 interested in the topic, not because it would lead 
 to a demonstration of her cleverness. 
 
 ''Men?" he said. "What do men feel? They are 
 as vain as peacocks, and they think entirely about 
 themselves. They think of you as an inferior sex 
 designed to amuse them." 
 
 "Ah, the darlings!" said Silvia, quite unexpect- 
 edly. 
 
 The great pervading brilliance of the lights went 
 out. A row of veiled illuminations only remained 
 in front of the red confectionery of the curtain.
 
 68 PETER 
 
 against which the conductor's head was silhouetted. 
 Silvia, after her surprising exclamation, drew her 
 chair more into the corner in order to enable Peter 
 to pull his up to the front of the box. 
 
 "Klingsor's Castle," said Mrs. Wardour, with a 
 final desperate glance at her programme. "Who is 
 Klingsor, Silvia?" 
 
 Peter wondered whether he could whisper, "Who 
 is Silvia?" but decided against it. 
 
 "A magician, darling," said Silvia, with the same 
 underlying bubble of amusement.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 There was a mad brutality of discordant noise, 
 and the risen curtain disclosed an astronomer with 
 some sort of photogi'aphic lens which he studied. 
 He roared and yelled, and soon a dishevelled female, 
 in an advanced stage of corruption, shrieked back 
 at him. Silvia found herself disliking the Wagner 
 noise, and her attention came closer home ; came, in 
 fact, to the quarter-view of Peter's face, as he sat 
 low in his chair in order to give her a clear view of 
 Klingsor. She was not sure that she liked Peter any 
 better than the hurly-burly that was going on, and 
 though she knew she had been liking him during 
 the interval between the acts, she now seriously set 
 herself to the task of disliking him, and the easiest 
 method of achieving that result was to class him as 
 just one of the crowd which had come that night 
 to occupy, by request, her mother's two boxes. She 
 perfectly understood the situation ; Lady Thirlmere, 
 the woman with the pearls and the blue-black hair, 
 had told a lot of her friends that they could go to 
 see Parsifal for nothing, and reap a quantity of sub- 
 sequent benefits at the price of knowing Mrs. War- 
 dour, of frequenting her house, and of permitting 
 her to eddy round in the general whirlpool. For 
 some reason, inscrutable to Silvia, her mother 
 wanted that; she and her mother, in fact, were like 
 a pill, which Lady Thirlmere had guaranteed that 
 the world should swallow. The pill was nobly 
 gilded, and there was any amount of jam to assist 
 
 69
 
 70 PETER 
 
 the swallowing of it. Without doubt Peter was one 
 of the open mouths. 
 
 Klingsor and Kundry continued to rave at each 
 other, and so far from listening, Silvia used that 
 external noise to drive her own thought into seclu- 
 sion ; much as a dull sermon, a tedious lecture makes 
 for introspection in the audience. And hardly had 
 slie classed Peter among the open mouths than she 
 wondered if she had been quite fair in doing so, for 
 the talk they had had was not of the same timbre as 
 the conventional quackings which for the last week 
 had made her mother's house like a farmyard, with 
 her, like Mrs. Bond of the nursery rhyme, calling 
 "Dilly, dilly . . . you shall be stuffed," and stuffed 
 they were. Silvia could no more enter with sym- 
 pathy into her mother's aims than she could enter 
 with sympathy into stamp-collecting; but out of 
 love for the stamp-collector — the dear, weary, stead- 
 fast stamp-collector — she was eager to feel the high- 
 est possible interest in the collection and collect for 
 her with all her might. But she knew that she 
 despised the spirit of the stamps, which, in return 
 for food and drink and opera-boxes, were so willing 
 to be collected. Next week there was to be a dance 
 "for her," in that immense mansion which had been 
 re-christened Wardour House, and pages of the 
 stamp-book would on that occasion be filled with 
 adhesive specimens. ''Everybody," so she under- 
 stood Ella Thirlmere to say, "would come, and no 
 doubt it would be tremendous fun. . . ." 
 
 There were certainly some stamps here now. Lord 
 Charles was one, though why had he been willing to 
 be collected? He sat with his head propped between 
 two long hands, and a queer sort of nose, just pro- 
 truding, indicated by its downward angle that he was
 
 PETER 71 
 
 profoundly meditating. Next him was her mother, 
 whose pearls clinked rhythmically to her breathing, 
 and nearest to herself she could see the half-averted 
 profile of the young man whom she was encouraging 
 herself to dislike. He appeared to be looking at the 
 stage; certainly he was paying no attention to her, 
 and she got back to what she actually thought of 
 him, instead of forcing herself into a defensive atti- 
 tude against him. Somehow they seemed (not that 
 it mattered) to have been talking to each other from 
 odd standpoints. When, ridiculously interested for 
 the moment, she had asked him what men "felt," 
 he had not given a masculine answer. He had 
 spoken to her as if he had been a girl; he had said 
 that men were as vain as peacocks, and thought of 
 women as an inferior sex, designed for their amuse- 
 ment. Very likely that was quite true; but now in 
 this isolation of darkness and loud noises, which 
 cut her off from him and everyone else in the box, 
 it seemed to her to have required a woman to state 
 that. That was a woman's view of a man; a man, 
 though he shared it, could scarcely have said it. 
 Instead, he would have told her that women were 
 the angelic sex, meant to be adored. . . . 
 
 Some violent concussion had occurred on the 
 stage ; there was no longer a gloomy black man with 
 a photographic lens, but some insane sort of flower- 
 bed; and remembering her programme, she recol- 
 lected that this was the enchanted garden. The 
 enchantment seemed to lie in a quantity of prodi- 
 gious calico or cardboard flowers. Presently they 
 burst. If they had not burst they must have burst, 
 for mature females, singing loudly, were hatched out 
 of the centre of each. The change had awakened 
 Charlie, and he opened his mouth very wide.
 
 72 PETER 
 
 "My dear, what unspeakable wenches!" he said 
 loudly to Mrs. Trentham. 
 
 ''Silvia, look at the flower-maidens," said her 
 mother. "They all came out of the flowers. Was 
 not that wonderful? Look at the one from the blue 
 convolvulus! Isn't she sweet?" 
 
 Silvia choked a laugh with an audible effort, swal- 
 lowing it whole. 
 
 "Yes, darling," she said. "Aren't they pretty?" 
 
 Peter turned to her quickly. 
 
 "Oh, that's just how I talk to my father!" he said, 
 and instantly looked back at the stage again. 
 
 She reconsidered her verdict of him as merely 
 belonging to the open mouths which Lady Thirl- 
 mere showered on her mother. They, at any rate, 
 did not behave in that unwarranted way. Her 
 neighbour was ill-bred, odious, familiar, and having 
 thrown an impertinence like that over his shoulder, 
 he did not even wait for her rejoinder. What it 
 would have been she did not quite know. But . . . 
 was it impertinent of him after all? Was it, per- 
 haps, rather a pleasant indication of intimacy? For 
 intimacy, in the ordinary sense, there had not been 
 time or opportunity; but had hey perhaps, just 
 spoken quite naturally, assuming a corresponding 
 naturalness on her part? If so, she had failed 
 him. . . . 
 
 Silvia was annoyed with herself for such a sug- 
 gestion. How could she have "failed" a young man 
 whom she had seen for the first time half an hour 
 ago, who was only one specimen out of that flock of 
 rooks which had alighted there in this new field, 
 v/here worms were to be had for the mere picking of 
 them up. . . .
 
 PETER 73 
 
 There was a long interval at the end of this 
 second act, and a reseating of the occupants of the 
 two boxes. Lord Poole, whom Mrs. Wardour's god- 
 mother had chosen as a genial acquaintance, came 
 in with his great towering frame and his immense 
 red face and his unlimited capacity for enjoying him- 
 self. 
 
 "Lucky dog, Parsifal," he remarked to Silvia, "to 
 have had all those girls to choose from. He should 
 have taken the one that came out of that great 
 white lily. My word, she did surprise me when she 
 came out of that lily. I wish I knew where I could 
 get some of those lilies. Hallo, Peter! Get out 
 of that chair like a good boy, and let me sit between 
 Miss Silvia and her mother. Haven't had a word 
 with either of them yet. Go and make love to my 
 wife for ten minutes; you'll find her next door, and 
 come back and tell me how you've been getting on." 
 
 When this great licensed victualler of London 
 appeared on the scene and made some such sugges- 
 tion, it was usual to go and do as he told you. But 
 now Peter glanced at the girl as if to ask whether 
 she wished him to make way or not. She gave him 
 no sign however, no hint that he was to stop where 
 he was, and so the best thing, as his cool, quick brain 
 told him, was to answer Lord Poole genially accord- 
 ing to his folly. 
 
 "You condone it, then," he said. 
 
 "Lord, yes, I condone anything," he said. "We 
 all condone everything nowadays. Saves a lot of 
 trouble in the courts." 
 
 The frankness of these odious sentiments made 
 it quite impossible not to treat them as a farce. No 
 one in his senses took Lord Poole seriously; he was 
 so jolly and so preposterous, and so successfully
 
 74 PETER 
 
 sought safety in numbers. He instantly spread him- 
 self over Peter's chair and firmly put one arm round 
 Silvia's waist and the other round her mother's. 
 
 "Nice young fellow that," he observed as Peter 
 went out of the box. "What a pair he and Miss 
 Silvia make, hey? He's black and she's fair, and 
 he's a clever fellow and won't have a penny, and I 
 wish I was his age. Do you know his father? He's a 
 rum 'un." 
 
 These remarkable statements were addressed in 
 a loud, hoarse whisper to Mrs. Wardour, and were, 
 of course, perfectly audible to Silvia. Then he 
 turned to the girl. 
 
 "I've been asking your mother to elope with me," 
 he said, "so I hope you didn't overhear. Now I'm 
 going to talk to you and she mustn't listen. You're 
 perfectly delicious, my dear, you and your golden 
 hair, and that little foot that's kicking me. Let it 
 go on kicking ; I like it. Wonder how Peter's getting 
 on with my missus. Peep round the corner, Miss 
 Silvia, and see if she looks like going off with him. 
 There are several topping girls in that box, but she's 
 the pick of them, bless her heart. What! Here's 
 your mother getting up and leaving me. More 
 friends coming in ! I never saw such a lot of friends. 
 Why, it's Ella! I'm in luck to-night. And there's 
 May Trentham only one chair away. Look at her 
 profile against the light. Did you ever see anything 
 so perfect? Looks rather like the head on a postage- 
 stamp, but don't say I said so." 
 
 Lord Poole was now satisfactorily engaged in his 
 usual evening occupation of getting as many girls 
 and pretty women round him as possible, while Mrs. 
 Trentham was performing a similar oflBce with re- 
 gard to every young man who came into the box.
 
 PETER 75 
 
 Her pansy face was growing sillier than ever as she 
 kept telling them all to go and talk to somebody 
 else. The object of these two middle-aged magnets 
 was precisely similar: one wanted to attract to itself 
 all the men, the other all the women ; but there was 
 an infinite divergence in their methods. May Trent- 
 ham, pretending to be young, kept asserting how 
 old she was; Lord Poole, pretending to be old, could 
 not conceal the fact of how young he was. He, 
 again, was not thinking one atom about himself, but 
 was entirely absorbed in his collection of sirens; she 
 was thinking exclusively about herself, and was only 
 anxious that every one in the house should turn 
 green with envy at her galaxy of adorers. . . . Then 
 Ella Thirlmere and a friend or two joined the group, 
 and he returned blatantly, fatuously, delightfully to 
 the opera. 
 
 "Well, now, I do feel like Parsifal," he said. "Here 
 I am in the middle of such flower-maidens, any of 
 whom could give a couple of furlongs in a mile to 
 those on the stage and come romping home in a 
 canter. Look at Ella now: there's -a picture for you! 
 Why, my gracious, here's Winifred, too! Come and 
 tell us all about it, Winifred ; how many hearts, not 
 reckoning mine, have you broken to-night? Look 
 at that hair of hers! Did anybody ever see hair like 
 that? I never did, and I've seen a lot in my time. 
 May Trentham, too! Do you wonder that all the 
 young men go swarming round her? I'm sure I 
 don't, and I'd join the swarm myself if I wasn't so 
 blissfully situated just where I am. Haven't enjoyed 
 an evening so much for years. Wish this interval 
 would last till Doomsday, and then we'd all go up to 
 heaven together ! St. Peter would let me in without
 
 76 PETER 
 
 a question when he saw whom I'd brought along with 
 
 me." 
 
 Among the people who had drifted in at the end 
 of the act was Philip Beaumont, whom Mrs. Trent- 
 ham had instantly rendered adhesive by her voluble 
 commands to go back to Nellie Heaton at once. Nel- 
 lie, however, had very designedly sent him here, for 
 she had become aware by a glimpse, a sound (an 
 instinct, perhaps even more) that Peter was in the 
 box next door, and her dispatch of her lover there 
 would certainly signify to Peter that she wished him 
 to take the chair now vacant by her and resume the 
 talk that had taken place in the window that after- 
 noon. Somehow that talk had made for itself an 
 anchorage uncomfortable to her consciousness; it 
 had been like a fishbone in her throat. She had 
 taken gulps of her fiance, so to speak, in order to dis- 
 lodge it; but she had not succeeded in swallowing it. 
 She had tried to divert her attention from it; had 
 pounced with fixed claws on the opera in front of 
 her; had jotted down in her memory, with the fell 
 example of Lady Poole as an object-lesson, a quan- 
 tity of ways of behaviour and of the presentation of 
 yourself to others which were undesirable when you 
 were fifty or seventy or whatever Lady Poole hap- 
 pened to be. You must be quiet and calm when you 
 had tottered up to those hoary altitudes; you must 
 leave your hair to turn any colour it chose. ... 
 You mustn't wriggle and snort, for whereas wrig- 
 gling in the young might exhibit (quite advantage- 
 ously) a graceful litheness, it suggested in the old 
 that a galvanic battery had been unexpectedly ap- 
 plied to the knees and the elbows and the middle 
 part of the person. But there was something remote 
 about these gleanings of knowledge; they might
 
 PETER 77 
 
 prove to be nutritious (and possibly palatable) if 
 preserved and remembered for thirty or forty years; 
 at the present moment they were not of sufficiently 
 arresting a quality to divert her mind from this fish- 
 bone of her interview with Peter. . . . There had 
 been a harshness, a crudity in it; there had been, to 
 her mind, a certain hostility in it; there had been 
 also a certain hunger in it, an emptiness that ached. 
 He had clearly pronounced that their relationship — 
 the bond, in fact, of which she had spoken — must be 
 changed by her engagement, and, though she would 
 have combated that with wit and good sense, some 
 internal fibre of her throbbed, vibrated to the truth 
 of it. She wanted to convince Peter (and even more 
 to convince herself) that the old bond, the old rela- 
 tionship, still flowered and had lost no petal of its 
 fragrance. 
 
 She had not to wait long for his entry; Philip 
 had barely left the box before he appeared in the 
 doorway, and she applauded his quickness in answer- 
 ing the signal she had waved to him in the ejection 
 of the other. He was silhouetted there for a moment 
 as he spoke to someone in the corridor outside, cool 
 and crisp and complete. Peter was always like that; 
 nature had applied to him some extra polish, some 
 exquisite finish, which detached him from all others 
 in the moist or dusty crowd. Adorable though that 
 was, the thought came to the girl that, above all else, 
 she wanted to disturb and disarrange that. Peter 
 excited and dishevelled. Peter enthusiastic. Peter 
 undetached and clinging was perhaps the real Peter, 
 ... A clamorous, turbulent Peter. . , . 
 
 He looked round as he entered ; he clearly saw her, 
 and as clearly disregarded the obvious movement 
 cf ber hand to the vacant seat which Philip had just
 
 78 rF/IKR 
 
 (juitli'il. 'riutiii!;h lliat rejection — that "cut" you 
 niip;ht call it, considering their friendshij) — was in no 
 way pn'iiuMlilaleii, it was, when iio saw Nellie bock- 
 oning as with {jroprietorsliip. or so it struck him, 
 (luito (l(>lil)(M'al(\ 11(^ lind .uivcMi no Ihon.niit to it 
 before, and apparent ly gave no furtiuM' thouglit now, 
 for 1h» insl.'indy placed hinis(^lf n(>xt Lady rool(\ be- 
 side whom thert^ was jmolher (Mnpty sivii. There 
 was a gr(\at gretMi f(\a(h(M-, nodding a welcome frcnn 
 hvr vioIiMit hair, wl\ii'l» m.alched her green shoes 
 and lh(^ l.arj*(^ slabs of false emerald with which her 
 dress was h.a/a.rdously lu^ld togeth(M\ She was quite 
 as absurd as her husband, and had a witty poison 
 under her tongue, whicli she sj)rayed profusely over 
 most subjects of discussion. Hut her poison hurt 
 nobody, since nobody ever believed a word slie said. 
 Slu» was. in f.act, as harmless as a serpent, and cer- 
 tainly not as wise as a dove. 
 
 'riie serj)ent aspect showed its innocuous fangs. 
 
 "Monster," she said to Peter. "Sit down and tell 
 me at once what's going on next door. Wliom's my 
 ChristopluT ilirting with?" 
 
 "lOverybody," sjiid Peter. "He sent me away to 
 Dirt witii you. l^et's begin. Siudl I begin? Tell 
 u\c why you and he should always remain young 
 when all tiie rest of us are as old as tlu^ hills." 
 
 The wisdom of the mature dove peej)eii out for a 
 moment, but w.-is driven back by a hiss of the ser- 
 pent, as a loud squeal of laughter sounded from the 
 next. box. 
 
 "That's May Trentham," said l^ady Poole uner- 
 ringly. "My dear, what a woman! Why do all you 
 young men crowd round her like moths round a 
 night-light. Whom h.as she got?"
 
 PETER 79 
 
 "The rest of the males," said Peter. "Male and 
 female, you know " 
 
 "Stuff and nonsense. There are people who are 
 things! Look at our hostess, whom Christopher is 
 probably embracing at this moment. I assure you 
 she hasn't got a face; she's got a slab. What are 
 we coming to? Then there's her daughter. She's a 
 boy; a nice, handsome, healthy boy, doing well. I 
 wish my son was like her. Do you know him? He's 
 like a pincushion." 
 
 Peter was not actively listening to these extraor- 
 dinary remarks; he was taking in and assimilating 
 just what he had done in not occupying the place 
 indicated to him by Nellie. He came to the con- 
 clusion that he had not done so precisely because 
 she intended him to. She was meaning to get on 
 perfectly well without him, and had better begin at 
 once. 
 
 "Why pincushion?" he asked. 
 
 "Because I put pins into him whenever I see him. 
 which isn't often, and he just sits there and keeps 
 my pins. He doesn't mind ; he doesn't bleed. He's 
 nothing at all, poor wretch. I beg him to steal or 
 bear false witness or break any commandment that 
 comes handy so long as he does something. He eats 
 chocolate and trims hats. I shall have no pins left 
 soon. 
 
 "Never mind, Eddy! But what a horrible opera! 
 It must have been written by an organist in collab- 
 oration with a choirboy. I wonder if Christopher is 
 in the next box at all. I expect he's gone behind to 
 scrape acquaintance with some flower-maiden — prob- 
 ably that voluptuous crone who came out of a large 
 white lily, though how she got into it originally is 
 more than I can say, because she was bigger than
 
 80 PETER 
 
 anything I ever saw. If only Eddy would do that 
 sort of thing: so much more suitable. Anaemic; 
 that's what you all are. The women aren't quite so 
 bad as the men. I know personally five grand- 
 mothers who have married again in the last fort- 
 night. But the grandmothers who continue opti- 
 mistically marrying will die in time, and what's go- 
 ing to happen to England then? What's the use of 
 saying 'emigration/ when there won't be anybody 
 to emigrate?" 
 
 "1 didn't say 'emigration,' " said Peter, with his 
 head whirling. This sort of speech was characteristic 
 of Lady Poole. She dashed pictures on to a screen 
 like a magic lantern, and took them off again before 
 you had seen them, leaving darkness and the smell 
 of oil. 
 
 "May Trentham, too," said this amazing lady. "I 
 hear you've been dining with her. She would like 
 every boy in the kingdom to remain celibate for her 
 antiquated sake. I will say for Christopher that he 
 doesn't want that. He would like every woman to 
 do just the opposite. . . . Good gracious, here's an- 
 other act and I thought it was all over and that we 
 were only waiting for our mothers. I adore Parsifal; 
 why does nobody write music like that now? Come 
 and see me to-morrow. Any time, I'm always at 
 home. Where is one to go in these days? Profiteers 
 and Bolshevists and Jews! That's England; mark 
 my words!" 
 
 Peter groped his way out of the box in the sudden 
 eclipse of the lights, sidling by others who were tip- 
 toeing back again, without any response to Nellie's 
 signal. He knew quite well that there was an unoc- 
 cupied seat next her, and that it would have been 
 the most natural thing in the world for him to have
 
 PETER 81 
 
 appropriated it; but he chose to consider that it was 
 more suitable yet that Philip should find his way 
 back to it. She had given him the right to be 
 there, and Peter, with a tinge of insincerity, told 
 himself that he was behaving with extreme correct- 
 ness in not occupying it; the insincerity lying in the 
 fact that his root-reason for going back to the other 
 box was that he was determined that Nelhe should 
 not have everything quite her own way. 
 
 Then again — another reason for behaving so prop- 
 erly — she had said herself that afteroon that she 
 meant to fit herself to the conventional mould, and 
 here was he helping to secure a perfect fit. No doubt 
 she was right; she was right also in divining that 
 the nature of the bond between them must now 
 necessarily be changed. It had never been a pas- 
 sionate one; their individual independence, no less 
 than the material obstacles in the way of declared 
 and complete surrender to each other, had always 
 stood between them; but there seemed, now that the 
 bond was slackened, to have been potential passion 
 woven into it. Perhaps the slight collision with 
 Philip in the doorway, and the knowledge that he 
 was groping his way back to the chair by Nellie 
 again, accentuated that perception. For a moment 
 Peter paused; he had yet just time to slide past 
 Philip and occupy the chair; but there seemed to 
 glimmer in the seat of it some label "Reserved," and 
 he checked his impulse. No doubt he would resume 
 natural relations with Nellie again to-morrow, or 
 probably even to-night in the dance — or two dances, 
 was it? — where they would be sure to meet, and a 
 certain subtle antagonism which had begun to smoke 
 and smoulder within him would be quenched. He 
 left it, for the present, at that.
 
 82 PETER 
 
 For three or four hours more that night, after 
 the conclusion of the opera, Silvia found herself in 
 touch with one or other of the guests who had so 
 agreeably and with so little ceremony decorated the 
 fronts of her mother's boxes. They seemed just as 
 much at home in Lady Thirlmere's house, taking 
 genial possession of it, dancing to her band, drinking 
 her champagne in the same clubable manner. Lord 
 Poole was greatly in evidence, surrounding himself 
 with the gay moths that positively stuck in the 
 spiced honey of his outrageous compliments and 
 could scarcely disentangle their feet therefrom. He 
 squeezed their hands, he put his arm round their 
 waists, he made the most amazing speeches right 
 and left as to their irresistibility. He was like some 
 mirror into which every women looked and saw 
 there a fascinating reflection of herself, that pre- 
 sented an image of herself more delicious than, even 
 when trying on a new hat, she had ever supposed 
 herself to be^ "What's to happen to us poor men," 
 he asked Silvia, "if you're all of you going on being 
 so tip- top? We shan't do a stroke more work; we 
 shall spend all our time in looking at you, and then 
 who's to pay your bills? I've lost my heart twenty 
 times already to-night, and that's enough for an old 
 chap lil^e me, so I shall take myself off to bed. 
 Where's my wife, I wonder? Can your bright eyes 
 pick out any extra dense crowd of young men? If 
 you can, I shall plunge straight into them, like 
 taking a dive after a pearl-oyster, and I'll find her 
 right in the very middle of them." 
 
 There seemed to be an unusual congregation at 
 the end of the drawing-room, which opened on to 
 the dancing floor, and Lord Poole accordingly took 
 his dive. Silvia could see, as the waves of black
 
 PETER 83 
 
 coats and white shirts split up round him, that it was 
 Mrs. Trentham who was the pearl-oyster just there; 
 but the dive must have been satisfactory, for Lord 
 Poole disappeared fathoms deep. 
 
 Silvia began to revise her judgment on the non- 
 chalant greed of the mouths that flocked to be fed. 
 Everj'one was so gay and pleasant, so intent on 
 laughter and amusement; everyone knew everyone 
 else. She had done no more than set eyes on a 
 young man who had come in with Mrs. Trentham 
 to her mother's box, but Tommy confidently claimed 
 her as an old friend, and she stalked and slid about 
 the floor with him. At the conclusion of that a girl 
 whom she remembered with even mistier vagueness 
 disentangled herself from another young man (the 
 one who had slept so quietly and cried out so audibly 
 at the appearance of the flower-maiden) and ejected 
 Tommy from the seat next Silvia. She was entranc- 
 ingly pretty in some wild, dewy manner, and had 
 all the assurance that the knowledge of a delightful 
 appearance gives its possessor. 
 
 "I haven't had a word with you all the evening," 
 she said, "and I want to tell you how delicious it was 
 of your mother to let me come to her box. I saw 
 you round the edge of the curtain talking to Peter. 
 He raves about you ; so, as I wanted to rave too, I — 
 well, here I am. Don't send me away." 
 
 Silvia was utterly unaccustomed to exercise any 
 critical faculty where friendliness seemed to be of- 
 fered. There were no outlying forts to her heart, 
 no challenging sentries; if a girl seemed to like her, 
 that was passport enough. Who this was she could 
 not for the moment remember, though doubtless her 
 name was among those which her mother had re- 
 peated as being occupant next door. Then the name,
 
 84 PETER 
 
 Nellie Heaton, found a lodging in her mind and 
 seemed secure. She was not sure that she liked the 
 information that Peter was "raving" about her; but 
 it was surely friendliness, the desire to be pleasant, 
 that had prompted the retailing of it to her. 
 
 "You must be Miss Heaton," she said. "Am I 
 right? There were so many new faces to-night, you 
 know. . . ." 
 
 She looked at Nellie with that direct gaze that 
 sought only to appreciate. There was certainly a 
 great deal to appreciate: the girl was dazzlingly 
 pretty. 
 
 Nellie laughed. 
 
 "Yes; I suppose I am Miss Heaton for the pres- 
 ent," she said. 
 
 A little more of her mother's commentaries came 
 into Silvia's mind. Had there not been a man in 
 the next box — name missing for the moment — to 
 whom Miss Heaton was engaged? Perhaps her 
 phrase, "for the present," alluded to that. 
 
 "Ah, I'm beginning to remember," she said. "I 
 remember that you are soon to be married. I hope 
 you'll be tremendously happy." 
 
 "That's dear of you," said Nellie. "But when I 
 said I was Miss Heaton for the present, I didn't quite 
 mean that." 
 
 Silvia, with all her friendliness, shrank ever so 
 slightly from this. There was a certain reserve about 
 her which did not quite allow the indicated response. 
 But the welcome of her manner was not abated. 
 
 "Do be kind and sort out all these nice people for 
 me," she said. "I have grasped Lord Poole, and 
 isn't it Mr. Mainwaring who is Peter? He sat next 
 me for an act. All the Christian names are a little 
 puzzling at first. Then there's Tommy; I haven't
 
 PETER 85 
 
 the slightest idea what his surname is, though I shall 
 know him again, because I danced with him just 
 now. And there's Lord Charles, who went to sleep — 
 I shall know him again " 
 
 "And won't you know Peter again?" asked Nellie. 
 "That's one for Peter." 
 
 "Oh, but I shall," said Silvia. "He's " 
 
 The tw^o were sitting close to the door into the 
 ballroom, and at that moment Peter passed in front 
 of them talking to a girl. He just glanced at them, 
 took them both in, and melted into the crowd. 
 
 "Yes; that's IVIr. Mainwaring," said Silvia confi- 
 dently. "I— I liked him. Don't you like him?" 
 
 Nellie made a little sideways, bird-like movement 
 of her head. Out of her changed relations with Peter 
 she felt that something like antagonism had minutely 
 sprouted. She wanted . . . yes, she would give 
 an answer that would seem wholly appreciative of 
 Peter, and that would yet contain something that 
 Silvia possibly (just possibly) would not like. 
 
 "Dear Peter!" she said. "Of course, we're all 
 devoted to Peter. It's the fashion to be devoted to 
 Peter."
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 During the next month the foam and froth which 
 spouted from the weir of London, into which Mrs. 
 Wardour, of her own design and desire, had been 
 so expensively plunged, began to be less tumultuous 
 as she floated away from the occasion of her first 
 bewildering dive. Lady Thirlmere, that admirable 
 godmother, had chucked her into it, holding her 
 breath and shutting her eyes, and now Mrs. War- 
 dour was getting her head above water and begin- 
 ning to paddle on her own account. The sponsor 
 had provided the richness of total immersion, and 
 Lucy Wardour was certainly swimming. As she 
 came up to the surface, she found herself surrounded 
 by iridescent bubbles; she was bobbing along in a 
 mill-race of desirable acquaintances. She had made 
 no friend&— there was no time for leisurely processes 
 of this sort; but when she had decided that she 
 wanted to spend her time and her money in the pur- 
 suit of some such indefinite goal as now loomed 
 promisingly in front of her, she had not expected to 
 make friends. She had not "gone for" friends; she 
 had gone for something that attracted the atten- 
 tion of the accomplished gentlemen who wrote those 
 small and exquisite paragraphs in the daily papers. 
 Inscrutably enough, that happened to be her am- 
 bition; what she wanted was to see (though she 
 knew it already) that ''Mrs. Wardour was among 
 those who brought a party to the first night of The 
 Bugaboo." . . . "Mrs. Wardour gave a dinner at 
 
 86
 
 PETER 87 
 
 Wardour House last night, followed by a small 
 dance." ... "Mrs. Wardour was in the Park, chat- 
 ting to her friends, and wearing a green toque and 
 her famous pearls." . . . Among her secretary's 
 duties was that of pasting these juicy morsels, sup- 
 plied by a press-agency, into a red morocco scrap- 
 book. In fact, she was streaking her way across the 
 bespangled firmament of London, like a comet, with 
 a blank face and an anxious eye. But those who 
 thought that the anxious eye received no impressions 
 just because they were not instantly recorded on the 
 blank face, made the mistake of this season. 
 
 May Trentham had undeniably been guilty of this 
 error. From that first night, when she had brought 
 her young men to the opera, she had thought that 
 Mrs. Wardour was not sufficiently alive to her value, 
 and as Mrs. Wardour did not appear to be learning 
 any better, she had certainly permitted herself to 
 indulge in little rudenesses, little patronizations, 
 little contempts, which Mrs. Wardour did not appear 
 to notice. Certainly she made no direct allusion to 
 them, and her rather meaningless countenance 
 showed no sign of having perceived them. . . . 
 
 This afternoon she was occupied with her secre- 
 tary in making out a list of a favoured few, not more 
 than eighty all told, who were to be bidden to an 
 entertainment at which the Russian ballet was to 
 figure. She ran her short, blunt forefinger down the 
 alphabetical pages of her *'visiting-list," and dictated 
 names to the gaunt Miss Winterton, who took them 
 down in an angry scribble of shorthand. The last 
 few pages were approaching. 
 
 "Then there's Mrs. Trentham," she said to Silvia. 
 "I think we'll leave out Mrs. Trentham." 
 
 Silvia put in a mild plea.
 
 88 PETER 
 
 "She rather enjoys things, mother," she said. 
 
 There was a pause, in which Mrs. Wardour slowly 
 and deliberately recalled certain moments which no- 
 body would have thought she had noticed. 
 
 "Well, she isn't going to enjoy my things," she 
 said. 
 
 They were seated in Mrs. Wardour's private sit- 
 ting-room in the great house in Piccadilly. It was 
 hung with French brocade; an immense Aubusson 
 carpet covered the floor, and a Reisener table and 
 bureau, with half a dozen very splendid chairs, 
 echoed the same epoch. Mrs. Wardour had found 
 this a little too stiff for domestic ease, and a decidedly 
 more homely note was struck by a few wicker chairs, 
 upholstered in cretonne, and a tea-table of the.same 
 imperishable material, with flaps which let down on 
 hinges and formed convenient shelves for cakes and 
 teacups. On the top of the bureau was a large 
 photograph of the late Mr. Wardour in watch-chain 
 and broadcloth. There were but a few more names, 
 and Mrs. Wardour closed the book. 
 
 "Then you'll send 'invitations to the names I've 
 given you. Miss Winterton," she said, "on R.S.V.P. 
 cards. There's no one else you'd like to ask, Sil- 
 via?" 
 
 Silvia knew quite well what she was intending to 
 say, and wondered why she hesitated. 
 
 "Will you ask Mr. Peter Mainwaring?" she said. 
 
 "Mr. Mainwaring? I don't seem to recollect " 
 
 "Darling, of course you can't recollect everybody," 
 said the girl ; "but I should like him to be asked." 
 
 "Certainly then. What's his initials and address?" 
 
 Silvia supplied this information, and Miss Win- 
 terton gathered up her papers and left them. She 
 had the air of some dethroned queen, for whom dis-
 
 PETER 89 
 
 astrous circumstances had made it necessary to per- 
 form menial offices. Mrs. Wardour breathed a sigh 
 of obvious relief when she had gone. 
 
 "She terrifies me, Silvia," she said, when the door 
 had closed. "She and that new butler. To think 
 that one of them is called Summerton and the other 
 Winterton. Well, I'm sure!" 
 
 Sylvia blew out a little bubble of laughter. 
 
 "Stand up to them, dear," she said. 
 
 "Yes, it's all very well to talk; but how am I to 
 stand up to them when my knees tremble? I 
 wouldn't have it known, but that's the fact. Well, 
 we are going to have a grand party next week." 
 
 Mrs. Wardour relaxed herself in the wicker 
 chair. 
 
 "It's been a job and a half," she said, "and I wish 
 your father was alive to see what a good job and a 
 half I've made of it. He always had a hankering 
 for high life himself, but he was too busy to catch 
 hold of it. 'When I give the word, Lucy,' he's often 
 said to me, 'we'll start in and show them all how to 
 do it.' Often he's said that to me. And I always 
 had a taste for it, too ; and sure enough it came nat- 
 ural to me from the first. We're pretty well sitting 
 down and knowing everybody now." 
 
 Hard work it certainly had been ; for the last two 
 months Mrs. Wardour had worked as hard at secur- 
 ing the goal she had so steadfastly set before her as 
 her husband had ever done in providing the para- 
 phernalia for the enterprise; but now she might 
 fairly claim that she was beginning to sit and know 
 everj^body. She had brought to her task an unre- 
 mitting industry, and — when the tide was once flow- 
 ing in her favour, so that it was possible to consider 
 not so much whom she would ask but whom she
 
 90 PETER 
 
 would leave out — a steely ruthlessness. That ruth- 
 lessness, indeed, had been a weapon throughout 
 the campaign; if a desirable guest was unable to 
 come on Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday, Mrs. 
 Wardour had adamantinely proceeded with Thurs- 
 day, Friday, and Saturday; she had even taken her 
 place at the telephone and demanded in her flat, 
 firm voice that her quarry should consult his en- 
 gagement-book and let her know which was the first 
 disengaged night. Ruthless, also, she had now be- 
 come, as in the case of Mrs. Trentham, when the 
 question was one of omission, and the party for the 
 Russian ballet had been selected on the sternest prin- 
 ciples. Thinking over that now, her mind reverted 
 to Silvia's final invitation. 
 
 "And who is your Mr. Mainwaring?" she asked. 
 
 Silvia again had to stifle some embarrassment 
 that, since it did not exist on the surface at all, must 
 have had some more secret origin. 
 
 "Oh, I've met him a score of times," she said. 
 "He's one of the people who is always there. He 
 sat between us once at the opera, I think I remem- 
 ber. One evening when Lord Poole made love to 
 you, dear. But, somehow, he's never been to your 
 house yet." 
 
 "That's more than most can say," remarked Mrs. 
 Wardour, so nearly smacking her lips that an im- 
 partial umpire might have said that "it counted." 
 This set Silvia laughing. 
 
 "And what have I said now?' asked Mrs. War- 
 dour. 
 
 It was not so much what her mother was saying 
 as what she was being that so continually kept Silvia 
 in a state of simmering hilarity. Contemplate it as 
 she might she had never been able to comprehend
 
 PETER 91 
 
 the impulse, or rather the steady, unwavering devo- 
 tion, that had kept Mrs. Wardour at such high pres- 
 sure all these weeks. She did not enjoy the process 
 of these eternal entertainments; the gaiety of others 
 did not make her gay; music made no appeal to her; 
 she was long past the age of dancing (though so 
 many of her contemporaries were not), and yet she 
 would sit benignly content through the short hours 
 of the summer night, with her great tiara on hei* 
 head, and feeling the heat acutely, for the mere 
 pleasure of being there. That she was there was 
 now undeniable, and, happily, having got there, she 
 suffered no disillusionment. The mere chasse, the 
 acquisition, was certainly not the mainspring of her 
 activities. She had engaged in the chasse not for 
 the sake of getting but of having. . . . 
 
 The second terror of her busy life entered. 
 
 ^'Miss Heaton wants to know if you are at home, 
 miss?" said the formidable Summerton. 
 
 It was a relief to Silvia's mother that she had 
 not got to "stand up" to Summerton, and, indeed, 
 there was no crisis at all, for close behind him was 
 Nellie. 
 
 "My dear, I was so afraid you might say that you 
 weren't at home," she said, "that I thought it only 
 my duty to save you telling lies. Am I interrupt- 
 ing? How are you, Mrs. Wardour? Send me away 
 if I am intruding, or say that you have just gone 
 out if you don't want me to stop, and I will promise 
 to believe you." 
 
 Silvia had risen with a flush of pleasure on her 
 face at the entrance of her friend. From all the new 
 acquaintances of London, Nellie had made a shining 
 emergence ; through all the mists and bewilderments 
 of the new life she shone with a steady beam, like
 
 92 PETER 
 
 the luminous finger from a lighthouse, clear and 
 steadfast above the complicated currents. 
 
 "But this is lovely," said Silvia. "Sit down. Tea? 
 Something? Anything?" 
 
 She stood looking at her with frank, surrendered 
 gaze; a little dazzled, as she always was, with such 
 easy unconscious splendour. She regarded Nellie, if 
 she could have put her appreciation into words, as 
 she might have regarded some golden casket, set 
 with gems, which seemed to have been laid in her 
 hands. She had, as yet, no idea what was inside it; 
 she had not attempted to raise the lid. It was 
 enough at present to be allowed to hold it in shy, 
 adoring fingers. 
 
 "No, nothing," said Nellie; "not even to sit down. 
 I came, in fact, to make you stand up." 
 
 "I'm doing that," said Silvia. 
 
 "That's not enough. . . . My dear, what a de- 
 licious frock. But my horrible Philip has been 
 obliged to go out of town, and I'm at a loose end 
 till dinner, and thought it would be wonderfully, 
 pleasant to sit on the grass somewhere. Isn't that 
 original? At the moment when that rural idea oc- 
 curred to me, I passed your gilded portals and 
 thought it would be even more wonderful if you 
 came and sat there too. I don't mean ordinary, dirty 
 grass, but clean grass. Richmond Park, or some- 
 thing. Top of a bus, of course. Old hats." 
 
 There could have been no more attractive notion to 
 Silvia. She felt that it was just that she had long 
 been wanting; namely, to be with Nellie on the 
 grass in an old hat. She could still ecstatically be 
 dazzled, could follow the beam of the lighthouse 
 with steady rapture ; but a fresh aspect of her, away 
 from ball-rooms and crowds, just that old-hat as-
 
 PETER 93 
 
 pect, she felt at once to be what most she desired. 
 She might, it is true, be just as dazzling thus, she 
 might, indeed, be more dazzling when other lesser 
 brightnesses were withdrawn from her vicinity; bul^ 
 however she turned out, she could not fail to show 
 a new enchantment. 
 
 "Of course I'll come," she said. "Let me go and 
 get an old hat. You don't want me, mother, do 
 
 you?" 
 
 "No, dear. But if you'll ring the bell, I'll order 
 the car for you. Far more comfortable and far 
 quicker than the top of a bus." 
 
 Nellie had been taking in the appurtenances of 
 this room, to which she had not previously pene- 
 trated, with those quick, bird-like glances which were 
 away again, scarcely alighting, before you knew they 
 had perched at all. Mrs. Wardour's hospitable sug- 
 gestion seemed to contrast with her own project in 
 just the manner in which those creaking cretonne 
 covered chairs contrasted with the brocade on the 
 walls and the Aubusson on the floor. 
 
 "Ah, how kind," she said; "but, dear Mrs. War- 
 dour, the point of our expedition is not to be com- 
 fortable and quick, but uncomfortable and slow. I 
 yearn for that, and for being rustic and common. 
 Otherwise, I should ask you to lend me one of those 
 glorious chairs and let me sit and look at Bucking- 
 ham Palace." 
 
 "Yes, you can see it out of the window," said 
 Mrs. Wardour. "But the top of a bus — let me see. 
 Miss Heaton, isn't it — is the top of a bus quite the 
 thing for girls like Silvia and you?" 
 
 "But absolutely," said Nellie. "It wouldn't be 
 a bit the thing to drive in your lovely Rolls-Royce.
 
 94 PETER 
 
 And we sliall have tea somewhere quite unspeakable, 
 with dirty napkins." 
 
 Mrs. Wardour shook her head. 
 
 "Now a nice tea-basket and the car," she insin- 
 uated. "Ready in ten minutes, I beg you, Miss 
 Heaton." 
 
 Why the notion of Richmond Park and a bus 
 and a tea-shop had blown in upon Nellie she had 
 no clear idea; but as she and Silvia swayed and 
 bounced westwards, it easily yielded an unconscious 
 analysis. Her morning had been taken up with dress 
 and trousseau for the imminent wedding, her mother 
 had joined her at the dressmaker's flushed with 
 triumph over some grabbing business called settle- 
 ments, and over the afternoon there had hung, 
 rather sultrily, the prospect of long hours with 
 Philip, who was coming to lunch. Her mother, as 
 usual, had a bridge party of harpies, and no doubt 
 she and Philip, just as she and Peter had done not 
 many weeks ago, would sit in the window and pass 
 for being absorbed in each other. It was owing, no 
 doubt, to the hymeneal morning, and the prospect 
 of a sunilar afternoon, that, on the outpouring 
 through the telephone of Philip's calm, but sincere, 
 regrets that business claimed him in the country, re- 
 action had opened its sluice-gates and overwhelmed 
 her with the desire for hours physically and morally 
 remote from rich fabrics and opulent comfort, and 
 from the ambient atmosphere of things connected 
 with just one theme. She was perfectly well satis- 
 fied with the general prospect, matrimonially con- 
 sidered; but she wanted just now, as celibacy was 
 so soon to vanish, a foreground of it and simplicity 
 and freedom to her picture. Originally, when the 
 telephone had first told her of Philip's defection, she
 
 PETER 95 
 
 had scarcely made the needful pause of ringing off 
 before getting into communication with Peter to 
 know whether he could slip the official collar for an 
 afternoon. Certainly that was "ringing off" Philip 
 with some completeness, and with whom better than 
 with the other could she take a last excursion into 
 the country that would so soon be severed from her 
 by the sea, placid, she hoped, of matrimony? But 
 the official collar could not, so Peter's very distinct 
 voice told, be shifted. He, Peter's voice, at any rate, 
 said he was sorry; but he added no superlatives of 
 regret, and before she had removed her ear she 
 heard the click of the replaced instrument at the 
 other end. He rang off, so it seemed to her, with a 
 certain finality, not lingering to gossip. That had 
 been rather characteristic of him lately; though she 
 had constantly met him, he had always appeared in 
 that light, impenetrable armour of his aloofness, 
 never raising his visor, nor showing a joint in his 
 liarness where she could get at him. Ever since the 
 interview on the window-seat six weeks ago he had 
 been withdrawn like that. 
 
 Failing to get Peter, her next inclination had been 
 to sip her celibacy alone, for though Peter, better 
 than anybody, symbolized the things that were pass- 
 ing away (the wet woods and the roving and the 
 independence), she would, in his absence, get near- 
 est to them alone. So she had already started on her 
 suburban pilgrimage, strolling down the glare 
 and wilderness of Piccadilly to get on to a Richmond 
 bus at the corner of Hyde Park, when, finding her- 
 self dazzled by the sun on the newly-gilded gates of 
 Wardour House, the notion of Silvia's companion- 
 ship suggested itself, and she paused weighing its 
 advantages. Silvia would certainly give her an
 
 96 PETER 
 
 eager, appreciative comradeship (so much was in- 
 stantly clear), and on the heels of that a tangle of 
 other interesting little curiosities, with tentacles pro- 
 truding, plumped themselves into the same scale. 
 She did not trouble to unravel them now; they 
 would straighten themselves out as the afternoon 
 went on. 
 
 Richmond Park proved to be very empty of loi- 
 terers; occasionally a motor-bicycle, with a wake of 
 dust hanging in the air behind it, streaked down the 
 yellow road; but, by the Pen Ponds, no more than 
 the distant throb of such passenger was audible. 
 Summer was in full leaf among the oaks and beeches, 
 retaining still the varnished freshness of spring, and 
 populous in the shade of the leafy trees were herds 
 of fallow-deer, which lay sleepy and yet alert, with 
 twitching ears and whisking tail against the incor- 
 rigible menace of flies, until an abatement of the 
 heat restored appetite for the young tussocky grass. 
 The hawthorn was nearly over; smouldering coro- 
 nets of faded flame, or grey ash of dazzling blossom 
 represented the glories of May; but round the ponds 
 the humps of the rhododendron banks were still on 
 fire. 
 
 Such talk as had flourished between the two girls 
 had not yet penetrated beyond the barrier where 
 triviality ceases, and past dances, with keen criti- 
 cism on their merits, and dances to come, and the 
 adequacy of various partners (among whom Peter's 
 name flitted by like blowing thistledown) had been 
 flashed on and off the public plate. There had been 
 a little longer exposure for the projected party at 
 which the Russian ballet was to supply the enter- 
 tainment, and Nellie had been informed, with hor- 
 rified eagerness on the part of Silvia, that, of course,
 
 PETER 97 
 
 she had been bidden: the invitation had only been 
 inscribed that afternoon. Her acceptance of it 
 was equally "of course," and with the luck that at- 
 tended friends, the date of it was a clear two days 
 before her marriage. Trivial though it had all been, 
 she felt that the Hamadryad (herself) had been do- 
 ing spade-work in the shade. The ground was 
 cleared and levelled ; every topic that she might now 
 wish to work up into a more elaborate tapestry had 
 been put in on tentative threads, much as charac-. 
 ters in a decently-written drama, flit, at any rate, 
 across the stage in the first act. The two, delight- 
 fully grouped, hatless, and secure from interruption, 
 had come to anchor in the circular shade of an old 
 thorn-bush not far from the edge of reeds that 
 fringed the pond. The red petals of the spent blos- 
 som dropped down from time to time ; the hum and 
 murmur of June woods was a carpet on which more 
 intimate conversation could lightly spread itself. 
 
 Nellie drew up and clasped her knees. 
 
 "Fancy my impertinence in dragging you out to 
 Richmond Park when I know that you had a hun- 
 dred things that you wanted to do," she said. "Tell 
 me, what would you have done if I hadn't appeared 
 like some bird of prey and clawed you? Now don't 
 say that you would have had tea with your mother 
 and gone for a drive in the Park. If you do, I simply 
 shan't believe you." 
 
 Yes, she was more dazzling, so Silvia found, when 
 there was no one to contrast her with. The sheer, 
 silly, conventional tittle-tattle took a sparkling qual- 
 ity quite alien to it when it came from her mouth. 
 Her personality was like coloured lights playing on 
 a fountain and turning the drops to gems. 
 
 "I must be silent, then," she said.
 
 98 PETER 
 
 "Oh, don't be silent! When people are silent it 
 means they are only being polite. If they were less 
 polite they would say that they were excruciatingly 
 bored. Then, after a suitable silence, they would say, 
 'How charming it is here!' Don't say 'how charm- 
 ing it is here.' That v/ill be the last straw, Silvia. 
 Dear me, I said 'Silvia' by accident. It — what they 
 call — slipped out." 
 
 "Oh, do say it on purpose, then," said Silvia. 
 
 "Very well; me too, you understand. What a 
 funny business is Christian names! The Christian 
 name is never really ripe till it drops. I wonder if 
 you know what an unutterable boon you and your 
 mother have been to that smoky place over there. 
 And to crown it all, you are giving the most de- 
 lightful party with the most gorgeous punctuality, 
 as far as I am concerned. Do say you settled it for 
 that night because you knew I couldn't come on any 
 subsequent night." 
 
 Silvia gave a little moan like a dove in a tree. 
 
 "I can't say that," she said. 
 
 Nellie sighed, wholly appreciatively. 
 
 "That's so refreshing of you," she said. "You're 
 one of the real people, I expect; the people who 
 mean what they say. I usually mean what I don't 
 say." 
 
 Silvia turned round and lay facing her friend. 
 
 "Don't say it, then, Nellie," she said. "I mean — 
 do say the things you mean. How complicated it 
 sounds, and how simple it is. Shall we stop talk- 
 ing about me, do you think? I've got another sub- 
 ject." 
 
 "I know it," said Nellie. "What about Peter? 
 I adore Peter, by the way; don't say anything hor- 
 rid."
 
 PETER 99 
 
 A certain sense of shock came to Silvia. Peter 
 had not, ever so remotely, been the subject to which 
 she alluded. But when Nellie suggested him, he was 
 flashed on the screen with disconcerting vividness. 
 
 "But I didn't mean him at all," she said. "1 
 wasn't thinking about — about Mr. Mainwaring." 
 
 "He wouldn't like that," said Nellie. 
 
 Silvia sat up. She had a perfectly clear con- 
 science to endorse an immediate repudiation. What 
 caused that suspicious, that questionable little leap 
 of blood to her cheeks, was, indeed, not that she had 
 been thinking of Peter, but that Nellie supposed she 
 had. 
 
 "Oh, but this is quite silly!" she exclaimed. "In- 
 deed, he wasn't in my mind at all. Why should he 
 be? I scarcely know him." 
 
 Nellie knew that she had ceased for that moment 
 to dazzle Silvia, to whom the suggestion that Peter 
 had been in her mind was clearly unwelcome and 
 unexpected. It might be true or it might not (so 
 ran Nellie's swift argument) that Silvia was not 
 thinking of Peter at all ; but that she should be ruf- 
 fled — ever so delightfully — at the notion that she 
 had been, constituted a symptom, did it not? . . . 
 But it was enough to note that, and pass on at once 
 to the easy task of dazzling Silvia again. 
 
 "You are too delicious," she said. "Yes, I'm 
 going to stick to my subject for a minute longer, 
 which is you, since yours isn't Peter. You've got 
 the most lovely lack of self-consciousness, do you 
 know? Of course you don't, or you wouldn't have 
 it. But when I talk to other girls, we each think 
 about ourselves. It's like talking to a boy — not 
 Peter, mind — to talk to you." 
 
 Silvia made some gesture of deprecation.
 
 100 PETER 
 
 "'No, I will go on," said Nellie. "Look at the 
 glass I hold up to you, please. It isn't only the 
 lovely parties that you and your mother have given 
 us that have polished up the rusty old season: it's 
 your quality — what shall I call it — wind and sun, 
 sexlessness. You just move along like a spring day, 
 with all your banners streaming, in the most en- 
 trancing glee. You're absolutely insouciante, if you 
 understand French." 
 
 Silvia had lost sight of Peter by now; he was 
 round the corner, and how near that corner was, 
 was immaterial. She wanted to put herself round 
 the corner, too, and seized on this as a possible diver- 
 sion. 
 
 "Oh, yes, I do," she said. "I only came back 
 this spring from three years in France." 
 
 "There you are again! There's another of your 
 complet-enesses. You're spread evenly, richly, like 
 butter (when we're all eating margarine) over the 
 whole slice of life. I wish I could bite you! I 
 believe that with a little trouble I could, and, if so, I 
 should hate you, not for what you've got but for 
 what I haven't." 
 
 At this moment Nellie became aware that her day 
 in the wet woods had changed the character with 
 which, prospectively, she had endowed it. She had 
 meant, first with Peter as her companion, and next 
 by herself, to enjoy the last hours of her celibacy. 
 With Silvia, on the other hand, she was now not 
 enjoying her own, but envying her companion's. 
 What she envied her most for was her decorated 
 simplicity. Silvia wore her decorations externally; 
 she didn't attempt to swallow them and, by diges- 
 tion, make them build up a complicated identity. 
 Worst of all — from the envious point of view — she
 
 PETER 101 
 
 didn't know how splendidly embellished she was. 
 ... It was as if j^ou said to a gallant soldier, "Have 
 you got the V.C?" sarcastically almost, and then he 
 looked down — not up — at his decorations, and found 
 that the little piece of riband was there. 
 
 Silvia moved a shade away from her companion. 
 The break in the thorn tree, with the consequent 
 oval of hot sunlight, quite accounted for that, 
 
 "But what haven't you got?" she asked. "You 
 live, as naturally as drawing breath, the life that's 
 so new to me, and so puzzling and so delightful; 
 and below and beyond all that, you're on the point 
 of being married. He chose you, out of all the world, 
 and you found all the time that you had chosen 
 him. What is there left for you, just you now and 
 here, to want? You're adorable " 
 
 Silvia wrestled and threw the bugbear of shyness 
 which so often sat on her shoulders and strangled 
 her neck. There it writhed on the grass, not in the 
 least dead, but, for the moment, knocked out. 
 
 "Oh, sometimes I wish I was a boy," she said. 
 "I'm more in that key than in ours. Sometimes I 
 think " 
 
 Nellie projected herself into that gap of sunlight 
 which, possibly, Silvia shrank from. She had no 
 definite scheme of exploration for the moment, but 
 it seemed to her that something in the tangle of 
 motives with which she had invited Silvia to share 
 her afternoon was faintly stirring as if with unravel- 
 ment. Those loops and knots might get more inex- 
 tricably muddled, it is true; but, conceivably, the 
 whole thing might "come out" like a conjuring 
 trick. 
 
 "Ah, what is it that you think?" she asked. "Don't 
 stop so tantalizingly. As if thinking wasn't every-
 
 102 PETER 
 
 thing! Whatever one does is only a clumsy trans- 
 lation of what one has thought. Think aloud!" 
 
 Nellie looked more than ever at that moment like 
 some exquisite wild presence of the woodlands, 
 Dryad or Bacchante, delicate and subtle in face and 
 limb and brain, and merely proto-plasmic in soul, a 
 creature made for the bedazzlement and the undoing 
 of man. Certainly she had woven her spells over 
 Silvia again; the momentary check in the incanta- 
 tion, when she had attributed "Peter-thought" to 
 her, had passed as swiftly as the shadow of one of 
 those light clouds which drifted over the grass. 
 
 But at that moment, when she so bewilderingly 
 shone out again, there formed itself in Silvia's mind, 
 as she tried to follow this injunction to think aloud, 
 not the image of her at all, but of Peter. For if 
 Nellie was divinely akin to the blossoming thickets 
 and the shadows that were beginning to lengthen 
 over the grass, making cool islands on which the deer 
 were grazing now, he, too, would be no less har- 
 moniously bestowed by this reflecting lake-side. It 
 was not that either of them suggested rurality; no 
 one, indeed, was more emphatically of the street and 
 the ballroom and the complication of the city than 
 they. But by some secret pedigree of soul they were 
 of the house and lineage of the things that glowed 
 and enjoyed and were lovely, and gave as little 
 thought to yesterday as they took for to-morrow. 
 All this, not catalogued in detail, but fused into a 
 single luminous impression, passed through Silvia's 
 consciousness like the wink of summer light- 
 
 'J3^ 
 
 nmg. 
 
 "As if it wasn't difiicult enough to think at all," 
 she said, "and as for thinking aloud, thinking articu- 
 lately — if I'm to sum it up, ever so clumsily, it's
 
 PETER 103 
 
 merely that I adore, with all the incense I've got, 
 the thought of your happiness. It does matter so 
 much to me, and . . . and isn't it noble to find 
 someone who matters? Very few people really mat- 
 ter; I suppose little, silly, finite hearts like ours can't 
 take in many. But those who do matter must come 
 right in, if they don't mind. They mustn't risk 
 themselves by hanging about on the doorstep ; they 
 might catch cold. Aren't I talking nonsense? It's 
 your fault for taking me into the country, for as- 
 suredly it has gone to my head. Where there's a 
 stifle of roofs and a choke of streets nobody matters 
 and everyone is quite delightful. What a stupid 
 word that is, and how expressive of a stupid thing." 
 
 Silvia very deliberately shot off into the back- 
 water of nonsense, so to speak, out of the main 
 stream, for the sun was on the water, in this dazzle 
 of Nellie's personality, and she could not see toward 
 what weir the hurrying river might be taking her. 
 Very likely there was no weir; the glistening tide, 
 running swift, would very likely spread out into 
 some broad expanse of Peace-pools; but it was the 
 brightness that prevented scrutiny. 
 
 By some flash of woodland instinct, by some un- 
 canny perception, Nellie divined the cause of this 
 retirement into the backwater of triviality. With a 
 ruthlessness that rivalled Mrs. Wardour's pursuit 
 of desirable guests, she caught the rope of Silvia's 
 boat, so to speak, before she could tie it to the secur- 
 ity of some overhanging branch, and shot it out into 
 the main stream again. 
 
 "Yes, my dear," she said, ''you talk nonsense de- 
 lightfully. Ah, I didn't mean stupidly ; I didn't mean 
 in the sense you had just labelled it with. I meant 
 delightfully, charmingly. But just for a change
 
 104 PETER 
 
 after that delightful (now I mean stupid) London, 
 we're talking sense. You interested me indescrib- 
 ably just now. You said you were more in a boy's 
 key than a girl's. What did you mean exactly?" 
 
 Silvia watched the receding shore to which she 
 had hoped to tie up. . . . After all, what did it mat- 
 ter if there was a weir, not a Peace-pool down there 
 in that dazzle of benignant sunshine? But there 
 was another difi&culty in the way of expression. 
 
 ''I can't really explain," she said. 'There are 
 things so simple that no explanation is possible. If 
 I said, 'It is a hot day,' and you told me to explain, 
 I couldn't. I could only say, 'If you don't feel it, 
 if you don't know what that means, I can't help 
 you.' It's the same with all elemental things." 
 
 Nellie regarded her with eyes that were framed 
 in some steely sort of interest; eyes that were eager 
 to know not from the kindly tenderness of friends 
 but from some surgical curiosity. 
 
 "I think I know what you mean by a 'boy's key,' " 
 she said. "Let me see if I can explain you to your- 
 self, Silvia, since you won't — ah, can't — explain your- 
 self to me. If you were in love, for instance, you 
 would passionately want to give love, to pour your- 
 self out, instead of, like most girls, provoking love 
 and permitting it and ever so eagerly receiving it. 
 You wouldn't want a man's homage so much as you 
 would want to be allowed to love him. You would 
 want, and how queer and delicious of you — you 
 lovely upside-down, inside-out creature." 
 
 This abrupt termination of the presentment of 
 Silvia in love, as imagined by her friend, was due to 
 something quite unexpected. There came on Silvia's 
 face, as her own privacy was thus invaded, a dumb, 
 but none the less violent signal of protest. She
 
 PETER 105 
 
 shrank and withdrew herself, as if a burglarious 
 bull's-eye had been shot through the window of her 
 room, where she lay lost in cool, soft maidenliness. 
 The contact was even more direct than that; it was 
 as if some pitiless incision had been made in her very 
 flesh. But with this pause in the application of the 
 knife, this shuttering of the bull's-eye — for any fur- 
 ther beam would have disclosed the deUberate at- 
 tempt to rifle the jewel-chest — there came the com- 
 plete withdrawal of her protesting signal. ... It 
 had been the bull's-eye of a friend that looked in, 
 the scissors of a dear amateur manicurist. . . . 
 
 She was sitting there hatless in the shade, and 
 with her hand she pushed her hair back. 
 
 ''Oh, you're a witch, Nellie," she said. "Two hun- 
 dred years ago you would have been burned, and I 
 should have helped to pile the faggots. I expect 
 that you're magically right. I can't tell, you know, 
 because I assure you, literally and soberly, that I 
 never have been in love. Literally never. Soberly 
 never. But, somehow, what you suggested (how did 
 you divine it, you witch?) touched something, made 
 something vibrate and sing. I didn't know anything 
 about it; I didn't know it was there. Then you 
 put your finger on it, and I knew ... I knew I 
 had it." 
 
 "And then you just hated me for a moment," 
 said Nellie. 
 
 Silvia did not quite accept this. 
 
 "You made me wince," she said in correction. 
 "And, oh, yes, I'll confess: just for a moment you 
 seemed to me hostile and hurting. You aren't; 
 you're heavenly and healing. You taught me, bless 
 you. But I think you're a witch all the same. It 
 wasn't telepathy, because you guessed — no, not
 
 106 PETER 
 
 guessed — you told me something about myself that 
 I didn't know, and couldn't have known, and can't 
 know now, for that matter. Oh, you lucky creature. 
 You've fallen in love. You know it all. Did you 
 do it in the manner you attribute to me? Did you 
 savagely give, not wanting anything but to give, 
 give. . . . How did you put it just now? To be 
 allowed to love, to pour yourself out, to pay homage 
 instead of exacting it? The boy's key! My dear^ 
 it seems ages and ages since that phrase came up. 
 I've had a whole drama since then, you know." 
 
 Nellie, in point of fact, had had her drama, too. 
 But it was as yet undetermined. She had not got at 
 the root facts for which she was burrowing. Silvia's 
 volley of questions, anyhow, were easy of response. 
 They were, barring a certain inversion, very Vic- 
 torian questions, dating from the days when men 
 blindly adored and women swooned at the declara- 
 tion of the passion which they had done their level 
 best to excite. But that inversion made to her, and 
 for particular reasons, a wildly interesting specula- 
 tion. Silvia, when she loved (so much was certain), 
 would love in the "boy's key," the eager, evocative 
 key. She acknowledged herself, in contemplation 
 of the event, as blindly adoring, as being "allowed" 
 to love. Whether that was entirely a prognostica- 
 tion, or whether it was already partially, poten- 
 tially fulfilled was another question, and the applica- 
 tion of that concerned Nellie, and her own purposes, 
 alone. Soon, deftly now, with the lesson of Silvia's 
 revolt against surprises, she would get a further 
 result from her dissection. At present there was the 
 impatient, intimate volley of questions to answer. 
 
 "Oh, my dear, I understand so well the 'boy's 
 key,' " she said. "A triumphal, victorious surrender,
 
 PETER 107 
 
 with all the bells ringing— isn't that it? A march 
 out with white flags insolently flying. I should love 
 to be like that, if I was like that. But that isn't my 
 key. I just surrendered, rather terrified, you know. 
 But I couldn't be terrified of Philip for long: he's 
 such a dear." 
 
 This could not be considered more than an approx- 
 imate account, a vague sketch, very faintly resembl- 
 ing the scene it portrayed — a quiet, feminine dis- 
 closure. But Nellie did not want to discuss that; 
 she wanted to get back to her tangled skeins again. 
 
 "I should like to see you in love, Silvia," she said. 
 "Promise to tell me when it happens. At least, you 
 needn't; it will be wonderfully obvious, you in your 
 'boy's key.' Whom can we find for you who will just 
 fall in with that, and be the complement of it, mak- 
 ing it complete and round and perfect? Hasn't ever 
 so little a bit of him, just the top of his head come 
 over the horizon yet?" 
 
 Silvia did not withdraw nor raise any signal of 
 protest this time. She made no signal at all ; none, 
 at any rate, that could be perceived by the girl who 
 sat watching her very narrowly. And once more 
 Nellie fumbled, so to speak, at the shutter of her 
 bull's-eye which would flash on the light. 
 
 She looked at the watch on her wrist. 
 
 "My dear, how late it is!" she said. "We must 
 go at once. I promised to go to Mr. Mainwaring's 
 studio. Peter's father, you know. Peter will be 
 vexed if I don't come." 
 
 Then came the signal. Silvia jumped up with 
 wholly unnecessary alacrity. But more nimbly yet 
 did the high colour mount to her face.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 One evening, a week or so before the date fixed 
 for the wedding, Philip Beaumont and Nellie had 
 dined and gone together to the first night of some 
 new play. It was saliently characteristic of him — a 
 peak, so to say, prominently uprising from the 
 smooth level of his cultivated plains, that when ar- 
 rangements for such diversions and businesses were 
 in his hands they always went without a hitch. 
 Nellie had expressed a desire to see this play, with- 
 out giving long notice to him of her wish, and it fol- 
 lowed, as a matter of course, that he managed to get 
 gangway seats in the stalls at the most advantageous 
 distance from the stage. 
 
 Things happened like that with him: his own 
 unruffled smoothness, which seemed immune from 
 any of the attacks of asperities of one kind or an- 
 other, to which human nature is subject, seemed to 
 create a similar well-ordered decorum in his activi- 
 ties. To-night, for instance, the dinner which pre- 
 ceded the theatre was punctual and swiftly served, 
 so that neither hurry nor undue lingering followed 
 it: his motor slid up to the kerb-stone precisely as 
 they quitted the restaurant, and it might be taken 
 for granted that at the conclusion of the piece it 
 would glide up opposite the portals of the theatre 
 precisely as they emerged. Once in their seats there 
 had been but a few minutes to wait before the lights 
 were lowered for the first act; these afforded a con- 
 venient time to grasp the real and the histrionic 
 
 108
 
 PETER 109 
 
 names of the actors and see where the acts were 
 laid. 
 
 In those few minutes Nellie's glance had swept 
 over stalls and boxes, noting the position of various 
 friends. Silvia was in a box with her mother, and 
 loud screams of laughter from another box opposite, 
 perhaps temporarily turned into a parrot-house, 
 made it almost certain that Mrs. Trentham was 
 having her usual splendid time surrounded by a 
 bevy of young men. A glance verified that, and the 
 same glance showed her that Peter, who, she knew, 
 was to be present, was not among them. Then some 
 one entered the box where Silvia and her mother 
 sat, and she knew where Peter was. Immediately a 
 loud flamboyant voice just behind her informed her 
 that Peter's entry had been noticed by some one else. 
 
 "Glance, Maria mia," it said, "at that box next 
 the stage on the right, where is the lady with the 
 wealth of Golconda (I allude to diamonds) on her 
 head. You and I have no reason to be ashamed of 
 that tall handsome boy. Ah, behold just in front of 
 us the adorable Miss Heaton. Miss Heaton, the box 
 by the stage, the lady in diamonds: her name. A 
 word, a whisper. . . !" 
 
 The quenching of lights gave suitable cover for 
 the emotions evoked by this particular brand of the- 
 atrical slosh. There were whimsicalities, there was 
 slyness, there was maidenliness and womanliness, 
 there was the sense of looking through a keyhole; 
 but all these qualities were soaked and dyed with 
 slosh. Mr. Mainwaring, to Nellie's sense, seemed to 
 make himself spokesman for the house: he thrilled 
 to every slyness, however subtle, and he advertised, 
 on behalf of the rest of the audience, his apprecia- 
 tion. His resonant laugh proclaimed the gorgeous-
 
 110 PETER 
 
 ness of the less abstruse humours, as when the hero- 
 ine, being asked to give her lover a kiss, wore a face 
 of horror and said, ''Eh, on the Sawbath!" His 
 giggling and his slapping of his great big thigh gave 
 the cue for more recondite deliciousness; he ex- 
 claimed "Bravd! Bravd!" at the end of a long 
 speech; he blew his nose loudly at the blare of the 
 Highland Vox Humana, and bestowed one splendid 
 sob on his handkerchief when the author really let 
 himself go and opened all the sluices of sentimen- 
 tality. Mr. Mainwaring had to recover with gulps 
 and hiccups from that, but he pulled himself to- 
 gether like a man, and ran his fingers through his 
 hair to make it stand out from his interesting head. 
 Though these convulsions were resonant only just 
 behind her, Nellie gave them no more attention than 
 she would give to raindrops on the window: and the 
 doings of the stage occupied her as little, and as 
 little the presence next her of the perfect organizer. 
 .... A certain antagonism had grown up, had 
 seeded itself and was rapidly propagating. A vigor- 
 ous seedling was the fact of Peter's being where he 
 was. It was no business of hers, so she told herself, 
 with whom Peter went to the play, and she tried to 
 divert her mind by ironical comment. Peter, poor 
 and parasitic, would always dance a graceful attend- 
 ance on anyone who would give him dinner and a 
 seat in the box. Peter was like that, and for his 
 grace and politeness there was a due reward of din- 
 ners and dramas. He had a trick of sympathetic 
 listening, of intelligent interrogation that made his 
 companion feel herself interesting. You could put 
 him next the most crashing bore, and he would 
 wreathe himself in smiles until the crashing bore 
 felt herself to be the wittiest of sirens. And then
 
 PETER 111 
 
 suddenly the stupidity of her comments and their 
 irrelevance failed to divert Nellie altogether. 
 
 There was the antagonism, hugely grown by now. 
 Peter, so she made out, was as conscious of it as 
 she, and had certainly during the last week or two 
 contributed to its growth. He had answered Nellie's 
 formalities with similar politeness: he had watered 
 where she had sown, and she wondered whether he 
 contemplated with the dismay of which she was con- 
 scious, the lively crop of their combined husbandry. 
 
 It was the fashion, as she had once said to Silvia, 
 to be devoted to Peter, and Silvia seemed to have 
 "picked up" the fashion with the same ease as she 
 had exhibited all along her social pilgrimage. She 
 welcomed all that came up with a frolic, boy-like 
 enjoyment, but there was, as Nellie perfectly well 
 knew, a real Silvia, a serious Silvia, somebody with, 
 a heart and the shy treasures of it, a personality 
 curiously ungirl-like, something eager and hungry 
 and wholesome. She knew in advance what her way 
 of love would be, and her feet, firm and unstumbling 
 — Silvia would never stumble — were on the high 
 road. Of all the saunterers that she might meet 
 there, would she not, by the mere instinct of divina- 
 tion, choose the complement to her own unusual 
 personality? The complement certainly was some- 
 one feminine but not effeminate, indeterminate in 
 desire, somebody, in fact, extraordinarily like Nellie 
 herself. In the way of a girl, Silvia had already 
 quite succumbed to a charm that Nellie had not 
 troubled to exercise: she had recognized and sur- 
 rendered to it with that victorious white-flag aban- 
 donment. With what ringing of bells would she not 
 march out to the mildest call for capitulation when 
 a boy of that type blew his lazy horn?
 
 112 PETER 
 
 Long before the act was over Nellie had known 
 that she would present herself in the interval at Mrs. 
 Wardour's box. She would, in anticipation, have 
 much to say to Silvia : there would be plans for the 
 next day, or regrets over the dreadful occupations 
 that made plans impossible. There would be some 
 flat steady compliment about diamonds and parties 
 for Mrs. Wardour, and — there would be nothing at 
 all for Peter. She wanted, as far as she was aware, 
 just to take him in in the new situation which was 
 surely forming, as clouds form on a chilly windless 
 day. She wanted to get used to it, she wanted — or 
 did she not want? — to put the weed-killer of famil- 
 iarity on the crop of antagonism which was certainly 
 prospering in a manner wholly unlocked for. And 
 then, much quieted and reassured, she would return 
 to Philip, and feel for his hand when the lights went 
 down again. He had a good hand, cool and secure 
 and efficient: there was the sense of safety about 
 it, of correctness: it was all that a hand should be. 
 Then, still secure, and vastly more content than she 
 was now, he would take her back to her mother's 
 flat, and perhaps drop in for a half-hour. 
 
 She would say, quite correctly, "Come upstairs 
 and talk to mother and me lor a few minutes." She 
 would work the lift herself, and he would be sur- 
 prised at her mastery of it. Then, when they were 
 vomited forth at the fifth floor, she would remember 
 that her mother had gone to a bridge-party and 
 would certainly not be home before twelve. That 
 would give them their half-hour alone. 
 
 Nellie was not prepared for the companionship in 
 her expedition with which Mr. Mainwaring deco- 
 rated her. Standing in the middle of the gangway,
 
 PETER 113 
 
 he made her a sonorous and embellished little 
 speech when, rather rashly, she revealed her destina- 
 tion at the end of this interminable first act. 
 
 "Peter's friends, my Peter's friends are mine/' he 
 magnificently observed, ''and I feel it my duty to 
 pay my respects to them. Oblige me, Miss Heaton, 
 by accepting my escort to the box that glitters with 
 the combined distinction of diamonds and Peter's 
 presence. My wife — will 3''ou not Maria miaf — wUl 
 prefer to remain precisely where she is. Chocolates 
 my beloved? A cup of coffee? I will leave my purse 
 with you. Refresh yourself!" 
 
 Mrs. Mainwaring declined refreshment, except in 
 so far as it was ministered to by some advertisements 
 of Brighton hotels which appeared on the back of the 
 programme. There was one there which she had not 
 previously heard of and which seemed very reason- 
 able. 
 
 Her husband offered the sleeve of a velveteen-clad 
 arm to Nellie, and they proceeded upstairs with 
 pomp and the slight odour of turpentine, which was 
 all that was left of a dab of paint which had dropped 
 from his brush on to the skirt of his coat as a pro- 
 found inspiration seized him after he had dressed 
 for dinner. Philip gave a slightly iced negative to 
 Nellie's inquiry whether he was to join this pilgrim- 
 age. 
 
 Mr. Mainwaring did all the usual things. He 
 clapped his hand on Peter's shoulder when the intro- 
 ductions had been made, and hoped, with a stately 
 bow, that his boy had been behaving himself. He 
 waved his hand when Mrs. Wardour pronounced the 
 first act "very interesting," and recognized a fellow 
 artist. Before ten minutes were over Mrs. Wardour 
 was committed to look in next afternoon and see
 
 114 PETEK 
 
 "his few poor efforts." Then he became more con- 
 fidential and whispery. 
 
 "A marvellous, an incomparable type!" he said, 
 looking at Silvia, and back again at her mother. 
 "Who has had the felicity, the difficult felicity of 
 painting that glorious head? No one? I am aston- 
 ished. I would be shocked if I were capable of so 
 bourgeois an emotion. H'm!" 
 
 Beyond a visit to the private view of the Royal 
 Academy, Mrs. Wardour had not penetrated into 
 pictorial circles, and faintly, through the impression, 
 volubly audible, of Silvia and Nellie talking to- 
 gether, Peter heard his father leading up to the 
 series of war-cartoons suitable for mural decoration. 
 As regards that, he went walking in the wet woods, 
 as aloof from his father as from any other mag- 
 nificent self-advertiser. He had heard Mrs. Ward- 
 our's promise to go to the studio next day and to 
 bring Silvia, and he thought that very probably the 
 relations of Great Britain with foreign countries 
 might struggle through a free hour without his co- 
 operation. Meantime Nellie seemed to be talking 
 secrets to Silvia, and he sat, nursing his knee, a 
 little aloof from either group. Presently Nellie would 
 go back to her seat in the stalls, and his father would 
 do the same, and then he would hitch his chair a 
 little forward again. . . . 
 
 People began to troop back into the stalls; obvi- 
 ously a bell had rung announcing the imminence of 
 the second act. Nellie recognized that, and got up. 
 As yet she had barely spoken to him. 
 
 "I must get back to my Philip," she said very 
 properly. "Good-night, darling Silvia." 
 
 Peter had gone to open the door for them. 
 
 "Come to the flat, Peter," she said, without turn-
 
 PETER 115 
 
 ing her head, as she passed him. "I shall go straight 
 home." 
 
 The words were just dropped from her, as if by 
 accident or inadvertence, but the moment she had 
 spoken them she knew that this had been in the 
 main the object of her visit to the box: it was this 
 which she had primarily wanted. The merest hint 
 of an affirmative nod on Peter's part was sufficient 
 answer. 
 
 The play came to its happy concluding treacliness, 
 and they went out. Philip and Nellie, of course, 
 were among the first into the vestibule, where he 
 instantly caught his footman's eye. The Wardour 
 group must have left their box slightly before the 
 end, for Peter was seeing them into their motor, 
 thanking Mrs. Wardour for '"such an awfully nice 
 evening," and excusing himself from being given a 
 lift, as after a day in the office he liked walking 
 home — yes, all the way to South Kensington. How 
 nice it would be to see Mrs. Wardour at his father's 
 house next day. ... He lingered a moment on 
 the pavement, and as Nellie passed him on her way 
 to the motor, just nodded again, without seeming to 
 see her. 
 
 Philip's first concern, as they slid off into the 
 traffic, was that there should be air but no draught 
 for Nellie. Perhaps if he put her window quite up 
 and his half down. . . . Was that comfortable? 
 And a match for her cigarette? After which he 
 slipped her hand into his, and after a moment's 
 delay she returned the pressure. 
 
 In a flash of general, comprehensive conscious- 
 ness Nellie was aware how comfortable and well- 
 ordered the whole evening had been, and realized 
 that all days, evenings and mornings and afternoons
 
 116 PETER 
 
 alike, would to the end of life, owing to the very 
 ample "settlements" which she understood to have 
 been made, be padded and cushioned like this. She 
 was conscious at the same moment that her appre- 
 ciation of that lacked acuteness; she would just as 
 soon, to take an example, be walking with Peter 
 along the pavements, where nobody cared if she felt 
 a draught or not, as be having it all her own way in 
 unjostled progress. . . . The flash of this percep- 
 tion was instantaneous, measured only by that mo- 
 ment's delay in response to Philip's hand, for he 
 instantly began to tick again, as she put it to her- 
 self, a pleasant tick, a good, reliable, firm tick. 
 
 "A charming play, was it not, dear?" said he. 
 "And that delicious humour of his." 
 
 Well, if Nellie was going to be comfortable all her 
 life, it was only fair that she should contribute, 
 should put her penny into the placid bag. 
 
 "Delicious," she said. "I am sure it will have a 
 great success. And how interesting to be there on 
 the first night." 
 
 She broke off suddenly, and clasped Philip's arm. 
 
 "Ah — we nearly ran over that man," she cried. 
 
 Philip remained quite calm. He would obviously 
 be an admirable companion in a shipwreck or a 
 thunderstorm or a railway accident. This was, de- 
 lightfully, a new point about him, and Nellie found, 
 on the discovery of it, that she must have been 
 collecting his good points, for with the collector's 
 zeal she hastened to net it and add it to her speci- 
 mens. 
 
 He pressed the hand that she had laid on his arm, 
 and looked out of the window which he had opened 
 on his side of the motor. 
 
 "My dear, there is nothing to be alarmed about,"
 
 PETER 117 
 
 he said. "The man is quite safe, and has not forgot- 
 ten his usual vocabulary. You need never be afraid 
 with Logan; he is the most careful of drivers, and 
 has an extraordinary command of the brakes." 
 
 Nellie collected this new genus Philip ; sub-species 
 Logan. It added a little bit to the completeness. 
 
 ''Logan is quite trustworthy," he went on; "you 
 need never have a moment's qualm when he is on the 
 box. We were discussing the play. I should like to 
 see it again. Does not that strike you as the true 
 criterion as to whether you have essentially enjoyed 
 a play? If there is onlj^ mere glitter, one does not 
 want to repeat the experience. But there w^as gold, 
 I thought, this evening." 
 
 He was silent a moment, patting her hand, and 
 Nellie divined his mind with a rather terrible dis- 
 tinctness. She had been very considerably agitated 
 for that moment, and he assumed (how wisely and 
 how consciously) a complete oblivion of that. The 
 best method of reassuring her after the little testi- 
 monial to Logan was to be unaware of any fluttering 
 incident. A manly calm was the eflScient medicine 
 for feminine alarm. He went on talking about the 
 play as if nothing agitating had occurred. . . . 
 
 Swiftly as the car slid down Piccadilly Nellie's 
 brain was just a little in advance of it, and before 
 it slowed up at the house of flats she was mentally 
 on the doorstep. Earlier in the evening she had 
 contemplated Philip's admiring ascent with her in 
 the lift, her own surprised recollection, on their 
 emergence, that her mother would not yet be in. 
 But now that picture had been whisked off the screen 
 altogether; there would be no ascent with Philip, 
 no sudden remembrance of her mother's absence. 
 A subsequent engagement, not so conventional, had
 
 118 PETER 
 
 been proposed by her and assented to with a nod 
 so imperceptible that it had been repeated. 
 
 Philip had so often spent a final half-hour like 
 this, that, as the motor stopped, he almost as- 
 sumed it. 
 
 "And may I come up for a few minutes?" he 
 asked. 
 
 She laid her hand on his shoulder as if to presa 
 him back on to his seat. 
 
 "Don't think it horrid of me, dear," she said, "if 
 I say 'no.' I am a little tired, do you think? But 
 what a lovely evening we have had. You come and 
 fetch me in the morning, don't you? Good-night, 
 my dear." 
 
 The most ardent of lovers could hardly have in- 
 sisted, after this little collection of sentences, each 
 unmistakably clinking with some sort of final "ring," 
 and it was out of the question for Philip to repeat 
 a request which, in any case, had habit rather than 
 craving to back it. He would certainly have liked 
 to sit with Nellie and her mother — so he supposed — 
 for a quarter of an hour, discuss the play a little 
 more, quietly sun himself, contentedly basking in 
 Nellie's presence, and consider himself a very for- 
 tunate fellow ; but if she was a little tired, it would 
 have been unthinkably intrusive to beg her to take 
 a part and let him take a part in a seance that she 
 had no wish for. But she lingered a moment yet 
 in order to give no impression of being in any hurry; 
 then, forbidding him to get out of the motor, she 
 disappeared, with a final gesture as of but a short 
 separation, into the house. 
 
 Her mother, as Nellie knew would be the case, had 
 not yet returned from her card-party, nor would she
 
 PETER 119 
 
 be likely to do so for a full hour yet, and her absence, 
 in relation to the visitor she now expected, took for 
 itself a totally different aspect. She had limitless 
 opportunities and facilities for a tete-a-tete with 
 Philip, and her mother's absence, if it had been he 
 who had come admiringly up with her as she man- 
 aged the lift, would in no way have been a special, 
 even a desirable, condition. She and Philip were 
 so often alone together, and, before many days were 
 passed, would be so exclusively alone together, that 
 the gain of another such hour was, frankly, quite 
 imponderable. But for the last fortnight she had 
 scarcely had a private word with Peter, and what- 
 ever it was that she had to say to him in this visit 
 she had bidden him to, and whatever he had to 
 say to her (that he had something to say was prob- 
 able from his reiterated acceptance of her request), 
 it was quite certain that these things could not be 
 satisfactorily said, even, perhaps, said at all, before 
 any audience whatever. 
 
 Nellie had no definite knowledge, in any detail, 
 of even her own contribution to the coming inter- 
 view; all that she knew was that when, half an hour 
 later or an hour later, she would click the door on 
 his departure, she must somehow have looked 
 minutely, with his eyes to help her, at the antagon- 
 ism which had so odiously flourished. She intensely 
 hoped that it could be rooted up altogether and put 
 on to the rubbish heap of mistakes and misapprehen- 
 sions ; but whether her hope had much of the lumin- 
 osity of faith about it was not so certain. Too much 
 depended on what he had to tell her, and she did 
 not fall into the error of forecasting the upshot 
 before she knew what contribution he was to make 
 towards the preliminary process. . . . Then, with
 
 120 PETER 
 
 an internal vibration — partly of suspense, partly, 
 she admitted, of eager anticipation — she heard the 
 faint tingle of the electric bell. The servants, no 
 doubt, had gone to bed, and she went to the door 
 herself. 
 
 ''Hullo!" said Peter. 
 
 He stood there a moment, after the door wag 
 opened, without moving, his eyes agleam, and a 
 smile hovering over his mouth. Often and often 
 had they met in precisely similar fashion, he, as he 
 passed the door on his way home, giving one dis- 
 creet little ring, which Nellie would answer if she 
 felt disposed to see him. Sometimes her mother 
 would be in ; but of tener, if in, she had gone to bed, 
 and the two would sit over the fire, or, on hot nights, 
 seek the window-seat and spend an hour of desultory 
 intimacy, as two boys might, or two girls. But to- 
 night there was some little effervescent quality 
 added to the meeting; the spice that a combined 
 manoeuvre, however innocent, brought with it. Both 
 realized, too, that a talk, which must attempt to 
 readjust their old relations or fit them into the 
 changed conditions, lay ahead, and, for the moment, 
 each brought gaiety and goodwill to the task. The 
 best evidence for that was the assumption of the 
 old relations pending the readjustment. . . . 
 
 "Peter! How lovely of you!" she said. "Come 
 in^' 
 
 "Is she in?" he asked, putting down his coat and 
 hat. 
 
 "Mother? No; she's at a harpy party. Four 
 women rooking each other at bridge. They'll all be 
 trembling and being frightfully polite by this time. 
 Peter, bring your hat and coat in with you. If
 
 PETER 121 
 
 mother sees them there she will think Philip's here 
 and will come in to sit with us." 
 
 "And if she thought they were mine " 
 
 "She would come in twice. But if there are no 
 signs of anybody she will probably go to bed and 
 not interrupt us." 
 
 The night was hot, with a thundery, overcast sky, 
 and they sat together again in the window-seat. A 
 hundred feet below the street was roaring and rolling 
 along, thick with the discharge from theatres and 
 music halls. 
 
 "The clever one! And how did you get rid of 
 Philip?" asked Peter. 
 
 "Lied, darling," said Nellie, succinctly. 
 
 "Did you, indeed? Nellie, I don't think you're 
 getting on very well with your determination to be 
 conventional." 
 
 Nellie blew reproach at him in the shape of a 
 ragged smoke ring. 
 
 "I never heard anything so unjust," she said. 
 "Oh, Peter, it was just here we sat when I told you 
 I was going to be quite conventional. Wasn't it? 
 Don't say you don't remember. Well, I'm being the 
 model of conventionality." 
 
 "Pleasant, is it?" asked Peter, in a wonderfully 
 neutral voice. He did not yet quite know why Nellie 
 had summoned him here, and he was greatly aloof 
 still. 
 
 "Don't make slightly acid comments," said she, 
 "about conventionality. It's a fortnight, more than 
 a fortnight, since I saw you last. Oh, I don't count 
 balls and that sort of thing. Your friends are in- 
 visible at balls. You can only see your acquaint- 
 ances. What's the use of just seeing a friend? You've 
 got to be alone with a friend in order to see him."
 
 122 PETER 
 
 Nellie was still unaware of what course she was 
 really meaning to steer. It was to be a safe course, 
 anyhow, avoiding shoals, and avoiding icebergs. 
 Just at present Peter was making himself an iceberg. 
 She went on, talking rapidly and quite naturally, 
 with a view to bringing Peter out of his frozen aloof- 
 ness. 
 
 "But my scheme for conventionality never went 
 so far as to exclude my seeing my friends alto- 
 gether," she said. "And if, in order to see a par- 
 ticular friend I have to tell lies to one person and — 
 and tell the other not to leave his coat in the hall, 
 that's not my fault. It's mother's fault for not hav- 
 ing gone to bed yet; it's Philip's fault for proposing 
 to drop in." 
 
 Peter's smile hovered over his face again, not quite 
 breaking through. 
 
 "Brutes," he said. "Perfect brutes." 
 
 "I'm not sure that you aren't the worst of them 
 all," remarked Nellie. 
 
 His smile broke through at that, and he laughed. 
 
 "You may be quite sure I'm not a brute," he said. 
 "But I should like to know why you think so." 
 
 Nellie was sincere enough in her desire to re- 
 establish a genuine, friendly relationship with him 
 again. At present their grip on each other was 
 clogged and rusted. If this rather unconventional 
 meeting was to be of any use (what use she did not 
 clearly define), the first essential was to wipe the 
 wheels clean. 
 
 "You know perfectly well," she said. "Ever since 
 my engagement you have taken yourself completely 
 away. You have shut yourself up. You have bolted 
 your windows and barred your doors to me. Haven't 
 you?"
 
 PETER 123 
 
 Peter weighed this accusation. It might possibly 
 be true; but it contained an arguable point, which 
 was easy to state. 
 
 "I never bolted the windows and barred the 
 doors," he said. "It was you who did that. I didn't 
 arrange that you should marry Philip. That's what 
 shut me up, if you choose to put it like that. I told 
 you at the time that our relations must be changed." 
 
 She shook her head. 
 
 "No relations that ever existed between us need 
 have been changed," she said. ''You speak as if we 
 had been in love with each other." 
 
 *'Not at all. We never were in love with each 
 other ; that we both know. But " 
 
 "What then?" she asked. 
 
 "I'll take your simile," he said. "My windows 
 and doors were open to you? I might easily have 
 fallen in love with you, or, for that matter, you with 
 me. Our relationship, and the possibilities it held, 
 were just those of open doors and windows. Then 
 you came round and shut me up. And Philip drew 
 the curtains." 
 
 She took this in and turned it about before she 
 answered. 
 
 "By which you mean," she said, "that whatever 
 our relationship might have ripened into, I nipped 
 it off — like a frost." 
 
 "Yes," said he. "A latish frost." 
 
 She got up and moved about the room, patting a 
 cushion here and setting a chair straight there. 
 Peter did not move; he did not even turn his head; 
 but he was quite aware of her pondering restless- 
 ness. He was aware, too, that so long as he held 
 his tongue he had the whip-hand. The evidence for 
 that was soon apparent.
 
 124 PETER 
 
 "I didn't know that my engagement would have 
 that effect," she said. "I think it is unreasonable 
 that it should have that effect. If you had been in 
 love with me it would have been different; in that 
 case I could have understood it. But, as it was, 
 why should it have made any change in our friend- 
 ship?" 
 
 "What's the use of asking me?" said Peter, with 
 a sudden touch of irritation. "I can't tell you why. 
 I don't knoiv the 'why' of anything under the sun. 
 But put it the other way about. Suppose that it had 
 been I who had got engaged to some girl, wouldn't 
 that have made any change in your sense of our 
 friendship?" 
 
 Peter had spread himself a little over the window- 
 seat when she got up. Now when she came back to 
 her old seat she pushed his encroaching knee aside. 
 
 "That's not the same thing," she said. "A girl 
 can't be a very intimate friend of a married man in 
 the same way that a man can be a very intimate 
 friend of a mamed woman." 
 
 "I won't ask why," said Peter gently, "because 
 I'm aware that you don't know." 
 
 "What I say is perfectly true, though." 
 
 "Not in the instance of you and me. You knew 
 quite well that I wasn't going to give myself a free 
 rein to fall in love with you after you had settled to 
 marry someone else. Besides, if you come to think 
 of it, a man dangling after a married woman is just 
 as ridiculous as a girl dangling after a married man. 
 I don't see why a man shouldn't be allowed to retain 
 his self-respect as much as a woman." 
 
 Though, as far as the spoken word went, they had 
 arrived at no agreement, no compromise even on 
 which agreement could be based, they both felt that
 
 PETER 125 
 
 somehow in the region of unspoken treaties the 
 ground had been cleared. Though the wheels did 
 not yet revolve again, rust had been wiped off them. 
 And in Peter's next speech the scouring of the wash- 
 leather was busy. 
 
 "You mustn't think that I don't regret what we're 
 suffering under, Nellie," he said. "I regret it most 
 awfully. I've been saying, and I stick to it still, that 
 you are responsible for it. It was you who closed 
 my windows and bolted my doors. It would be 
 simply silly of me to pretend that I was broken- 
 hearted about it, for that would imply that I had 
 been or was in love with you. But that doesn't 
 prevent my being sorry, or my missing, which I 
 acutely do, our old relationship. I don't know if it's 
 any use trying to recapture it. Trying,' probably, 
 hasn't much effect on what you feel. It's no use 
 'trying' to feel hot if you happen to feel cold, or 
 trying to feel ill when you do feel well " 
 
 "My dear, it makes the whole difference," said 
 Nellie quickly. "Will you try to — to feel yourself 
 back in your relationship with me? I want it, too, 
 Peter." 
 
 She pulled back his encroaching knee which just 
 now she had pushed away and kept her hand on it. 
 The very fact that this triviality was so instinctive 
 constituted the significance of it. 
 
 "I hadn't reckoned with losing you," she went on. 
 "No, I don't excuse myself or account for myself. 
 Probably I should have done just the same if I had 
 reckoned with it. Probably, if it was all to do again 
 now, I should do the same. Don't let us labour the 
 point, if you'll try, that's all I ask. I'll try, too, if 
 that will be of any use. I put my nose in the air just 
 as much as you did, as if my nose wasn't sufficiently
 
 126 PETER 
 
 in the air already. But it always turns up at the 
 end." 
 
 "Not to matter; don't mention it," said Peter. 
 
 "That's the old style, Peter," she said. "Keep it 
 up; run with it till it works on its own account. 
 Motorcycle, you know." 
 
 They were looking at each other now with some- 
 thing of the alert unconsciousness of two old friends 
 alone together. But certainly the machine required 
 running with at present. 
 
 "They're heavy things to push when they won't 
 get going," said he. 
 
 "How odious you are!" 
 
 "Hurrah for that word!" said Peter. 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 "I wonder how often we have told each other we 
 were odious." 
 
 NeUie was silent, and in that moment's pause 
 Peter was conscious that, real no doubt, as had been 
 her desire to uproot the antagonism that had grown 
 up between them, that process had been no more 
 than preliminary to something that should follow. 
 The ground had to be cleared first, but the clearing 
 of the ground was not her ultimate objective. The 
 moment he perceived that at all, he saw how obvious 
 it was; how her appearance suddenly in Mrs. 
 Wardour's box that evening gave a clue to the nature 
 of the further development. Then, quick as an 
 echo, she began to reproduce the thought in his 
 mind. 
 
 "Let's pick up the thread again," she said. "I 
 can give you my weavings very simply. Trousseau, 
 Philip; Philip, trousseau. How lucky men are! 
 When a man is going to be married he doesn't have
 
 PETER 127 
 
 to spend his days in buying things. He doesn't have 
 to buy anything." 
 
 "Wedding-ring," said Peter, in parenthesis. 
 
 "Yes; but you can't have occupied yourself with 
 that unless you have had a private marriage behind 
 the locked doors and curtained windows. We were 
 telling each other what we had been doing in this 
 long interval. It was your turn." 
 
 "Oh, usual things," said he. "Foreign Office, din- 
 ner; breakfast, Foreign Office." 
 
 "And how's May Trentham?" asked Nellie, wheel- 
 ing in smaller circles round this objective. "You've 
 left her out; she wouldn't like that." 
 
 "She left me out to-night," said Peter, "She had 
 that immense box for the play and never asked me 
 to it." 
 
 Nellie folded her wings and dropped. 
 
 "But you got there all right," she said. "She saw 
 you, too, sitting with Mrs. Wardour, who hasn't 
 asked her to the party for the Russian ballet. Blood, 
 toy dear; there'll be blood over that. Do you know, 
 I think Silvia is one of the most attractive girls I 
 have ever seen." 
 
 As she spoke there came from outside the tingle 
 of the front door bell. Nellie got up with a finger on 
 her lip. 
 
 "Who on earth can that be?" she whispered. 
 
 "It may be anybody," said Peter, very prudently. 
 "You can't tell till you go and see. Perhaps it's 
 Philip ; we may have got hold of each other's hats by 
 mistake, and he's come here " 
 
 Nellie suppressed a laugh. 
 
 "Probably mother," she said. "She forgets her 
 latchkey when she thinks she'll be late home. I
 
 128 PETER 
 
 shan't say vou're here, or she'd come in and spoil our 
 talk." 
 
 "Oh, what a tangled " began Peter. 
 
 Nellie took the additional precaution of turning 
 out the lights in the room where they were sitting 
 and leaving the door open. Close outside was the 
 entrance door from the stairs into the flat, and Peter, 
 sitting in the window-seat, heard with an amusement 
 that dimpled his cheeks Nellie's unhesitating ac- 
 count of herself. It appeared that she had just come 
 in and was just going to bed; she had already put 
 out the lights in the sitting-room. There followed 
 a triumphant announcement of her mother's win- 
 nings, an affectionate good night, and the closing of 
 a door down the passage. Sitting there in the dark 
 Peter drew the conclusion that Nellie put a high 
 prtemium on the pursuit of the conversation in 
 which, as he infallibly conjectured, she had just got 
 down to the bone. She would scarcely, for the 
 aesthetic delight in tortuosity, have concealed the 
 fact that he had dropped in, as he had done a 
 hundred times before, for a few minutes' chat on his 
 way home. She wanted to talk about Silvia. For 
 his part he was perfectly ready to talk about Silvia. 
 
 Just before the closing of the door, which must 
 certainly be that of Mrs. Heaton's bedroom, Nellie 
 had said: "I'll put out the lights; good night, dear. 
 What a lovely last rubber," and Peter, feeling his 
 way, so to speak, into Nellie's mind by the analogy 
 of his own, knew exactly what she was doing. In a 
 moment now there would be the click of the extin- 
 guished light in the haU, and she would very softly 
 rustle back in the dark into the room where he was 
 sitting, close the door of that, and then, perhaps, 
 turn on the light inside again, or, as likely as not,
 
 PETER 129 
 
 shuffle back into the window-seat. So often had they 
 sat there talking in the dark. 
 
 And as he waited for those five or ten seconds to 
 pass, he was invaded by a sense of passionate re- 
 bellion against himself. There was the girl, whom 
 for the last two years he had been interested in, 
 fond of to the practical exclusion of anyone else, and 
 now, at this moment she, engaged to a man whom 
 she did not ever so remotely love, was presently 
 stealing back, on the eve of her marriage, to spend 
 a more than midnight hour with him. He ought to 
 have been a balloon, rising into some stratum of 
 sunlight high above the twi-lit earth, and instead he 
 was bumping heavily over uneven ground, quite 
 unable to get into the air. No matter what the 
 ballast of worldly consideration he threw out, he 
 could not feel himself lifting, and Nellie, when she 
 came back, would only add to the weight. 
 
 His expectations were ruthlessly, even ruefully 
 fulfilled. She stole in, invisible in the darkened 
 oblong of the door, closed it, and without turning up 
 the light, established herself in the window-seat 
 again. 
 
 "Mother's gone to her room," she said. "I did it 
 so cleverly, Peter. I said I had just come in " 
 
 "I know; I heard," said Peter. "Brilliant.". 
 
 "Wasn't it? Now we can talk without any fear 
 of interruption. Where had we got to? Oh, I 
 know. I think Silvia is perfectly fascinating. Don't 
 you?" 
 
 Here was the bumping process, the added weight. 
 Eager though Nellie had been to re-establish old 
 relations between herself and him, there was a 
 livelier eagerness to ascertain anything about new 
 relations between himself and Silvia. If Nellie, as
 
 130 PETER 
 
 he had affirmed, had shut his windows and bolted his 
 doors for him, he now made a tour of the secure 
 premises to see that she had done her work 
 thoroughly. 
 
 "I don't know if I should say perfectly fascin- 
 ating," he said, 
 
 "But you like her, don't you?" 
 
 "Extremely, but " 
 
 Nellie waited to hear the qualification. She liked 
 the fact that there was a qualification, though at 
 present she did not know what it was. As nothing 
 further came, she spoke again, quite in the old 
 style. 
 
 "Oh, it's so rude to say, 'but,' and then not go on," 
 she said. 
 
 Peter jerked back his head. 
 
 "Let me be polite, then," he said. "One can always 
 observe the small decencies of life. What I nearly 
 said was: 'But I'm not in love with her.' I stopped 
 myself, Nellie, if you want to know, because it 
 seemed to me very vividly that it wasn't your busi- 
 ness." 
 
 There was an illumination cast on to her face 
 from the street lamps from below. To his intense 
 surprise he saw that her eyes, wide and unfocused, 
 grew suddenly dim. 
 
 "That's just what I, too, am beginning to realize," 
 she said. "Whatever you do now is none of my 
 business. I've got a separate establishment. I'm 
 bound to say that you have quite realized that. 
 You haven't asked me a single question about what 
 goes on in mine. It doesn't concern you any more; 
 therefore, you don't care. I shall learn to respect 
 your privacy, too, Peter. Another snub or so will 
 teach me."
 
 PETER 131 
 
 "That's nonsense!" he said quickly. 
 
 *Tt isn't nonsense. You treat me like a stranger 
 because I happen to be marrying someone else. If 
 you had been in love with me " 
 
 ''We've had that already," said Peter. 
 
 'Then listen to it this time. You've absolutely 
 been turning your back on me. You are piqued — 
 horrid word — because I don't want to remain an old 
 maid for your sake. Mayn't I feel interested in you 
 without your resenting it? You object to my marry- 
 ing Philip when you could have made it perfectly 
 clear " 
 
 "WTiat could I have made clear?" he asked. 
 
 "You could have made yourself indispensable to 
 me," she said. "A single further turn of the 
 screw " 
 
 Again she broke off. 
 
 "No, I'm wronging you," she said. "That final 
 turn of the screw must be made mutually. It never 
 came to us, though I was there, wasn't I, with my 
 screwdriver, and you with yours? It just didn't 
 happen. Let's make the best of what remains. A 
 good deal remains after all. We have everything 
 that is of value between us, except that final turn 
 of the screw. Good heavens, Peter, how I wish I 
 adored you! I do all but that. And you do the 
 same for me, darling, when all is said and done. If 
 only you were masterful and masculine, or if only 
 I was. the thing would be solved. As it is, we are 
 like two oysters in the flow of the tide, just gaping 
 at each other." 
 
 Nellie's ultimate objective, unless Peter had com- 
 pletely misunderstood her, 'had sunk out of sight for 
 him. 
 
 "And all the time the tide is flowing," he said;
 
 132 PETER 
 
 "that's so maddening of it. I mean that the days 
 and weeks and months are passing, and one doesn't 
 even think, still less does one feel; one only exists. 
 I am an oyster, it's quite true. But I don't make 
 pearls. Pearls, I believe, are only pieces of grit 
 which the clever oyster covers up with iridescent 
 stuff. All that stuff comes from the oyster's inside, 
 somehow. I can't rnake; I can't manufacture like 
 that. The clever oyster does it, or the normal oyster, 
 somewhere in the South Seas. I suppose I'm a 
 northern oyster — only meant to be eaten. Just to 
 be eaten. I really want somebody to come along 
 and gobble me up. I'm nothing but a small piece of 
 food." 
 
 Nellie found herself hugely interested in this. It 
 gave her what she wanted to know — namely, Peter's 
 own personal feelings as to how he stood to Silvia. 
 He had defined it negatively when he told her that 
 he was not in love with her; but here was a more 
 intimate revelation — namely, that of his willingness 
 to be absorbed. There, too, was the difference, vital 
 and essential, between herself and him, for she never 
 contemplated the possibility of being absorbed by 
 Philip. There would certainly be no absorption there 
 on either side; he, so she judged, was as little likely 
 to make that surrender as she. 
 
 For a moment she thought over what Peter had 
 said, instantly finding herself unable to accept it. 
 
 "I can imagine your being very indigestible," she 
 remarked. "I don't really think, nor, perhaps, do 
 you, that you will allow yourself to be assimilated. 
 I can't imagine you giving up your wet woods." 
 
 **I shall always remain selfish, you mean," said he. 
 ''Self-centred ; whatever you like to call it." 
 
 She frowned over this.
 
 PETER 133 
 
 "What I suppose I really mean is that I don't 
 understand you/' she said. And, getting up, she 
 fumbled for the switch of the light by the door. 
 "Let's throw some light on you." 
 
 He got up, too. 
 
 "I must go to bed," he said. "It's any hour of 
 the night." 
 
 She stood in front of him, stretching her arms, 
 which were a little cramped with leaning on the 
 window-sill, and looked at him gravely. 
 
 "You're going to ask Silvia to marry you, then?" 
 she said. 
 
 "I am, as soon as I think she will accept me." 
 
 Nellie received this point-blank. She had fully 
 expected it, and now, when it came, there was noth- 
 ing in her that ever so faintly winced. Then she 
 took two steps forward, put her hands on his 
 shoulders and kissed him. 
 
 "Peter, darling, what good friends we've been," 
 she said, "and we'll carry all that forward into the 
 future. There's no one like you. That's just what 
 I meant by kissing you, that, and to wish you all 
 good luck. Perhaps your son will marry my 
 daughter; wouldn't that be nice; and then we can 
 envy them both, and be wildly jealous. As for ask- 
 ing Silvia — well, what about to-morrow? Perhaps 
 it's rather late to ask her to-night." 
 
 He tiptoed his way out, and Nellie closed the door 
 very cautiously behind him. At that moment, when 
 she kissed him, she harl given him all of the very 
 best of her. She exulted in having done it, but 
 assuredly virtue had gone out of her. Restless and 
 unquiet in her bed, she thought over what was left 
 for her.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 John Mainwaring had prepared his studio for 
 the visit of Mrs. Wardour and Silvia next day with 
 the utmost dramatic completeness, employing for 
 their reception the scenery and the setting which 
 suggested itself as being most likely to impress and 
 astound. With this end in view he had littered the 
 room with all possible properties, bringing down 
 from the attics stacks of his own pictures, which he 
 disposed in careless profusion round the walls. 
 Sketch books and paint boxes littered the tables, 
 lay-figures peeped from behind easels, robes trailed 
 over sofa-backs, and he, when his visitors were an- 
 nounced, had designed that he himself should be 
 found, in his oldest velveteen coat and morocco 
 slippers, at the top of the step-ladder which he had 
 put into position again in front of the great canvas 
 representing Satan odiously whispering to the Ger- 
 man Emperor. There, absorbed in his inspired 
 labours, he was to be giving the last, the crowning, 
 the positively final terrific touch to it as his visitors 
 (and, as he hoped, his victims) entered. 
 
 Since the work had actually been finished at least 
 a month ago, and on that occasion had been toasted 
 in glasses of port wine by himself, his wife and Peter, 
 he had thought it prudent to inform her that more 
 last touches were to be applied to it again to-day. 
 Visitors, he had added, were dropping in that after- 
 noon, and she would, no doubt, be sitting upstairs in 
 the drawmg-room when they arrived, with tea pre- 
 
 134
 
 PETER 135 
 
 pared for their refreshment. When the time came 
 he would yodel for her, and she would come down, 
 be presented to Mrs. Wardour and her daughter, 
 and would scold him for keeping these ladies looking 
 at his stupid pictures instead of bringing them up to 
 tea. ... 
 
 Such was the general idea of the opening of a 
 manoeuvre from which he, with a quite incurable 
 optimism, expected very gratifying results. Peter 
 had already alluded to the suiprising dawn of Mrs. 
 Wardour on the town, and he himself, at the play 
 the night before, had paved a way for a commission 
 to execute a portrait of Silvia. He had no idea 
 whether or not Mrs. Wardour inserted any of these 
 golden tentacles with which, like an octopus, she 
 appeared to be enveloping London, into the domain 
 of art, but it was worth while hoping that her sense 
 of completion would not be satisfied unless she had 
 Silvia's portrait painted. That, so he had ascer- 
 tained, had not been done, and he had, so to speak, 
 left a card "soliciting the favour of a call." The call 
 certainly was to be made that afternoon, and his 
 imagination now, bit in teeth and wildly galloping, 
 foresaw another possible commission in the portrait 
 of Mrs. Wardour herself. Perhaps — here was the 
 rosiest of the summits yet in view — he might profit- 
 ably dispose of that great cartoon which Mrs. 
 Wardour would so soon be privileged to see receiving 
 its finishing touches. Farther than that his vision 
 did not definitely project itself, but in sunlit and 
 shining mists he could vaguely see himself working 
 for all he was worth (and for much of what Mrs. 
 Wardour was worth) at more of these stupendous 
 canvases, and berthing each, as soon as possible, in 
 the same remunerative harbourage.
 
 136 PETER 
 
 The ring at the bell of the street door warned him 
 to scamper up his step-ladder, and absorb himself 
 in finishing touches at the top of the thundercloud 
 of war. In due time the studio door opened and 
 Burrows, announcing his visitors, had to raise her 
 voice to the pitch of a vendor of street-wares and 
 recite the names again before she was so fortunate 
 as to attract his attention. Then Mr. Mainwaring 
 turned slowly round with a dazed expression and, 
 shading his eyes, perceived the expected presences. 
 Then with brush in one hand and palette in the 
 other, he gave an ecstatic cry of welcome (not to be 
 confused with the yodelling summons for his wife), 
 and came bounding down the step-ladder. Divest- 
 ing himself of his palette and brush, he held out 
 both hands. 
 
 *'Ah, my dear friends," he said, "but this is charm- 
 ing. I am ashamed of myself to be found in such 
 dishevelment, but — well, we artists are like that, silly 
 donkeys as we are, and I had forgotten, for the mo- 
 ment I had forgotten the advent of my delightful 
 visitors." 
 
 He held a hand of each of them for a moment, 
 with pressure and expression, and then withdrew his 
 left hand, holding it to his forehead. 
 
 "A finishing touch," he said. "I was at that very 
 moment putting the last touch of paint on to my 
 canvas. Let me forget that: give me a moment to 
 forget it. You are here, that is the great point." 
 
 He made a splendid obeisance, and as he recovered 
 thrust back his hair, and embarked on a period. 
 
 "You find me, dear Mrs. Wardour," he said, "in 
 a moment of triumph, of jubilation even. Little as 
 that can possibly mean to others, this is one of my 
 red letter days. A moment ago my brush touched
 
 PETER 137 
 
 my canvas for the last time. My picture is done, all 
 but for the obscure initials, which, in vermilion, I 
 shall humbly inscribe in the corner. Would it, by 
 chance, be of the smallest interest to you to see that 
 little rite performed? I take my brush then, I 
 squeeze out a morsel of paint, I trace those obscure 
 initials." 
 
 No inspiration could have been happier. Mrs. 
 Wardour's eye was already travelling over the huge 
 canvas with rapture and astonishment, and it was 
 thrilling that she should have come just in time to 
 see the artist testify in vermilion that this great 
 thing was of his own creation. Naturally she could 
 not be expected to know that if she had arrived half 
 an hour ago, or had not arrived for half an hour to 
 come, she would have been just in time for this cere- 
 mony. She turned to vSilvia. 
 
 "Well, if that isn't interesting, Silvia," she said 
 (as if Silvia had denied it). "Weren't we saying to 
 each other as we came along that perhaps we should 
 find Mr. Mainwaring painting? And what a work 
 of art too! My!" 
 
 John Mainwaring having recorded himself as 
 creator, became showman and spectator in one, and 
 moved the step-ladder aside so that he should both 
 get and give an uninterrupted view. Then, losing 
 himself once more as spectator, he propped his chin 
 on his hand and gazed at the work. 
 
 "Finished! Finished!" he said with a magnificent 
 detachment. "Now let us see what we think of it." 
 
 Mrs. Wardour gazed, too, and the more she gazed 
 the more powerful — that was exactly the word she 
 would have used — appeared the significance of this 
 tremendous presentment. She had no great taste for 
 pictures, but if you were in pursuit of pictures (and
 
 138 PETER 
 
 pictures had certainly been the objective of this 
 expedition), here was what she meant by a picture. 
 Not long before his death her husband had 
 bought what he called ''a picture or two," destined 
 to adorn the walls of the gallery which was so great 
 a feature in the castellated residence which he had 
 built on the ridge of Ashdown Forest. It ran the 
 whole length of the house, and when complete as to 
 embellishment, w^as to be a lane of pictures hung on 
 red Spanish brocade from end to end. To her mind, 
 no less than his, real pictures, true pictures, pictures 
 worth looking at, were brightly (or sombrely) col- 
 oured illustrations of famous personages, of well- 
 known places, or told a story ; best of all were those 
 that told a story. A few such had already been 
 plucked and gathered there; there was a very 
 splendid record of the coronation of Queen Victoria, 
 the rock of Gibraltar, with a P. and 0. steamer to 
 the left and a sunset to the right, an execution of 
 Mary, Queen of Scots, and, in lighter mood, a 
 delicious immensity called "Knights of the Bath," 
 in which a small boy and a large puppy shared a 
 sponging-tin. Here then and now the image of the 
 walls of the great picture-gallery, at present insuf- 
 ficiently clad, and crying out for covering, like a 
 bather who has lost his colthes, flashed into her 
 mind. The image was not sufficiently clearly 
 realized to admit of a definite association of ideas 
 between it and the allegory at which they were all 
 gazing, but certainly as she looked at the size — 
 particularly the size — of Mr. Mainwaring's master- 
 piece, the gallery at Howes occurred to her. If 
 there were to be pictures, here or elsewhere, she 
 liked to know what such pictures were ''about," and 
 she instantly perceived what this one was about.
 
 PETER 139 
 
 Now that the war was won, and the German Em- 
 peror, for all practical purposes, annihilated (he 
 had served his turn because the destruction of ships 
 by his submarines had brought her so excessive a 
 fortune), she could, perceiving the message of the 
 picture, unreservedly gloat over the realism of it. 
 
 ''If that isn't the German Emperor," she loudly 
 enunciated, "and if that isn't Satan whispering to 
 him about the war. Satan's saymg that he would 
 help, and, to be sure, he tried to. I do call that a 
 picture. And there's the war coming up behind, like 
 a thunderstorm. There's a subject for a picture, and 
 how beautifully you've done it, IVIr. Mainwaring." 
 
 He leaned his chin still more heavily against his 
 hand, 
 
 "Ah, you think so?" he asked. "I wish I thought 
 
 so!" 
 
 "But what is there to want?" asked Mrs. War- 
 dour. "It's all as clear as day. We saw nothing so 
 striking at the Royal Academy, did we, Silvia, when 
 we went to the Private View." 
 
 "The Academy? The Academy?" murmured Mr. 
 Mainwaring, as if he wondered whether he had heard 
 that name before. Then he shook his head gently, 
 as if abandoning the attempt to remember what the 
 Academy was. 
 
 "And I see lots of guns and bayonets underneath 
 the thundercloud," said Mrs. Wardour unerringly. 
 "They're coming up." 
 
 The artist still gazed, and, smoothing his chin 
 with his hand, he repeated: 
 
 "Yes; they're coming up, coming up." . . . 
 
 He gave a great start, and seemed to shake liim- 
 self like a big retriever emerging from the water, 
 where he had brought some thrown token to land.
 
 140 PETER 
 
 He did not know of the great gallery at Howes, 
 which starved for decoration ; but even if he had, he 
 would have bounded out of the water just like that. 
 
 "Basta! Basta!" he cried. '*! am boring you, 
 dear ladies, I am wearying you, I am making myself 
 a most unutterable teK:lium for you. Where is my 
 wife? Why is she not here to tap me on the shoulder 
 and say Tea'?" 
 
 He gave the preconcerted signal of a yodel, and 
 opening the door of the studio, repeated it. A faint 
 cry from upstairs answered him, and on the heels of 
 that cry Mrs. Mainwaring came downstairs. The 
 introductions were floridly effected, and she shook 
 her finger at her husband, and explained her reproof 
 to her visitors. 
 
 "I always tell him that when he is at his painting 
 he never knows the time," she said. "John, it is 
 very wrong of you to have kept Mrs. Wardour and 
 Miss Wardour down here." 
 
 She turned to this lady, as her husband vented 
 himself in contrition and apology to Silvia. 
 
 "Of course I'm no judge," she said, "for I always 
 think that everything my husband does is so striking. 
 But is not that a wonderful thing? The Emperor, 
 Satan. Yes. Such expressive faces! Now I must 
 insist on your coming to have a cup of tea. I always 
 have to drive my husband away from his easel. Look 
 at him in his old coat, too. John, I'm ashamed of 
 you ! Go and put on something more tidy." 
 
 Silvia felt somehow, as Mrs. Mainwaring gave 
 this skilful rendering of the general hints that she 
 had received, as if she was listening to some autom- 
 aton wound up to emit through a mask-like face 
 certain words, certain sentences, that formed its 
 accomplishment. That was the immediate effect, but
 
 PETER 141 
 
 immediately afterwards followed the conjecture that 
 it was not a mere automaton that spoke. It said, so 
 she seemed to gather, what it had been told (or 
 thereabouts) to say, but probalDly Mrs, Mainwaring 
 was capable of saying and doing things for herself. 
 Though she had been pulled through the funnel of 
 Mr. JMainwaring's personality, she had not lost her 
 ow^n individual self. But what that individual self 
 was she could form no conjecture. It was as if a 
 voice came from inside a window over which a blind 
 had been completely drawn. She could arrive at no 
 perception of who it was who talked behind the blind, 
 nor was the room lit within so that, at the least, there 
 came a shadow on the blind, suggesting features. 
 All this was no more than the details of the first 
 impression made by a nev/ acquaintance, her in- 
 stinctive valuation of her hostess, something to work 
 upon provisionally. Mrs. Mainwaring was only re- 
 peating her lessons, which she seemed to know so 
 excellently well; she gave at present no indication 
 of w^hat she w^as like when her lessons were over. 
 But that she existed Silvia had no doubt whatever. 
 There were people like that, people who had an 
 aloof, sequestered life of their own. Then, without 
 being conscious of the transition, she knew that she 
 was thinking of IVIrs. Mainwaring no longer, but of 
 Peter. 
 
 IMore yodelling proclaimed that the artist had put 
 on his tidy coat, and he pranced back, and led the 
 way upstairs with Mrs. Wardour, saying that he was 
 as hungry as a hunter, and hoping that his wife had 
 provided them with a good tea. Mrs. Mainwaring, 
 on the other hand, seemed a little to be detaining 
 Silvia; she pointed out other of the works of art that 
 so plentifully bestrewed the room, and this struck
 
 142 PETER 
 
 the girl, somehow, as bemg part of a manoeuvre in 
 no way connected with the lesson she had so fault- 
 lessly repeated. The blind had been ever so slightly 
 pushed aside; someone was looking out. 
 
 "Yes, there's a picture my husband painted of my 
 son last year," she said. "I think you've met Peter, 
 haven't you, Miss Wardour? That was considered 
 to be very like him. I hope he will be home for 
 tea; he said he thought he could get away from 
 the Foreign Office early to-day. Very interesting for 
 him to be in the Foreign Office." 
 
 Silvia said something amiable about the portrait, 
 which was quite recognizable. 
 
 ''So pleased you think it like," continued Mrs. 
 Mainwaring. "Yes, Peter is at the Foreign Office 
 all day, and he is generally out in the evening. I do 
 not go out very much. I sit at home mostly in the 
 evening and read." 
 
 Silvia welcomed a new topic. Though the blind 
 had been distinctly twitched aside she could not see 
 in; she was only conscious of being observed. But 
 this seemed an encouraging opportunity of getting 
 a glimpse. 
 
 "What do you read most?" she asked. "Novels? 
 Memoirs?" 
 
 "No, what I like reading about is places I have 
 never been to," said Mrs. Mainwaring. "I wonder, 
 when I read, what life is like in those places, and 
 how I should enjoy it." 
 
 If that was a glimpse for the girl it was a very 
 momentary one, lit, so to speak, not by any clear 
 illumination, but rather by some vague dim phos- 
 phorescence. Silvia, by some whimsical association 
 of ideas, found herself thinking of a phosphorescent 
 match-box ; if you felt for it in the dark, you might
 
 PETER 143 
 
 find matches there which would produce something 
 more illuminating. 
 
 "Ah, I, too, love new places," she said. "I love 
 waking in a new place, where I have arrived after 
 dark, and wondering what it is going to be like." 
 
 The glimpse grew a little more definite. 
 
 "I should like that, too," said Mrs. Mainwaring. 
 "But my husband's work keeps him in London, and 
 I do not get away very often. Shall we go upstairs 
 to tea?" 
 
 As they turned, Mrs. Mainwaring cast one glance 
 at the great cartoon. For the moment, infinitesimal 
 in duration, her neat smooth porcelain face grew 
 hostile and malevolent. 
 
 No sooner did Silvia appear in the doorway of the 
 little drawing-room facing the street, than Mr. 
 Mainwaring, to her immense surprise, bounded from 
 his seat, chasseed across the room to her, and fell on 
 his knees before her. 
 
 "Behold me in an attitude of abject entreaty!" 
 he said. "Your mother, subject to your acqui- 
 escence, dear Miss Silvia, has asked me to attempt 
 to use my best endeavours, feeble as they may be, to 
 render you the eager homage of an artist's skill. She 
 has asked me, subject to your consent, I repeat, to 
 paint your portrait for her." 
 
 Even as he spoke there came the quick light step 
 on the stairs, the identity of which Silvia, seldom 
 as she had heard it, knew with a certainty that sur- 
 prised her, and Peter came in. 
 
 "Kneel, Peter, my dear," said his father, enjoying 
 himself tremendously and putting up hands of sup- 
 plication. "Maria, my angel, I beseech you to kneel 
 too. We are entreating Miss Silvia; we are urging 
 the sacred claims of Art."
 
 lU PETER 
 
 Silvia gave a laugh of sheer amusement at this 
 ludicrous situation. Amusement was the only pos- 
 sible solvent for it. 
 
 "Oh. please, let nobody kneel!" she said. "And 
 you, Mr. Mainwaring, please get up. Yes, of course, 
 if my mother wishes it, and if Mr. Mainwaring will 
 be very patient and tell me what to do " 
 
 He bounded up again, ecstatic at the granting of 
 his petition. 
 
 "To do?" he asked. "Dear young lady, you have 
 only got to be. Be! Be just as you are now." 
 
 Again he supported his head on his hand, as when 
 he gazed at the cartoon, and with the other shaded 
 his eyes, staring at her in an embarrassing manner. 
 He gave a gay yodelling cry. 
 
 "I see it' — I see it!" he announced. "My superb 
 picture is already flaming in my brain. Madam" — 
 he turned to Mrs. Wardour — "you shall have a 
 masterpiece, and I, John Mainwaring, will have cre- 
 ated it." 
 
 He took his hand from his forehead, and made 
 a movement as if to cast something away. 
 
 "Enough!" he said. "Let us descend to earth 
 again. My angel, give us our tea. We are ex- 
 hausted by our adventures." 
 
 Peter, so Silvia noticed, was looking at his father 
 with eyebrows ever so little raised, as if in contem- 
 plation of some phenomenon that, however familiar, 
 was still remarkable, and his lips were faintly smil- 
 ing. When he turned to Silvia, as he now did, that 
 expression still remained there, and she felt that, 
 wordlessly, he had somehow taken her into his con- 
 fidence. Certainly his father amused him ; his raised 
 eyebrows and half-smiling mouth told her that. And 
 was there a touch of indulgent contempt in it?
 
 PETER 145 
 
 John Mainwaring continued to claim the atten- 
 tion of the little party in a boisterous rollicking 
 fashion ; it was like being out in a high wind, where 
 shouting was the only means of communication. He 
 assuaged the hunger which he confessed was pro- 
 digious, with incredible quantities of tea-cakes; he 
 ate cherries backwards, beginning with the stem. He 
 1 oared with laughter at his own jokes, he apologized 
 for his boyishness, and whispered to Mrs. Wardour 
 that he was ''in for" a scolding afterwards from his 
 wife for making such a noise. . . . And there, all 
 the time, far more potently vital was Peter blowing 
 off no steam like his father, but quietly, self-con- 
 tainedly reserving it. There was something inscrut- 
 able about that smooth handsome face, though now 
 and then, as their eyes casually met, Sylvia felt that 
 she was looking into clear dark beckoning water, and 
 if her eyes could not fathom it, that was no fault of 
 his transparence, but only of her own purblind pen- 
 etration. , . . 
 
 Mr. Mainwaring was, just now, launched on a 
 story, the very recollection of which made him laugh 
 in anticipation of what was coming, and Silvia could 
 let her eyes roam at will. She looked at her mother, 
 at the narrator, at Mrs. Mainwaring, all in turn, in 
 order, for the purposes of strict impartiality to look 
 at Peter as well. Mrs. Mainwaring with wifely and 
 domestic devotion had managed to attach to her face 
 some faint semblance of interest in the story, as if 
 it was new to her. Then came Peter's turn, and that 
 handsome inscrutability suddenly seemed to Silvia 
 to be like a reflecting surface, which, when you 
 looked at it, showed you not itself, but presented 
 your own image. She saw not at all how he stood 
 to her, but how she stood to him. Her own subjec-
 
 140 PETER 
 
 tive relation, the image of herself, regarding him was 
 flashed back at her. Looking at him, in some mys- 
 terious way, she saw herself. His dark clear water 
 gave back to her her own soul. . . . She whisked 
 lier eyes away, forgetting the impartiality of her 
 rotation, and found herself met by Mrs. Main- 
 waring. And there, so it seemed, she found compre- 
 hension of this bewildering impression. As regards 
 Mrs. Mainwaring herself, the blind was still drawn, 
 but from behind the blind Silvia heard inwardly 
 and unmistakedly that quiet, precise voice saying, 
 "The girl's in love with my Peter." Mrs. Main- 
 waring, by some divination as mysterious as her- 
 self, was in possession of that ; she and Silvia shared 
 the secret knowledge. And then, before the girl's 
 eyes could shift themselves to Mr. Mainwaring, who, 
 it seemed clear, from his thumping with his first on 
 the tea-table, was now at the climax of his narrative, 
 there peeped out from his wife's face that same 
 secret malevolence, with which, as they left the 
 studio, she had looked at the great work of art that 
 hung there, while she admitted that her husband's 
 work kept him and her in London. 
 
 The point of Mr. Mainwaring's story entailed the 
 use of the falsetto voice, and Peter at its conclusion 
 got up on the pretext of handing cigarettes, and re- 
 seated himself next Silvia. 
 
 "It is good of you," he said. 
 
 That was fragmentary enough, undetached from 
 any context, but Silvia found herself understanding 
 him perfectly. 
 
 "My mother and Mr. Mainwaring arranged it," 
 she said. "I couldn't very well say no, could F? Not 
 that I wanted to; I don't mean that." 
 
 "My father's delighted," said Peter,
 
 PETER 147 
 
 He paused a moment. 
 
 "He's in gi-eat form," he added. "You've de- 
 lighted him. Aren't we a weird family?" 
 
 There seemed no direct reply possible to this. 
 Silvia could not imagine herself assenting, and it 
 seemed banal as well as untrue to say, "No, you're 
 quite ordinary." But she found herself not wanting 
 and not even needing to reply at all. She wanted, 
 and for that matter she needed no more than to have 
 Peter there and be wonderfully happy. He shifted 
 himself a little in his very low chair as he turned to 
 get a match for his cigarette, and she again just 
 found herself noticing little things about him. His 
 fingers were very long and smooth, the nails very 
 neatly sheathed in the skin that held them: they 
 grew beautifully. Best of all was the short, closely- 
 clipped hair which, when he bent his head forward 
 towards the match, stopped just above his collar. 
 
 "You needn't answer that," he said. "Tell me, 
 instead, what you thought of the play last night. 
 Are people sentimental — girls particularly — like that 
 when they are really moved by emotion? I should 
 have thought that emotion killed sentimentality. 
 But it may be different in Scotland." 
 
 Peter, at the conclusion of this ridiculous speech, 
 suddenly found himself in the dilemma of talking 
 nonsense without the co-operation and backing of 
 the person whom he was talking nonsense to. Silvia, 
 at any rate, did not contribute any soap-bubbles of 
 her own, and, quick to perceive that, he turned to 
 his mother. 
 
 "What sort of hotels are there in Scotland, 
 mother?" he asked. "Oh, I must explain to Miss 
 Wardour. My mother loves reading the advertise-
 
 148 PETER 
 
 inent-s of hotels in Bradshaw. It gives her the sense 
 of travel, doesn't it, mother?" 
 
 He paused no more than infinitesimally and went 
 on again in the same breath. 
 
 "I love the sense of travel, too, and I got it from 
 going to the Foreign Office. Guatemala has been 
 my apres-midi." 
 
 Silvia triumphantly applauded his quickness. She 
 had seen on Mrs. Mainwaring's face a protest at the 
 invasion of her privacy; but Peter had done more 
 than merely see it, he had slammed the door again 
 with allusions to himself and Guatemala. That, 
 somehow, a perception as quick as intuition, seemed 
 to her extraordinarily characteristic of him. There 
 was no stumbling, no hesitation, where she would 
 have drawn attention to a similar mistake by a 
 bungling silence. His mind was like the hair on his 
 neck — abrupt and crisp. 
 
 The ball was with Peter again. 
 
 "I nearly fell asleep over Guatemala," he said. 
 ''Surely Guatemala is very remote; there are many 
 things more immediately interesting. Nellie's wed- 
 ding, by the way. It's less than a week ahead, and 
 every young man I know is buying new pocket- 
 handkerchiefs to weep into. I've bought an ex- 
 tremely large one. There'll be room for you to cry 
 into one half of it, Miss Silvia, while I cry into the 
 other. They promised to send it round on a hand 
 trolley, like a sack of coals." 
 
 Silvia laughed. 
 
 "Ah, I shall want some of that handkerchief," she 
 said, "but not to cry into, only to wave. She is going 
 to be tremendously happy, isn't she? What's he 
 like? I hardly know him." 
 
 Peter considered this.
 
 PETER 149 
 
 "He's like — he's like a very tidy room," he said. 
 "Solid furniture and not a speck of dust." 
 
 "And the person who sits in it?" asked the girl. 
 
 "Nobody sits in it. At least I never found any- 
 one there. Philip is the room. There's TJie Times 
 warmed and folded; there's letter-paper, big and 
 little, and envelopes, big and little. Perhaps Nellie 
 has found someone there. Philip may get under the 
 sofa when anybody else comes in." 
 
 "And she's ver>^ much in love with him?" asked 
 Silvia. 
 
 "You ought to know. She takes you out to Rich- 
 mond Park and sits on the grass with you all after- 
 noon." 
 
 Silvia wrinkled up her eyes as if she were focusing 
 that afternoon. 
 
 "Nellie dazzles me," she said. "She's like the sun 
 on water. I expect she'll make his room, that tidy 
 room, look lovelj-. But I shall never understand 
 what Nellie does. I shall only understand the effect 
 of what she has done. She has a spell. She makes 
 you see what she has seen." 
 
 She was conscious now of receiving from Peter a 
 more direct answer of eyes than she had ever done 
 before. She knew they were talking about the same 
 things now. They might, each of them, though they 
 were talking of Nellie (superficially the same thing), 
 have been regarding her, have been framing their 
 remarks about her from different angles. Given 
 that, as Silvia had said, she was a dazzle of sunlight 
 as well, one of them, owing to the prismatic process, 
 might have been seeing blue, another seeing yellow. 
 But Peter's answer convinced her that they were 
 both seeing Nellie from the same standpoint.
 
 150 PETER 
 
 "That's hit her," he said. "Nellie says and does 
 nothing trivial; one is continually discovering that. 
 She waves her fingers, and she mutters, and then, 
 afterwards, you find she has been making a spell. 
 Isn't she uncanny? Or she tells you something about 
 yourself that you didn't know, or scarcely knew, and 
 you find that it is quite solidly true. Is she a witch, 
 do you think?" 
 
 Silvia leaned forward towards him. It was im- 
 possible not to "close up" with this. 
 
 "That's just what I said to her once," she said. 
 "I said that she was a witch. She told me something 
 about myself that I never had known. It was true ; 
 it had been true all the time. But, literally, I had 
 never had the smallest notion of it till she told me." 
 
 Indeed, as Silvia acknowledged to herself, the 
 truth of what Nellie had said on that occasion was 
 receiving a firm endorsement at this moment. 
 Etched and bitten-in to her consciousness from the 
 moment of that prophetic babbling had been the 
 image of herself in love, singing, so Nellie had said, 
 in a boy's way ; eager to be allowed to give homage 
 rather than receive it; eager to be allowed to love 
 rather than to permit love with whatever ardency 
 of welcome. And here was Peter repeating on gen- 
 eral gi^ounds exactly what she had found, and in 
 especial was finding now, to be magically true. 
 
 "Since we both agree she is a witch," said he, "we 
 ought surely to collect evidence against her. What 
 was it she said to you, that something unknown to 
 you, which you found to be true when she said it? 
 I have evidence also; she said something to me last 
 night which I didn't know, but which " 
 
 What went through his brain at that moment, 
 with the sureness of a surgeon's incision, was just
 
 PETER 151 
 
 that which Nellie had said when he told her that he 
 was intending to ask Silvia to marry him. He had 
 hedged that with the resen^ation that he would do 
 so when he thought that he had a chance of success, 
 and witch-like, with swift incontinent prophecy, she 
 had told him that it was rather late already as re- 
 gards to-night. The prophecy had been encourag- 
 ing at the time, but not convincing. Now he sud- 
 denly felt himself convinced. Why or how — their 
 conversation had only been about Nellie — he did not 
 know. But it seemed that Nellie had penetrated 
 where he had not. . . . 
 
 There was his father sitting on the sofa beside 
 Mrs. Wardour; there was his mother veiled and 
 shrouded from him as she had ever been, doing 
 something with a teapot, domg something with 
 crumbs left on plates, for which she made some con- 
 coction, placed in the balcony outside, for birds. 
 . . . Had he been alone with Silvia, he would 
 have proposed to her, fortified with Nellie's encour- 
 agement, fortified even more by his present sense of 
 its reliability, then and there. But unless he knelt 
 on the floor to her, as he had found his father doing 
 when he came in . . . 
 
 "Oh, what did Nellie say to you last night?" 
 asked the girl. "Let's collect evidence, as you say." 
 
 "And have her burned outside St. Margaret's, in- 
 stead of letting her marry Philip inside?" suggested 
 Peter. 
 
 Silvia gave a parenthetic gasp. 
 
 "I suggested that she ought to be burned, too," 
 she said. "More evidence, please." 
 
 Peter found her entrancing at that moment. 
 There was some keen boyish kind of frank enthu-
 
 152 PETER 
 
 siasm about her that attacked and challenged in- 
 stead of merely provoking. She asked for no effort: 
 you only had to allow yourself to be caught up. 
 
 "But it's your turn," he said. "You first sug- 
 gested that Nellie told you things you didn't know." 
 
 "No; it was you who said that." 
 
 "It may have been ; but it was you who suggested 
 the witch-like quality. You said that she makes you 
 see what she has seen. You know you did." 
 
 Silvia, ever so slightly, withdrew^ herself. 
 
 "Did I?" she asked. 
 
 "Of course you did. Now do be fair. You began, 
 and therefore it's your turn to bring out the first 
 piece of evidence. It was in Richmond Park, you 
 know, and she told you something about yourself 
 which you didn't know." 
 
 Peter put his hand in some judicial manner 
 through that short crisp hair above his neck. 
 
 I am prepared to hear your evidence," he said. 
 You're on oath. Get on, Miss Silvia. Don't keep 
 the court waiting." 
 
 Silvia shot a chance arrow. 
 
 "If I promise to tell you," she said, "will you 
 promise to tell me your evidence?" 
 
 Peter laughed. 
 
 "I think we're both better at cross-examination 
 than at confession," he remarked. 
 
 "Oh, but that's no answer," she said. 
 
 "I know it isn't. It wasn't meant to be." 
 
 "Then be serious. Will you tell me your evidence 
 against Nellie in her character of a witch?" 
 
 Peter, quite clearly, let his eyes rest on the other 
 occupants of the room. One by one he looked at 
 them. 
 
 No!" he said. "I suppose the trial is adjourned 
 
 <'\r 
 
 «"\T,
 
 PETER 153 
 
 owing to the inexplicable coyness of the witnesses. 
 So there we are. Nellie will marry her Philip with- 
 out a stain on her blessed character." 
 
 In his glance round the room Peter had observed 
 that Mrs. Wardour was trying to catch Silvia's eyes. 
 She would certainly succeed in doing so before long, 
 and then, as her custom was, she would make some 
 faint little clucking noises, like a hen that mildly 
 wants to be let out. She was incapable of going 
 away, however much she wanted to do so, unless 
 Silvia took the initiative. She clucked, and then 
 Silvia said that it was time to go. . . . 
 
 But Peter did not want Silvia to go just yet; on 
 the other hand, if they were all to sit here until the 
 clucking became perceptible to Silvia, their visitors 
 might just as well, for any practical purpose, go 
 away at once. Besides, it was impossible to forget 
 that Nellie last night had prophesied, and it had 
 struck another as well as himself, that she was a 
 reliable seer. 
 
 He got up rather slowly, rather tentatively, and 
 fixed in his mind was the idea that Silvia would 
 make some sort of initial step. It seemed to him 
 that they were both hand in hand: it was just a 
 question of who lifted a foot first, . . . 
 
 Silvia did not turn her head to look at her mother. 
 If she had, she would have been bound to attend to 
 the duckings; but what she wanted, more precisely 
 what she needed, was to get away from a masked fire 
 of elderly eyes and, with Peter of course, just to be 
 natural. There was smouldering in this room some 
 ember of supervision; she felt herself (and him) 
 under a magnifying glass being looked at, being 
 noted, being examined. It would answer her need 
 perfectly well to go with him on to the balcony out-
 
 154 PETER 
 
 side the room, to see if the evening was likely to be 
 jBne, to be sure that the motor was waiting. . . . 
 Here, there was Mr. Mainwaring visualizing her 
 portrait ; worse than that, here was the more gmilet- 
 like attention of his wife, who, ostensibly, was 
 makmg a sloppy saucer of food for the London spar- 
 rows. Certainly she would sooner go out on the 
 balcony alone than remain here, but when she 
 thought of that it did not in the least satisfy her. 
 After all, she did not want to "sit out" alone. What 
 girl would want that? But she wanted to sit out. 
 , . . There was no sort of embarrassment in her 
 voice when she spoke to Peter. 
 
 "May we go down to your father's studio again?" 
 she asked. "I haven't seen all I wanted to." 
 
 Surely his glance met hers with a comprehension 
 that seemed immeasurably marvellous. 
 
 "Yes; do come down," he said. 
 
 The clucking became inarticulate. 
 
 "We ought to be going, Silvia," said her mother. 
 
 Peter took this up. 
 
 "Oh, you must give Miss Silvia five minutes, Mrs. 
 Wardour," he said. "It's only fair that she should 
 know the sort of thing that father's going to make 
 of her." 
 
 Mr. Wainwaring gave a great shout of laughter. 
 
 "The impertinence of youth!' he cried. "Peter, I 
 disown you. I would cut you off with a shilling if I 
 had one!" 
 
 The two went down the stairs in silence. In 
 silence also they came into the studio. The huge 
 cartoon filled up one end of it; on the other three 
 sides was the stacked debris from the attics; land- 
 scapes and portraits and sketches littered the tables. 
 
 "That's rather jolly," said Peter, pointing to one
 
 a 
 
 PETER 155 
 
 t random. "And, Lord, my father has brought 
 out a thing he did of me last year. Rather like a 
 hair-dresser." 
 
 ''Not a bit," said Silvia. ''But it's very like you." 
 
 Peter wheeled about and faced her. 
 
 "Evidence!" he said. "Do you know what Nellie 
 said to me last night? Of course you don't, but I'll 
 tell you now. We were talking about you. She 
 said — she encouraged me to think I had a 
 chance " 
 
 Silvia stood stock still, every fibre of her stiff and 
 arrested. 
 
 "About you. A chance," said Peter again. "Is it 
 true? Was she right? Was she being a witch?" 
 
 Silvia had been lookmg at him when this spell of 
 stillness struck her. Now her eyelids fluttered and 
 drooped, then once more she looked at him as stead- 
 ily as before. 
 
 "All true," she said. "And Nellie told me some- 
 thing. She said that when I loved anybody, I — I 
 should love just as I love now. Just as I love now, 
 Peter."
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 Silvia was sitting in Mr. Wainwaring's studio one 
 Saturday afternoon, waiting, without impatience, for 
 the arrival from the Foreign Office of Peter, with 
 whom she was motoring down to Howes, there to 
 spend the Sunday. Silvia was perfectly capable of 
 humour with regard to Howes, for she called it "the 
 family seat." This indeed it was, since her father 
 had bought the Norman ruin some twenty years 
 ago, and quite unmistakably it belonged to the 
 Wardours. He had made it habitable while Silvia 
 was still a child and during the war, when he became 
 quite fabulously rich, he made it abominable also. 
 To that period belonged the great picture gal- 
 lery. 
 
 The gathering there for the week-end was, though 
 small, a rather crucial one. It was to introduce to 
 each other the families which would be brought into 
 alliance over her wedding. Henry Wardour, Silvia's 
 uncle on her father's side, was to be ponderously 
 there, and his wife elegantly so. Then there was 
 to be Aunt Joanna Darley, Mrs. Wardour's sister, 
 and her husband. He, Sir Abel Darley, was a round 
 pink profiteer, who in recognition of the consider- 
 able fortune he had made for himself by over- 
 charging the Government for millions of yards of 
 khaki, had been made a baronet, presumably in 
 order to stop his mouth if he felt inclined to brag 
 over the gulhble Government. Then there was Mr. 
 IMainwaring to represent Peter's side of the connec- 
 
 156
 
 PETER 157 
 
 tion, but he was to sustain his part alone, since Mrs. 
 Mainwaring, with an impregnable quietness of nega- 
 tion, had absolutely refused to take part in this re- 
 union of families. 
 
 ''You'll be eight without me, Silvia," she had said, 
 "and eight's a very good number. I shall stop 
 quietly in London and think of you all enjoying 
 yourselves." 
 
 Silvia's sense of humour prevented her from form- 
 ing any tragic anticipations about this party, though, 
 as she would have been perfectly willing to confess, 
 she did not suppose that the meeting of the clans 
 would lead to any instinctive blood-brotherhood. 
 But Peter would be there, and she would be there, 
 and however outrageous and incompatible the rest 
 of them proved themselves, they would be like the 
 heathen "furiously raging together," but unable to 
 disturb seriously the foundation fact of that. She 
 trusted to her own sense of humour and to Peter's, 
 to enable them both to be indifferent to what hap- 
 pened outside their own charmed corner. Uncle 
 Henry and Uncle Abe, and Mr. Mainwaring and 
 Peter would form a very curious company after 
 dinner that night, when she and her mother and 
 Aunt Joanna and Aunt Eleanor had left them to 
 "punish" — as Uncle Henry would undoubtedly say 
 — the 1870 port of which he was so inordinately 
 fond, while the ladies would form an equally incon- 
 ceivable committee upstairs. But since these things 
 were to be, there was no use in imagining impos- 
 sible situations. Somehow she conjectured that Mr. 
 Mainwaring would impress himself more strongly 
 on the circle downstairs than either of the uncles; 
 he had more exuberance. 
 
 If Silvia had been set down to construct an in-
 
 158 PETER 
 
 congruous party of eight, she could not by any fan- 
 tastic selection have bettered this gathering. Aunt 
 Joanna, for instance, nourished an ineradicable 
 hatred towards her sister for having married Silvia's 
 father, and being so much richer than Sir Abe, and 
 even Sir Abe's rank and her own were powerless to 
 compensate her for this. Rich, immensely rich, 
 Sir Abe certainly was, but she could not bear that 
 her sister should be so much richer. Aunt Eleanor, 
 on the other hand, Mrs. Wardour's sister-in-law, 
 had only reverence for Mrs. Wardour's wealth, but 
 what she thoroughly despised her for was her truck- 
 ling (so Aunt Eleanor put it) to the smart world. 
 Aunt Eleanor had been present at the great party, 
 where the Russian ballet entertained the guests, 
 and the presence of so many distinguished people 
 made her feel perfectly sick. The true diagnosis of 
 her indisposition, however, was that since she had 
 tried to do for years without a particle of success 
 what Mrs. Wardour had so brilliantly accomplished 
 in a few weeks, it was only reasonable that she should 
 have a violent reaction against that sort of thing. 
 If, instead of marrying Peter, Silvia had been about 
 to wed a peer, or somebody of that kind. Aunt 
 Eleanor would certainly have felt it her duty never 
 to speak to either her or her mother again. Indeed, 
 she would never have accepted Mrs. Wardour's invi- 
 tation at aU, so she had made quite plain, unless she 
 had felt it her duty to take an interest in her hus- 
 band's relations. 
 
 Silvia was conscious of a vein of caricature in this 
 flitting survey, but ridiculous people made carica- 
 tures of themselves without the collusion of the ob- 
 server. Mr. Mainwaring was a caricature too: she 
 could not think of him quite seriously. Probably
 
 PETER 159 
 
 most people, if you regarded them from a strictly 
 individual standpoint, had a touch of caricature 
 about them, for if you rated yourself as a normal 
 person, everybody else must be a little out of draw- 
 ing. But she looked at the caricatures with the 
 friendliest amusement; she loved them fand here 
 in particular was her mother included; for being so 
 entirely different from her — for being, in fact, pre- 
 cisely what they were. Humorous observation was, 
 with her, less a critical than an appreciative process, 
 and now, as she waited for Peter, she wanted defin- 
 itely to include Mrs. Mainwaring in her fascinating 
 gallery. But for this last fortnight, since her en- 
 gagement to Peter, she had found herself increas- 
 ingly unable to give her this genial amused observa- 
 tion. More and more did Mrs. Mainwaring baffle 
 and elude her. There was, so far as Silvia could 
 notice, nothing humanly ridiculous about her, and, 
 Vv'hat was even more disconcerting, the girl found 
 herself ever more incapable of attaching herself to 
 her. To attempt to do that resembled, in some un- 
 comfortable manner, the notion of attaching your- 
 self in the dark to a hard smooth surface ; you could 
 nowhere get hold of her or find projection or crevice 
 in which to crook or to insert a finger tip. The more 
 closely Silvia looked at her, the more strenuously 
 she attempted to get into any sort of psychical con- 
 tact with Mrs. Mainwaring, the more directly was 
 she baffled. She could not, for herself, give up as 
 insoluble the mystery of that lady's mental and 
 spiritual processes; there must be, if you could only 
 lay your hands on it in the dark, some key to her 
 future mother-in-lav/, something that explained, for 
 instance, her unwearied study of the advertisements 
 of hotels. No one could be as completely tranquil
 
 IGO PETER 
 
 and emotionless all through as Mrs. Mainwaring 
 appeared to be. Once only had her mind slipped 
 for a definite instant into the open, like a lizard 
 emerging into the sunlight and flicking back again ; 
 this was when, on the first visit that Silvia and her 
 mother had paid to the house, Mrs. Mainwaring 
 unveiled a glance of malicious hostility in the direc- 
 tion of the great cartoon. Less definite, but like in 
 kind, was the habitual, though veiled, hostility with 
 which Silvia felt that Mrs. Mainwaring regarded 
 herself. It did not flame, but she knew that she was 
 right in conjecturing that it incessantly smouldered. 
 And that enmity, to Silvia's sense, was of the same 
 quality, though smouldering, as that which had 
 leaped in that swift little tongue of flame towards 
 the cartoon: what puzzled her was the kinship be- 
 tween the two. From the context of that moment 
 in the studio, it seemed to be Mr, Mainwaring's work 
 which kept him in London (and her therefore with 
 him) that had kindled that odd swift spark. Or was 
 the origin of it a little deeper down than that? Did 
 some shut furnace of impatience at her husband, so 
 floridly symbolized there, some deep-seated core of 
 incompatibility suddenly flame out then? If so, 
 what was the kindred nature of her hostility to the 
 girl? Was it that she was taking Peter away from 
 the home which his presence there just rendered 
 tolerable? But apart from those two "escapes," so 
 to speak, of genuine feeling, the origin of which, 
 after all, was only a matter of conjecture, Silvia 
 had no clue to Mrs. Mainwaring at all; she was 
 practically featureless and even without outline. She 
 could not sketch her at all, or delineate from her as 
 model, one of those genial caricatures, such as her 
 friends so freely supplied her with material for.
 
 PETER 161 
 
 Such features and such outline as she could per- 
 ceive were tinged with bitter suggestions. . . . 
 
 Silvia did not find the waiting for Peter in any 
 way tedious; there was plenty in the studio to fur- 
 nish a larder of thought, though what most occupied 
 her was her alert attention for the sound of his 
 light footstep coming down the passage. But apart 
 from that food for reflection was about out. To-day 
 the end of the studio where the cartoon had hung 
 was empty, so that if Mrs. JNIainwaring's resentment 
 was inspired purely by that work of art, she might 
 now regain her tranquillity again. Silvia would see 
 it this evening, for her mother, following up the 
 idea wdth which it had first fired her in connection 
 with the empty walls of the picture gallery at Howes, 
 had a few days ago made a purchase of it. 
 
 Mr. Mainwaring had been very glorious on this 
 occasion ; at first he had hysterically refused to part 
 with it. It was his chef-d'ceuvre, and while he had 
 a couple of pennies in his pocket, he was, though 
 poor, too proud to think of selling it. Then, lest that 
 refusal should be taken too seriously, he almost im- 
 mediately declared that it should be his wedding 
 present to Silvia. He let himself be hunted out of 
 so untenable a magnificence, and finally he so far 
 humiliated himself as to accept a fancy price for it. 
 As Mrs. Wardour knew (he reminded her, to make 
 certain) that it was the first of a series of six, upon 
 which he was contented to stand or fall in the ver- 
 dict of posterity, it seemed probable that, at some 
 future time, the walls of the picture gallery at Howes 
 would be far less empty than they were to-day. 
 
 On an easel near where Silvia sat was the portrait 
 of herself now approaching completion. To her 
 there was something uncanny and arresting about it,
 
 162 PETER 
 
 for, by accident or design, the artist had caught some 
 aspect of her which secretly she recognized as a piece 
 of intimate revelation. She herself inclined to an 
 accidental derivation, for certainly in all but one 
 point it was a flamboyant and uninspired perform- 
 ance, a chronicle of a green ''jumper" and a scarlet 
 skirt, a haystack of dyed hair, and a rouged, simper- 
 ing mouth. Her head was turned full to the specta- 
 tor, looking over the shoulder, in precisely the same 
 pose (a favourite trick of the artist's) as that in 
 which the German Emperor listened to Satanic coun- 
 sels. But in the eyes, in the badly drawn out- 
 stretched hand, clumsily posed, Silvia saw some un- 
 conscious rendering of the "boy's key." She^ ac- 
 quitted Mr. Mainwaring of all intention and of all 
 inspiration; he had certainly not meant that. He 
 had, through faulty drawing, given a certain brisk 
 violfence to her hand, a certain domination to her 
 eyes. 
 
 And then she heard the click of the street door, 
 and the quick light footstep for which she had been 
 waiting. She wondered if she could ever get used 
 to the mere fact of Peter's return from however 
 short an absence. 
 
 He kissed her, holding her hand for a moment. 
 
 "It's too bad of me to have kept you waiting," he 
 said. "I couldn't help myself. There was a mes- 
 senger starting for Rome. Haven't they brought you 
 tea?" 
 
 "No; I thought I would wait and have it with 
 you." 
 
 Peter rang the bell. 
 
 "And my father's gone?" he asked. 
 
 "Yes; mother called for him and drove him down. 
 I've brought my little Cording car for us."
 
 PETER 163 
 
 "Just you and me? That'll be lovely," said Peter. 
 "Do I quite trust your driving, though?" 
 
 "You may drive yourself, if you like," said she. 
 
 "No, thanks; I trust that far less. I must see if 
 my bag is packed. Tell Burrows we want tea at 
 once." 
 
 "Can't I help you to pack it, if it isn't done?" 
 asked Silvia. . . . Somehow she would have liked to 
 do that, to fold his clothes, to squeeze out his sponge. 
 
 "No; it's so sordid," said Peter. "Besides, it's 
 probably done already." 
 
 "If it isn't, call me," said she. "No man has any 
 idea of how to pack." 
 
 "And you want to teach me?" asked Peter, linger- 
 ing on the stairs. 
 
 Silvia hesitated only for a moment. 
 
 "No, you darling," she said. "I don't want to 
 teach you anything. I just want to do it." 
 
 "Why?" asked he. 
 
 She came closer, raising her face towards him, as 
 he leaned over the banisters. 
 
 "Your things," she said. "Your sponge, your 
 coat. ..." 
 
 That pleasure was denied her, for Burrows had 
 already bestowed Peter's requirements in his bag, 
 and he came downstairs again. Silvia had given his 
 father a sitting for the portrait this morning, and 
 he stood frowning in front of it. 
 
 "Trash! Rubbish!" he said at length. "And 
 the worst of it is that he has got into it some infernal 
 resemblance to you. It's a caricature." 
 
 "Oh, we're all caricatures to each other," said she, 
 "with just a few exceptions." 
 
 "What a heathenish doctrine. Why am I a cari- 
 cature, for instance?"
 
 164 PETER 
 
 "You aren't. You're one of the exceptions. But 
 tell me what your father has caricatured of me in 
 
 that?" 
 
 Peter looked Lorn her to the portrait and back 
 
 again. 
 
 "All of you," he said. "The reality of you: the 
 rest is quite unlike. You haven't got mouth and 
 nose and forehead and hair and chin the least like 
 that. But the person inside is horribly like you-." 
 
 Silvia put her arm through his. 
 
 "Horribly?" she said. "Thanks so much." 
 
 "I didn't say — just then — that you were horrible," 
 said he. "I said horribly like you, your parody, 
 your caricature. I wonder how^ I dared ask such a 
 masterful young woman to marry me." 
 
 "You knew it would be good for you," said Sil- 
 via. "It was far more daring of me to accept you." 
 
 "There's just time for you to remedy your mis- 
 take," said he. "Positively the last chance." 
 
 This frank kind of chaffing talk, as between friends 
 rather than lovers, had grown to be characteristic 
 of their privacy. Silvia delighted in it: it had the 
 charm of some cypher about it ; the blunt common- 
 place words held for her a secret meaning known to 
 the two utterers of them, which was only to be ex- 
 pressed by these symbols. When she feigned to mis- 
 understand Peter, and thanked him for calling her 
 horrible, there lay below her foolish words a reality 
 and a treasure which words were quite powerless to 
 express. Or when he just now audibly wondered 
 that he had dared to ask her to marry him, she felt 
 that he conveyed something which no amount of im- 
 passioned speech could have indicated so well. From 
 the hill-tops of their souls there flashed the signal 
 that no voice could convey. Then sometimes, as
 
 PETER 165 
 
 now, she had to use another symbol, which agam was 
 only a symbol, and with her hands tremblingly, eag- 
 erly, shyly clasping him round the neck, she drew 
 his head down towards hers, not kissing him, but 
 simply looking close into his eyes. 
 
 "Positively the last chance!" she said, "Oh, 
 Peter, what a fool I am about you. Doesn't it bore 
 you frightfully?" 
 
 "Frightfully," said Peter, keeping to the first code 
 of symbols. 
 
 "You bear it beautifulh^ darling," she said. "Oh, 
 shall I ever get used to you? I hope so: I mustn't 
 go on being such a donkey all my days. No; I 
 don't think I do hope so. Being a donkey is good 
 enough for me. Hee Haw! Oh, let go: here's 
 Burrows coming with the tea. She'll think it so 
 undignified." 
 
 It was. as a matter of fact, she who had to "let 
 go," as Burrows entered, followed by Mrs. Main- 
 waring. Silvia had before now tried to call her 
 "mother," but the experiment somehow had not suc- 
 ceeded. Mrs. Main waring answered to it quite read- 
 ily, but she received it, so the girl thought, much as 
 she might have received an unsolicited nickname. 
 
 "Why, Mrs. Mainwaring!" she said. "I didn't 
 know you were in." 
 
 Mrs. Mainwaring paused just long enough to let 
 it be inferred that if Silvia had made any inquiries 
 as to that, she would have obtained the information 
 she sought. 
 
 "Yes, dear, I have been reading upstairs since 
 lunch time," she said. "I came to have a cup of 
 tea with you before you started. I hope you will 
 have a pleasant drive." 
 
 Silvia tried to approach.
 
 166 PETER 
 
 "Ah, do come too," she said. "Change your mind, 
 and come with me. Heaps of room." 
 
 "Thank you, dear, I think I will keep to my orig- 
 inal plan," said she. "I like a quiet Sunday some- 
 times. I shall go to church, and perhaps in the 
 afternoon hear a concert at the Queen's Hall. The 
 time will pass very pleasantly." 
 
 There was an aura of correct armed neutrality 
 about this, accompanied as it was by that cold 
 sheathed glance, furtive and hostile, that caused 
 some half-comic, half-impatient despair in the girl 
 at her aloofness. Mrs. Mainwaring, so it seemed to 
 her, wanted nobody except herself; she wanted just 
 to be let alone. 
 
 "Father went off all right?" asked Peter. 
 
 "Yes; Mrs. Wardour kindly called for him after 
 lunch. A beautiful car; so roomy. There was an- 
 other lady and gentleman there: I think Mrs. War- 
 dour said it was her sister and her husband. Your 
 father insisted on going in the box seat with the 
 driver. He made a great noise with the motor horn, 
 which sounded like a bugle. He was in very high 
 spirits." 
 
 The neutrality exhibited in this speech was almost 
 too correct to be credible. Nobody could have been 
 so neutral. Even Mrs. Mainwaring could not quite 
 keep it up, and something very far from neutral 
 lay, ever so little below the surface, in her announce- 
 ment of her husband's high spirits. Her neutrality 
 towards Silvia was not so deadly as that towards 
 her husband. . . . 
 
 Peter laughed. There was neutrality there too, 
 but it was more contemptuous than deadly, and 
 quite good humoured in its contempt. 
 
 "Oh, they'll have a noisy drive," he said. "And
 
 PETER 167 
 
 if Mrs. Wardour drives him back on Monday, you'll 
 be aware of their approach, mother, while they're 
 still a mile or two away." 
 
 Mrs. Mainwaring had one of those fine-lipped 
 mouths (very neat and finished at the outer cor- 
 ners), about which it is impossible to say whether 
 they are smiling or not without consulting the 
 conditions prevailing round the eyes. But as Peter 
 spoke she very definitely ceased to smile. 
 
 "Monday?" she said. "I thought Mrs. Wardour 
 was so kind as to ask him to stop till Tuesday." 
 
 Peter got up : he noticed nothing about his mother, 
 having long ago given up any attempt to compre- 
 hend her. 
 
 "Tuesday, is it?" he said. "I'm back on Monday, 
 anyhow: otherwise what would happen to our for- 
 eign relations? Shall we start, Silvia? I'm ready 
 when you are." 
 
 Mrs. Mainwaring rose too. 
 
 "Yes, indeed, you had better be off," she said. 
 "You won't have too much time. Then I shall ex- 
 pect you on Monday, Peter. Tell your father " 
 
 She stopped. 
 
 "That you don't expect him till Tuesday?" asked 
 he, without the slightest indication of any mental 
 comment. 
 
 "Yes, I think Mrs. Wardour quite took for granted 
 that he was stopping till then." 
 
 Silvia made one further attempt to evoke a touch 
 of cordiality. 
 
 "Mother will be delighted," she said. "But it's 
 horrid for you being all alone." 
 
 "No, dear, I shall be very happy," said Mrs. 
 Mainwaring with quiet decision.
 
 168 PETER 
 
 Howes stood, of course, in a park of considerable 
 acreage, surrounded by a massive brick wall, and 
 reflected its colossal self in the lake that lay below 
 its terraced garden. This lake had been artificially 
 made by the damming up of the stream that had 
 previously wasted itself unornamentally, and the 
 road that had dipped into the shallow valley now 
 ran along the causeway that formed the farther mar- 
 gm of the lake, and gave the visitor his first com- 
 plete and stupendous view of the house. The wings 
 and galleries that had been built out rendered the 
 original Norman core comparatively insignificant, 
 and the whole resembled an apotheosis of a station 
 hotel combined with a fortress, for the character 
 of the older part was borne out in the battlemented 
 walls that spread so amply to right and left of it. 
 
 An avenue of monkey puzzlers led up to the long 
 facade, and the gardens overlooking the lake were 
 like some glorified arboretum, where you might ex- 
 pect tin labels, asking visitors to keep off the grass 
 and not touch the flowers. At intervals along the 
 edge of its immense lawns were aloes in square green 
 tubs, and below the house was a riband border of 
 geraniums, calceolarias and lobelias. Inside, the 
 expectations aroused by this sumptuous exterior 
 were fully justified, for the high panelled hall was 
 peopled with suits of armour, each with its num- 
 bered label, so that a glance at the catalogue would 
 put you into possession of interesting information 
 about it. Armour had long been a hobby of the late 
 Mr. Wardour, and he had, very quaintly, installed 
 electric lights in the gauntleted hands. There was a 
 passenger lift in one corner, a groined roof, and the 
 famous malachite table. Heads and antlers of stags 
 hung in the panels.
 
 PETER 169 
 
 Silvia had rather dreaded this moment. The 
 whole place with its monkey puzzlers and malachite, 
 its aloes and its awfulness, had been left by her 
 father to her absolutely, and Peter knew (and she 
 knew he knew) that he was making his first ac- 
 quaintance with what would be "home" to him. She 
 had not seen it herself since the day of her father's 
 funeral, two years ago, and it seemed to her — and 
 how would it strike Peter? — that, though it had 
 the traditional quality of home, in that there was 
 no place, as far as she was aware, in the least like 
 it, its unique fulfilment of that definition was its 
 only merit. 
 
 With a sideways glance now and again she had 
 observed Peter's growing awe, from the time they 
 had crossed the causeway (the pride of it!) to their 
 approach through the monkey-puzzlers, and to the 
 final revelation of the malachite table. And there 
 was much more to follow — ever so much more; the 
 Gothic staircase, the blue drawing-room, the pmk 
 drawing-room, the picture-gallery, the swimming 
 bath. And it was not inanimate magnificence alone 
 that was to assail him, for there was Uncle Henry 
 and Uncle Abe and Aunts Joanna and Eleanor. She 
 ought to have brought him down quietly and alone 
 for his first sight of Howes. . . . 
 
 Peter had been gazing in a fascinated manner at 
 the malachite table, and even while Silvia was won- 
 dering how to convey to him her sympathy and 
 encouragement, he, with one of the flashes of intui- 
 tion which she adored in him, showed that he had 
 comprehended with unerring accuracy what she was 
 feeling about him. 
 
 "But you're going to be here," he said, just as if 
 she had spoken out all that she was puzzling over
 
 170 PETER 
 
 She took his arm. 
 
 "Oh, my dear, I promise you that," she said. 
 "And I've got to get used to it, too. But then you'll 
 be here! Shall we butter each other's paws, Peter, 
 until we feel at home. Let's have some more tea, 
 in fact, and find where the rest of them are." 
 
 The picture-gallery seemed a likely kind of place, 
 and there, indeed, the six representatives of the fam- 
 ilies proved to be, and when kissing ceremonies were 
 over for herself and the rite of introduction for 
 Peter, Silvia found herself thinking that it was really 
 all for the best that they should have burst on Peter 
 in one comprehensive revelation rather than that he 
 should have been subjected to a series of shocks and 
 surprises. Already staggered by Uncle Henry, Peter 
 might have been quite thrown off his balance — so 
 flashed the alternative comedy through her head — 
 by Uncle Abe ; or what if, reeling from Aunt Eleanor, 
 he ran into Aunt Joanna just round the corner? 
 Silvia had not the smallest inclination or intention 
 to be ashamed of her relations, but it would have 
 shown the joylessness of a Puritan not to be amused 
 at the blandness and the blankness on so many faces 
 (Peter's included) as he was taken to each in turn; 
 it would have shown too an almost dangerous rigid- 
 ity that her voice should not betray a tremor of sup- 
 pressed hilariousness. 
 
 Aunt Eleanor came first: she looked like a hand- 
 some seal with adenoidal breathing. She bowed to 
 Peter with freezing propriety, but when he was 
 moved on to Aunt Joanna her curiosity got the bet- 
 ter of her, and she instantly put up her glasses to 
 get a better look at him. Aunt Joanna, large and 
 marvellously bedizened, with flowers in her hat and 
 her bosom and her hand, irresistibly suggested a van
 
 PETER 171 
 
 going to Covent Garden in the early morning: stie, 
 too, had her notions of propriety, and these expressed 
 themselves in a cordiality as warm as Aunt Eleanor's 
 was cold. Then came Uncle Abe, who was so like 
 a fish that it really seemed dangerous for him to be 
 sitting so near Aunt Eleanor. He held out a hand, 
 and took a cigar out of his mouth, which remained 
 open in the precise shape of the cigar: and finally 
 came Uncle Henry, who was busy with "a drop of 
 brandy," because tea, as he instantly proceeded to 
 inform Peter, gave him heartburn. Then all four 
 of them stared at Peter to see how he was going to 
 comport himself. 
 
 Peter was never more grateful to his father than 
 when at this embarrassing moment Mr. Mainwar- 
 ing, who had been mysteriously employed at the far 
 end of the picture-gallery with a cord and a sheet 
 and a step-ladder and three bewildered footmen, 
 gave a loud yodel, set to some words like mio figlio, 
 to announce his perception of his son's arrival, and 
 the accomplishment of that on which he had been 
 so busily engaged. 
 
 "Ben arrivato" was the concluding stave of his 
 melody, and he came running up the gallery (there 
 was quite enough space to enable him to get a good 
 speed up), and after holding Peter for a moment in 
 a joint embrace with Silvia, he cast himself down 
 for a moment on a white bear skin at Mrs. Wardour's 
 
 feet. 
 
 "EccoT he said. "Ladies and gentlemen, when 
 you will distinguish me with the gift of a moment 
 of your leisure, I shall have the honour to show 
 you the first of my completed labours. The picture, 
 the poor suppliant's picture, is on the wall : masked 
 by a fair Imen sheet, which, so I fondly hope, is in
 
 172 PETER 
 
 control of a cord, just a cord, which, when you are 
 ready, I will, in fact, pull. Unless the mechanism 
 which I have been contriving is sadly at fault, there 
 will then be revealed to you that which the sheet, at 
 the moment, is so discreetly veiling. Valour, per- 
 haps, my valour, is but the worse part of discretion" 
 — Peter had heard this before — ''but for the moment 
 I am less discreet than valorous. I will show you, 
 complete and materialized, the vision that since 
 August, 1914, has obsessed and dominated my life. 
 1 pray you, gentle sirs and madams, to indulge your 
 humble servant, and to take your places exactly 
 where I shall have the honour to indicate, opposite 
 the discretionary linen which, when removed, will 
 unbare my valour." 
 
 He rose from his reclining posture, and after a, 
 superb obeisance, placed himself at the head of the 
 procession. Already, as Silvia had foreseen, he was 
 in a position of dominance: Uncle Abe and Uncle 
 Henry obeyed his orders; Aunt Joanna and Aunt 
 Eleanor clearly ''perked up" at this ingratiating sup- 
 pliance. For himself he took Mrs. Wardour's hand, 
 holding it high, as in a minuet, and led the way. 
 He grouped them ; he requested them all, with hum- 
 ble apologies, to have the goodness to move a step 
 backwards; he set chairs for them; he put his finger 
 on his lips, and on tiptoe advanced to the dangling 
 end of the cord and pulled it. Up flew the sheet, 
 waving wildly, but eventually festooning itself cleai; 
 of the cartoon. Then, swiftly retreating, he mag- 
 nificently posed himself, and gazed at the picture. 
 
 For the moment there was dead silence: then 
 vague clickings and murmurs began to grow articu- 
 late. The uncles and aunts vied with each other in 
 perception.
 
 PETER 173 
 
 'The Emperor," said Uncle Henry. "Good like- 
 ness, eh?" 
 
 "August, 1914," exclaimed Lady Darley. "Ter- 
 rible! Wonderful!" And she drew in her breath 
 with a hissing sound. The perception of the date 
 was not so clever, as it was largely inscribed on the 
 frame, and Aunt Eleanor smiled indulgently. 
 
 "Yes, dear Joanna," she said, "we all see that. 
 But look at Satan whispering to the Emperor!" 
 
 "And the hosts of hell," said Joanna swiftly. 
 
 Uncle Abe turned to Uncle Henry. 
 
 "A marvellous thing," he said. "Tells it own 
 story. I call that a picture." 
 
 Mrs. Wardour merely wore the pleased air of pro- 
 prietorship. She had seen it all before, and she 
 could see it again as many times as she chose. Mr. 
 Mainwaring, chin in hand, just contemplated while 
 these appreciations were in progress, but now he 
 seemed to wake out of a swoon, and passed his hands 
 over his eyes. 
 
 "Was it I who painted that?" he muttered. "I 
 didn't know what I was doing. I didn't know till 
 this moment, when at last I see my work properly 
 displayed, with no discordant note to mar it, what 
 I had done. Does it terrify you, dear ladies and gen- 
 tlemen? Does it put you in possession of August, 
 1914? Does it — sth, Dio mio!" He covered his face 
 with his hands and shuddered. Then advancing to 
 the picture again, he violently shook the cord, and 
 the two linen sheets (double bed) rolled back into 
 their original places. 
 
 "Enough, enough!" he cried. "We will contem- 
 plate it more calmly when we have recovered from 
 the first shock of our bleeding hearts. Let us con- 
 verse, let us smile and laugh again. Let us remem-
 
 174 PETER 
 
 ber that the war is over. But it is laid on me by 
 destiny to execute five more such pictures, not less 
 terrible. If I live, they shall be done. Yes, yes; 
 I do not falter! But, for a while, let me forget, let 
 me forget." 
 
 Mrs. Wardour spaced out the wall with a pleased 
 eye. 
 
 "They will just fill the length of the gallery," she 
 said, "if we do not crowd them. Silvia, my dear, 
 you must persuade Mr. Mainwaring. . . . Well, I'm 
 sure, if that isn't the dressing bell." 
 
 A vindictive purpose was weaving itself below the 
 embowering flowers of Lady Barley's hat, and accel- 
 erating the heart-beat below the nosegay on her 
 bosom, so that the gardenias were all of a tremble. 
 Lucy might be rich (indeed, it was quite certain that 
 she was horribly rich), but comparative paupers 
 such as herself were not to be altogether trampled 
 upon, and other people beside Lucy had picture-gal- 
 leries. Apparently the series of these tremendous 
 allegories was not yet painted, was not yet either 
 definitely "bespoken" by her sister, and Joanna, as 
 she waded through the thick Kidderminster rugs 
 that carpeted the Gothic staircase on the way to her 
 room, felt that the only thing in life that wss worth 
 living for at this moment was to order a replica of 
 the first, and secure (with an embargo on replicas) 
 the remainder of this series. 
 
 Never in her life had she been so artistically over- 
 whelmed as by that prodigious canvas, and if all 
 the rest were going to be "up to sample" she could, 
 as their possessor, scoff at the art treasures of the 
 world. Sir Abe had dabbled in pictures already: he 
 had a Turner sunset which hung in the dining-room,
 
 PETER 175 
 
 at which he often pointed over his shoulder as a 
 "pooty little thing"; he had a Rembrandt of a very 
 puckered-looking old woman which had aroused the 
 envy of those who w^ere permitted to see it and to 
 be told that it came out of the Marquis of Brent- 
 ford's collection. These were desirable possessions, 
 but they were jejune compared to Mr. Mainwaring's 
 masterpiece and the masterpieces that were to fol- 
 low. The war! That was something to paint pic- 
 tures about. . . . 
 
 Her envy of her sister rose to the austerity of a 
 passion when she contemplated the equipment of 
 her bedroom, and that of her husband next door. 
 There was a bathroom attached to each, both fitted 
 with the most amazing taps and squirts, and a little 
 sitting-room attached to each, and a lift of which 
 Mrs. Wardour (showing her her room, and hoping 
 she would be comfortable) explained the working. 
 You pressed a button and were wafted. . . . The 
 same lift served Aunt Eleanor's rooms, but Lucy 
 and Peter and Silvia used another one. . . . The lift 
 clinched her resolution, and she conjugally conferred 
 with Sir Abe. He, to her delight, was as much im- 
 pressed with the passion for "scoring off" Lucy as 
 with the merits of the cartoon, but his business 
 habits had to make hesitations and conditions, not 
 "do a deal" blindly. 
 
 "Well, my lady," he said, "you shall ha.ve the pic- 
 tures if they're to be obtained reasonably. What 
 shall I offer, now? Most striking that one was, and 
 that and similar are worth paying a pretty penny 
 for. What did your sister give for that one? Then, 
 if reasonable, I don't mind if I add twenty-five per 
 cent, more, and secure the lot. They'll be some- 
 thing to point at. Get along and let me have my
 
 176 PETER 
 
 bath. You try to find out what your sister paid, 
 and then we'll know where we are, my lady." 
 
 She noted with pleasure that he relapsed into a 
 cockney accent and a slight uncertainty about as- 
 pirates as he spoke. That was a good sign : it showed 
 he was in earnest and interested, for in dalliance of 
 light conversation Sir Abe was "as good at his h's" 
 as anybody. 
 
 It was not to be expected that the cartoon and the 
 magnificence of its introduction should have no ef- 
 fect on Aunt Eleanor, or that (her general animosity 
 towards Mrs. Wardour being of the same fine order 
 as Aunt Joanna's) she should not have been kindled 
 with ambition to bring off some similar vindictive 
 stroke. But for her the acquisition of these immense 
 decorations was out of the question, for her husband 
 would certainly not pay such a price as she felt sure 
 would be necessary to secure them, and even if he 
 did his house did not contain suflacient uninter- 
 rupted wall space, so that to hang them at all she 
 would have to cut them up into sections and paper 
 several different rooms with them. But Mr. Main- 
 waring had said something about the original 
 sketches for them, which had suggested an idea that 
 took her fancy at once. The sketches were, after 
 all, the "originals," the significant buds from which 
 these over-blown blossoms had developed, and the 
 sketches would be far more manageable, both from 
 point of view of hanging, and from that of purchase. 
 There was a subtlety, a refinement in possessing 
 "originals" that these acreages of paint could not 
 compete with. Her powerful imagination pictured 
 herself exhibiting them to envious friends. 
 
 "Yes, my sister-in-law, I believe, has copies, on 
 a large scale," she would say, "of my series. These,
 
 PETER 177 
 
 of course, are the originals. Such freshness, such 
 power, all quite lost in the later and larger version." 
 And she held her seal-like head very high, and 
 snorted through her nostrils as she sailed into the 
 pink drawing-room just before the dinner bell rang. 
 She was the first to come down, and had time to 
 examine with pain and disgust the photograph of a 
 royal personage, with a crown on its frame, that 
 stood very conspicuously alone on the table by the 
 sofa where she seated herself. 
 
 Mr. Mainwaring's star continued to be violently 
 ascendant all evening. His harangues, his humour, 
 his habit of pausing in the middle of one of his inter- 
 minable stories, until complete silence had been 
 established round the table, dominated dinner, and 
 ^\hen the ladies rose to leave the gentlemen to their 
 cigars and wine, Mrs. Wardour addressed him di- 
 rectly and laid upon him not to permit them too 
 long a sitting. This gave him the rank of host, and 
 developed his social horse-power to so high an ef- 
 ficiency that on rejoining the ladies he sang the 
 Toreador's song out of Carmen. Then after that 
 had been repeated he permitted the uncles and aunts 
 to indulge themselves with bridge, and since wives 
 partnered 'their own husbands, this gave scope for 
 some pleasant family revilings, in which the ladies 
 came off far the best. Having thus arranged for 
 their pleasure, Mr. Mainwaring grouped himself with 
 his hostess, Silvia and Peter, and grew patriarchal 
 and full of sentiment over the charming family party 
 of parents and children. On Mrs. Wardour's going 
 to bed, leaving the bridge-party jealously over-calling 
 their hands, he conducted her once more to pay hom- 
 age to the cartoon, and remained there in meditation.
 
 178 PETER 
 
 Silvia and Peter had wandered out on to the 
 dusky terrace. A twilight of stars lit the still night, 
 and she drew long breaths of restoration from the ex- 
 haustion of these stupendous hours. Once clear of 
 the house, and leaning over the balustrade above the 
 lake, she gave way to hopeless laughter. 
 
 "Peter, darling, are my relations more than you 
 ought to be asked to stand?" she said. "Did you 
 know there were such people as Uncle Abe?" 
 
 "Did you know there were such people as my 
 father?" said Peter. 
 
 "Oh, but he's your father," said Silvia quickly. 
 "You mustn't bring him in." 
 
 "Why not? After all, it's he who brings himself 
 in. There's only one word for him. Bounder. 
 Uncle Abe isn't a bounder exactly. Uncle Henry 
 isn't a bounder." 
 
 "No, he's just a cad," said Silvia enthusiastically. 
 "I love people being themselves, whatever they hap- 
 pen to be. I should enjoy them much more, though, 
 if you weren't here." 
 
 "I can go to-morrow morning," said Peter. 
 
 For one moment she thought that he spoke seri- 
 ously: the next she laughed at herself for having 
 been hoaxed by his assumed sincerity of voice: "as- 
 sumed" it just had to be. 
 
 "Ah, you said that beautifully," she announced; 
 "and all the evening, do you know, you've been say- 
 ing things beautifully, with your mask on, too, your 
 best and smartest mask. I've been listening to you, 
 and never for a moment could I catch a word or a 
 silence on your part to show that you weren't thor- 
 oughly amused and interested by the aunts. You 
 behaved as if they were just the sort of people you 
 were accustomed to meet, but rather more charming.
 
 PETER 179 
 
 You have been convincing, and you were convinc- 
 ing just now when you suggested going away to- 
 morrow." 
 
 Peter had not, of course, meant to convey that he 
 really could go away to-morrow, but it had been 
 quite easy for him to render his seriousness plaus- 
 ible, since, though impossible, this was a most agree- 
 able project. But w^hat rendered that project so 
 attractive was the escape not from the aunts and 
 uncles, with whom he was quite as willing to be 
 diverted as their niece, but from his father. His 
 father, in this milieu, with his bounce and his bound- 
 ing, his general "make-up" of the large-souled, child- 
 like artist, now humbly bespeaking the indulgence 
 of his patrons, and immediately afterwards behaving 
 as if he was Michael Angelo, was intolerable. His 
 gaiety, his singing, his family grouping with himself 
 as aged and contemplative parent, w^hile the moment 
 before he had been twirling his moustaches and bel- 
 lowing out the song of the toreador, were indecencies 
 for a son's eye. If only he had been slightly fuzzy 
 and intoxicated with many liqueur brandies like 
 Uncle Henry, that would have been a palliative: 
 as it was he was only intoxicated with himself. . . . 
 
 Peter recalled himself from these impious medita- 
 tions to the needs of, or (if not the needs) the appro- 
 priateness for the immediate occasion. Silvia and 
 he had contrived a lover's interlude under the stars. 
 
 "Will you always be as charitable to me as you 
 are to my father?" he asked. "When I am absurd 
 and annoying, will you just be amused?" 
 
 The question seemed to him well framed: it led 
 him and her away from all these nonsensicalities 
 into the region where the simple things abided. He 
 expected some pressure on his arm, some little depre-
 
 180 PETER 
 
 cation of his silliness, some whisper to inform him 
 that he was a goose or an idiot. Instead, Silvia's 
 hand slackened in the crook of his arm and withdrew 
 itself. 
 
 "Oh, Peter, what a thing to ask!" she said. ''As 
 if I could be 'charitable' to you as long as you loved 
 me, or as if I could find you annoying so long as I 
 loved you. You're pretending not to understand. 
 Don't pretend like that any more." 
 
 Peter's quick brain was alert on the scent. He 
 had meant his words to be construed into a lover- 
 hke speech, and had completely thought that they 
 could be interpreted thus. But her answer con- 
 vinced him that to her they were not construable 
 at all, but only gibberish. Before he could amend 
 himself, or even quite follow her, she flashed out her 
 full meaning. 
 
 "Anybody else in the world except you can be 
 annoying," she said, "and I hope I can be charitable 
 to anybody else in the world except you. But how 
 can I be charitable to you? Or how can you be 
 trying to me? Don't you know that I am you? For 
 a month I've ceased to be myself at all. There isn't 
 any 'me.' It isn't 'me' you think you are in love 
 with; it's — it's just the completion of your own 
 wonderfulness. And as for their being any 'you,' 
 why, you've ceased long ago. I've absorbed you. 
 I've — I've drowned you in myself and in my adora- 
 tion. I'm round you. I crush you and I worship 
 you—-" 
 
 Silvia broke off suddenly as there appeared at 
 the drawing-room window a black tall silhouette 
 yodelling and crying, "Coo-ee. Children!" 
 
 "Oh, damn that man," said she. "Sorry, Peter, 
 but, well, there it is."
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 Peter was sitting (so superbly that it might have 
 been called lying) on a long dream-provoking chair 
 set outside the south facade at Howes. For the mo- 
 ment he was alone, and he surprised himself with 
 the unbidden thought of how seldom he had been 
 alone during the last fortnight^ — since, in fact, the 
 day of the wedding, which had taken place in the 
 unfashionable early days of September. This con- 
 stant companionship of Silvia, their motor drives, 
 their golf, their fishing in the lake, their long sit- 
 tings with books or newspapers of which but little 
 was read, had seemed to 'him as he looked back on 
 them (conglomerated and coagulated, like little 
 drops of mercury running together to form a globu- 
 lar brightness) to have been wholly delightful and 
 satisfying. These days had been for him, in fact, a 
 soft luminous revelation of how completely pleasant 
 days could be. Without a touch of complacency he 
 could not help knowing how every word and every 
 whim of his had seemed adorable to Silvia, and he 
 knew that, search as he might (he did not propose 
 to search at all), he would be able to find no move- 
 ment or mood of hers that he could have corrected 
 or rectified. She had taken possession of him ten- 
 derly, and, as if with held breath, watched, beauti- 
 fully bright-eyed, to discover and anticipate the 
 moods of his desires; and in answer he had given her 
 not acquiescence alone, but the eager consent of 
 
 181
 
 182 PETER 
 
 every fibre of his being. It seemed perfect that she 
 should be like that. 
 
 Silvia had just left him to meet her mother, who, 
 at the expiration of their uninterrupted fortnight, 
 was coming down to Howes that day; and Peter, 
 alone for an hour on this September afternoon, let 
 the hot sunshine, fructifying and caressing, melt 
 the marrow of his bones, the impressed records on 
 his brain, into definite consciousness. The bees hum- 
 ming over the flower-beds, the red-admiral butterflies 
 opening and shutting their vermilion streaked wings, 
 the swallows not yet gathering for their autumn de- 
 parture, all conduced to leisurely summer-like medi- 
 tation, and he found hmiself in possession of proposi- 
 tions and conclusions which he had scarcely known 
 were his. This supreme sense of content came first; 
 that, like a wash of warm colour, underlay the details 
 that now began with a finer brushwork to outline 
 themselves, and each of them appeared equally ad- 
 mirable, equally germane to the values of the emerg- 
 ing picture. 
 
 Mrs. Wardour's arrival was an important touch; 
 it might almost be called a fresh wash of colour. Out 
 of numerous reflections, considerations, weighings of 
 this and that, each of them at the time too liquid 
 and inconclusive to call a plan, a plan now had cer- 
 tainly crystalized. They, the three contributory con- 
 trivers of it, had, so to speak, pooled the London 
 house and this, making two houses for the three of 
 them. Peter would be returning to his work in 
 Whitehall next day, and since no sane being would 
 wish to remain in London in these mellow radiances 
 of September and October for longer than was abso- 
 lutely necessary, he would, as a rule flow up in the 
 swiftest of cars in the morning, and stream back
 
 PETER 183 
 
 again in the late afternoon. For one reason or an- 
 other, again, he might find himself wanting or being 
 obliged to spend a night in town ; he would be away 
 all day, anyhow, and what could be more convenient 
 than ^Irs. Wardour's perfect willingness to establish 
 herself for the present at Howes, where she would 
 supply companionship for Silvia, and find it her- 
 self? Silvia again might want to spend a day or 
 two in town, and her mother could please herself 
 as to whether she joined her or not. From such a 
 germ the idea of keeping both houses pooled and 
 permanently open for any or all of them had easily 
 developed. Headquarters for the present would be 
 in the country, and London, to Mrs. Wardour's no- 
 tion, would be something of a picnic, with the house 
 half shut up. But with four or five servants there, 
 there would, she hoped, be no angles of real discom- 
 fort. 
 
 Mrs. Wardour then, to all intents and purposes, 
 was to live with them; but Peter, so ran the deed, 
 was "master" at Howes; while in London he and 
 Silvia would have the wide license of guests pecu- 
 liarly privileged, at liberty to ask friends there when- 
 ever they wished. The crystallization of it, the defi- 
 nite statement and treaty, after infinite probings 
 and testings on her part into Peter's most intimate 
 feelings on the subject, had been entirely Silvia's. 
 It had been she who had finally suggested it, with 
 the proviso that anybody — by which she undoubt- 
 edly meant her husband — was to tear up the treaty 
 without any possibility of offence, if he found it un- 
 workable or unsatisfactory ; but, as he thought over 
 it now, he was frankly surprised at himself to find 
 how eminently satisfactory a fulfilment of it he 
 augured. Silvia had suggested it (there was the
 
 184 PETER 
 
 great point), and though he felt that he could jiot 
 himself have conceivably presented a treaty like that 
 to her for her signature, he applauded her insight in 
 so doing. A man could hardly have suggested that 
 to the girl he had but lately married ; it would have 
 savoured, would it not, of his considering that the 
 ideal arrangement did not procure for them their 
 own undiluted companionship? But she had known 
 that he would not put such a construction on her 
 proposition. She did not, in fact, let an attitude 
 which would have been typically feminine deter her 
 from adopting this more sensible and more manly 
 pose. But that was Silvia all through : there was a 
 robust quality about her, an impotence to harbour 
 littlenesses. . . . 
 
 They expected another visitor that day in the per- 
 son of Peter's father, who had, in a letter which was 
 no less than a bouquet of flowering eloquence, indi- 
 cated that for the due, the supreme, the sublime exe- 
 cution of the second cartoon, it was necessary for 
 the artist to soak himself once more in the con- 
 templation of the first, so as (this was rather in- 
 volved) to catch to the fraction of a tone the key 
 to which it was pitched. There had to be a gradual 
 crescendo, a deliberate tuning up and up, a con- 
 tinual ascent throughout the series. . . . Shorn of 
 the mixture of metaphor, he wanted to study the 
 first cartoon before plunging, with the aid of his 
 sketches, into the remainder. These sketches, he 
 added, were, as soon as he had finished with their 
 use, to pass out of his possession, for the charming 
 Mrs. Henry Wardour had induced him to let her 
 imrchase them at a figure which convinced him that 
 they would find an appreciative home. . . , Then 
 the letter became slightly mysterious. The pro-
 
 PETER 185 
 
 jected series of cartoons, he had reason to know, 
 were exciting stupendous interest in artistic circles. 
 Flattering — perhaps a man who was proud of his 
 work ought not to say flattering — evidence of that 
 was to hand, evidence substantial and conclusive. 
 He had not made — this was lucky, since he would 
 not have dreamed of going back on his bargain — 
 he had not made any contract with Mrs. Wardour 
 — to whom all salutations — about the rest of the 
 series, and thought himself fortunate in not parting 
 with them for a comparative pittance. He did not 
 (mark you, my Peter) complain of the price she had 
 paid him for the first of them, and he was quite sure 
 that, with Peter's assistance, everything would be 
 arranged quite satisfactorily. 
 
 Peter had read this letter, which he must talk 
 over with Silvia on her return, with the detachment 
 of which he was so terribly capable, and had come 
 to the conclusion that his father had somehow in- 
 duced a deluded Croesus of some sort to offer a 
 higher price per cartoon for the future perpetra- 
 tions than that which his mother-in-law had, no 
 doubt, already given him for the first. For this 
 deduction he had the most cordial welcome. As long 
 as his father was dumping his ''beastly" goods — so 
 Peter was now at liberty to think — on the picture 
 gallery at Howes for fancy, if not fantastic prices, 
 he could not in mere pious decency put it to Mrs. 
 Wardour that she was paying, as he supposed, heav- 
 ily, for colossal rubbish. But his father's letter, ma- 
 turely considered, made it quite certain that some- 
 body was willing to pay more for rubbish that Mrs. 
 Wardour. Already the general question had received 
 his attention: Mrs. Wardour was, so he supposed, 
 under contract to buy those melodramatic daubs for
 
 186 PETER 
 
 the decoration of a house that belonged to Silvia, and 
 of which he, by attested treaty, was master. So 
 long as his father could profitably dispose of this 
 rubbish here, Peter was filially prohibited from any 
 protest, but when once his father announced that he 
 was receiving a mere pittance, though without com- 
 plaint, for what he would in another market receive 
 a less despicable dole, his son, surely, was free to 
 welcome his taking his wares elsewhere. His son, 
 in any case, was heart and soul allied to the new 
 enterprise, for already Peter had experienced a vivid 
 distaste of the fact that he countenanced, by mere 
 acquiescence, this further decoration of Howes. He 
 knew that if the artist had not been his father he 
 m-ust have already protested against the bargain 
 which perhaps was not yet complete on either side. 
 His acquiescence, in fact, had brought home to him 
 that his father was profiting by his marriage. . . . 
 Then, so swiftly and involuntarily that he had not 
 time to stop the thought on the threshold, there 
 burst into the door of his mind the inquiry as to 
 W'hether he, too, as well as his father, was not un- 
 loading rubbish at a high price. And the price that 
 he, Peter, was receiving for his rubbish was infinitely 
 the higher. His father received, no doubt, a sub- 
 stantial cheque; he himself received, as far as the 
 material consideration went, an immunity from the 
 meaning of cheques, and, in a standard immeasur- 
 ably higher, some sort of blank cheque which, as Sil- 
 via told him one night (or was in the middle of tell- 
 ing him .when his father made that flamboyant in- 
 terruption), would be honoured by her to any figure 
 he chose to fill in, and yet leave her richer, in such 
 standard, than ever. There, in that immortal bank, 
 he divined then, and knew now, her illimitable credit.
 
 PETER 187 
 
 Whatever she paid out, by that, in the royal 
 mathematics of love, was she the richer. 
 
 The impression made by that unsolicited thought 
 was to him like having seen some pass-book of the 
 soul which was hers. It had blown open in front of 
 his eyes, and before he had, so to speak, time to close 
 it, he had caught a glimpse of sums so vast that 
 they exceeded his powers of realization. His eye, 
 in that involuntary survey, had received no impres- 
 sion of hi^ payments into her account; the credit 
 side was but a catalogue of her own mconceivable 
 affluence. Every moment, it seemed, she was giving, 
 and every moment her bounty flowed back to her. 
 It was with some kind of sceptical envy that, in that 
 glimpse, he realized this omnipotent finance. It was 
 not so marvellous that love should be stronger than 
 death; the miracle was that it could be so much 
 stronger than life. 
 
 It was at this moment in Peter's reflections, a 
 moment that, only half realized, he was glad to get 
 away from, that an interruption, reasonably claim- 
 ing his attention, occurred in the shape of a little 
 old butler, who had been drafted down here from 
 London in view of Mrs. Wardour's advent. He was 
 black-eyed and grey-headed, and "perky" in move- 
 ment to an extent that fully justified Peter's ex- 
 clamation of "The Jackdaw," when he had quitted 
 the scene last night, and now the Jackdaw's imme- 
 diate mission was to hand Peter a couple of letters 
 on an immense silver salver, and inquire where Mr. 
 Mainwaring, who, so the Jackdaw understood, was 
 to arrive that evening, should be "put." He should 
 be "put" clearly, in the place that would please him 
 most, for this was Peter's undeviating creed when 
 self-sacrifice was not involved, and beyond doubt
 
 188 PETER 
 
 the state-rooms, so called, would please his father 
 inordinately. 
 
 The state-rooms had been insisted on in the re- 
 building of the house by his father-in-law, in a rich 
 vision, so Silvia had half piously, half humorously 
 intimated, of royal personages being sumptuously 
 housed there. There was a tremendous tapestried 
 bedroom, en suite with a second bedroom, a break- 
 fast-room, a sitting-room, all tapestry and oak man- 
 telpieces and silver scones. Yes, the state-rooms for 
 Mr. Mainwaring. Silvia (they were on humorous 
 terms now about Peter's father) would enjoy that 
 immensely. 
 
 Peter took his letters from the Jackdaw, as the 
 latter gave a pleasant sort of croak in answer to this 
 order, and remembered how Nellie had once said 
 that wealth was not an accident, but an attribute, a 
 quality. He had been disposed to dispute that at 
 the time, but somehow his own allocation of the 
 state-rooms to his father confirmed the suspicion 
 that she was right. He himself, for instance, was 
 clearly a different person in the eyes of his father 
 now, when he could gloriously endow him with state- 
 rooms, from what he had been when he, as on that 
 same occasion he told Nellie, only lived in the beastly 
 little house off the Brompton Road because free 
 meals and free lodging were a consideration to his 
 exiguous purse. You were different^ — Nellie was 
 right — when you could dispense material magnif- 
 icence instead of accepting- a tolerable shelter, where, 
 though the rain was kept out, the odour of dinner, 
 with that careless Burrows, could not be kept in. 
 
 Still fingering his letters, and trying to insert a 
 thumb into a too honestly adhesive envelope flap, 
 Peter slightly ampHfied by corroborative illustration
 
 PETER 189 
 
 this thesis. How often had he, so to speak, "sung 
 for his dinner," accepting and welcoming such invi- 
 tations as Mrs. Trentham extended to him, by which, 
 for the pleasure of comfortable, decent food, he had 
 gladly spent an insincere and boring evening! It 
 had not quite been greed combined with moderate 
 penuriousness which had enjoined that: it was the 
 natural thing to do, if you were young and poor; to 
 dine, that is to say, comfortably, and by way of 
 acknowle<:lging your indebtedness, to be towed about 
 for the rest of the evening by a foolish, married, 
 middle-aged woman who, for some inscrutable rea- 
 son of her own, wanted to present her unblemished 
 reputation in some sort of compromising limelight. 
 But now, on this opulent sunny afternoon, Peter 
 tried in vain to recapture the mood, once habitual 
 to him, of accepting any invitation merely because 
 it implied a good dinner and perhaps a good sup- 
 per, with a boring opera in between. Certainly it 
 had been easy for him to fulfill his part of the bar- 
 gain in these evenings: it was natural and also hab- 
 itual for him to make himself pleasant, to look hand- 
 some, to tell Mrs. Trentham that she had never been 
 so marvellous, so chic, so smart, so entrancing gen- 
 erally. But now the mere notion of such an evening 
 seemed foreign. If he wanted to dine at the Ritz 
 and go to the opera and have some supper, he could 
 do it, and secure as guests just those with whom it 
 was pleasant to spend an evening. Henceforth if he 
 wanted to do that he could, vulgarly speaking, "pick 
 and choose" the recipients of his bounty. . . . Stated 
 like that the whole thing sounded rather sordid, but 
 it seemed to him that, for himself, he had got rid of 
 that sordidness, the "court-fool-touch" which com- 
 pelled you to make jokes in payment for your din-
 
 190 PETER 
 
 ner, or (which was worse) to talk to your hostess 
 in the serious, wistful note of an adorer, or at any 
 rate of a dazzled and delighted guest. To be host, 
 to pay the bill, provided you had plenty -of money, 
 was far the easier part. 
 
 There it was -then: he had no longer to be asked 
 to dine at the Ritz, and to go to the theatre or what 
 not afterwards. He could bid to his feasts and no 
 more consider the expense, than in the old days he 
 would have considered whether he could afford a 
 bus fare. Whatever enjoyments of that kind the 
 world had to offer were his for the mere formation 
 of his inclination to enjoy them. . . . And then, 
 suddenly as a blink of distant lightning, and, so it 
 seemed, wholly independent of his own brain, there 
 came the question as to what he had paid for these 
 privileges. And remote as drowsy thunder, the ques- 
 tion supplied its own indubitable answer. He had 
 somehow — the thing was done^ — convinced SilVia 
 that he loved her. He had, at any rate, given her the 
 signal of response that had ecstatically, rapturously 
 contented her, when, below her breath, as she ac- 
 cepted him as her lover, she had whispered, ''Ah, just 
 let me love you, all I want is to love you, to be 
 allowed to love you." . . . He had known quite well 
 what that "allow" really implied. He had to be on 
 the same plane of emotion as she; else, to her un- 
 derstanding of it all, they could never have arrived 
 at this. 
 
 All the time (he knew that then, and knew it infi- 
 nitely better now) her level shone in sunlight like 
 some peak far above the clouds, compared to his little 
 wooded hill that drowsed in the grey day below them. 
 Round him there was no gleam of that ethereal 
 brightness in which she walked, or, at the most.
 
 PETER 191 
 
 through some rent in the clouds, he caught a glimpse 
 of her. She, at present, so it appeared to him, was 
 so encompassed with brightness that, dazzled, she 
 took for granted that he was with her, and indeed, 
 by some device of desire and of cleverness on his 
 part, he could convince her that through the clasp 
 of their hands there throbbed the sweet entangle- 
 ment of the soul. She interpreted his lightest action, 
 his words, his glances, by some magic of her own; 
 but already he knew that he, though with consum- 
 mate care, was "keeping it up." There was no ele- 
 ment of difficulty about it, any more than there had 
 been any difficulty about behaving to the complete 
 satisfaction of Mrs. Trentham at her Ritz-Opera en- 
 tertainments. But in both roles, as guest at the Ritz 
 and as "master" of Howes, there was an inherent 
 falsity. In both he was dressed up for the part. The 
 difference between the two situations was that in 
 the one Mrs. Trentham was dressed up too, and in 
 the other Silvia was not. 
 
 Peter was quite ruthless in tearing the motley 
 off from himself, and contemplating with the can- 
 didness of a true egoist the revealed deformities. He 
 never cultivated illusions about himself, nor strove 
 to soften down his own uncomeliness. There he 
 was ; that was he, to make the best or the worst of. 
 He did not on the other hand, try to depreciate his 
 assets; he tried, in fact, to make the most of them 
 and use them to the utmost possible advantage. He 
 was, and knew it, a marvellous physical type, hand- 
 some as the young Hermes, and crowned with the 
 glory and flower of adolescence. He surrendered to 
 Silvia all that physical perfection; he gave her the 
 wit and ch-arm of his mind; and he was aware that 
 with these he dazzled her much in the same way as
 
 192 PETER 
 
 Nellie had dazzled her. The use and the enjoyment 
 of them, utterly at her service, was responsible for 
 the splendid success of this solitary fortnight. 
 
 In spite of the divine conditions of these golden 
 country days, he knew that he was not sorry to be 
 enjoying the last of them. To-morrow he had to get 
 back to his work, and this sword of his, body and 
 mind, would be sheathed for intervals of absence. 
 And then, with the sure certainty of apprehension 
 that had stamped out these conclusions, he knew 
 that it was not for these alone, or even for these at 
 all, that Silvia had loved him. At the most they 
 were for her the bright-plumaged lure, to which her 
 attentio.n had been originally attracted. But even 
 in the first moments of this attention she had di- 
 vined something in him, below the feathers and the 
 fur, which she sought. Her quest had gone deeper 
 than skin and conversation, than glances and smiles 
 and level shoulders and firm neck, and quick re- 
 sponse, and humour and all the lures of the male for 
 the female. She had claimed and clasped him for 
 something other than what certainly appeared to her 
 as mere appurtenances. And what on his side had 
 he looked for in her? Nothing, so he branded it on 
 himself, except her mere physical attraction, her 
 mere mental charm and freshness and her wealth. 
 
 But the admission of this was a branding: the 
 hot iron hurt him, and, not liking to be hurt, he 
 recollected the le+ters which, a few minutes ago, 
 the Jackdaw had presented to him, and which — the 
 first of them, upside down in his hand — was so hon- 
 estly gummed that he could make no insertion into 
 its flap. 
 
 He turned it over and saw the handwriting of the 
 address. He managed then to open it.
 
 PETER 193 
 
 "Isn't it delightful to be married?" wrote Nellie. 
 "I didn't write to you at first, Peter, because you 
 wouldn't have enjoyed anything that came from out- 
 side. But after a fortnight, you ought to be able 
 to be congratulated. Before that it would have been 
 merely impertinent (and probably is now) ; but your 
 friends have to take up the threads again sometime. 
 All we blissful people, in fact, must remember that 
 we are human beings, after all, and break ourselves 
 into 'behavin' according' (Mrs. Gamp, isn't it? No, 
 I don't think it is). Anyhow, we shall all meet 
 again, shan't we, and buzz about in London, and ask 
 each other to our lovely country houses. We've got 
 to go on, Peter; the world has got to go on. Hasn't 
 it?" 
 
 Peter turned a page, and began to be quite ab- 
 sorbed in this new but familiar atmosphere. He 
 slipped out of his present environment under some 
 spell which lurked in these trivialities. 
 
 "I'm getting on beautifully," so began the sec- 
 ond page, "for Philip and I understand each other so 
 well, and it's tremendously comfortable. We seem 
 to want just the same sort- of thing. He's awfully 
 keen about birds, for instance, and I am becoming 
 so. We go out with field-glasses, and see willow- 
 wrens, and yesterday we saw a marsh-warbler. Then 
 I like golf — you always hated it, I remember — so 
 Philip is learning to like it too. He nearly lost his 
 temper yesterday when he missed a short putt, 
 and that's always a good sign. We don't quite agree 
 about motoring, because I always want to go as fast 
 as the machine can manage, and he always wants to 
 slow down when there's a cross-road. He talks to 
 the chauffeur through a beastly little tube, and it's 
 like a funeral.
 
 194 PETER 
 
 "Peter darling, what rot I am writing. Fancy my 
 writing such rot to you. It's the wrong sort of rot, 
 isn't it? There are rots and rots. You and I 
 always used to talk rot, but it wasn't about birds and 
 golf. (I'm having a new sort of mashie.) But, bar 
 rot, when are we going to meet again? Isn't the 
 country a sleepy place? Do come up to town soon, 
 and Philip and I will come up, too. (You and Sil- 
 via, I mean, of course.) I want to be in the silly 
 old thick of it again. Because when you're in the 
 thick of it you can .make privacies, but when you're 
 in the privacy of the country you can't make a thick, 
 except when you have a great house-party, as we're 
 going to have next week, and that isn't really a 
 'thick' : it's only partridges. The men go out in the 
 morning, and the women join them for lunch, and 
 then the men come home in the evening, and the 
 morning and evening are the first day. But it's aU 
 extremely comfortable — that's the word I come back 
 to. Mother has been here for the last three weeks, 
 and she's almost ceased saying that she must go 
 away the day after to-morrow. I suppose that's 
 because she's tired of hearing either Philip or me 
 murmur something about its being such a short 
 visit. P. and I really both like her being with us: 
 it isn't half a bad plan, and I expect she'll stop till 
 we go back to town again. 
 
 "I want you and Silvia to come over here on 
 November 10th for the week-end. There will be 
 hosts of rather nice people here: so many, in fact, 
 that you and I can steal away without being noticed, 
 and have a scamper through the wet woods (they are 
 sure to be wet in November) and wave our tails 
 and congratulate ourselves on being settled for life. 
 We've both of us got somebody to take care of us
 
 PETER 195 
 
 (Yes, I mean that), and if you're as pleased with the 
 arrangement as I am, why, we're very lucky people. 
 You and I, you know, if .things had been utterly and 
 completely different, would have quarrelled so fright- 
 fully. ... I saw two cats yesterday sitting with 
 their faces within an inch of each other, scowling 
 and screeching at each other in a perfect tempest of 
 irritation. 
 
 ''Here's Philip come to take me out. He will sit 
 in the chair there waiting quite placidly till I have 
 finished this letter, not reading the paper or doing 
 anything at all, but just waiting. He knows where 
 there are a pair of golden crested wrens. Isn't that 
 exciting? . . . Oh, I can't go on with him sitting 
 there. Good-bye, my dear. Mind you and Silvia 
 come on the 10th." 
 
 As Peter read, he heard, by some internal audi- 
 tion, Nellie's voice enunciating the sentences with 
 that familiar intonation of light staccato mockery. 
 The written words were but like a prompter's copy 
 which he held and glanced at; it was Nellie who 
 stood there and said the lines. He would have liked 
 to argue a point or two with her, but he knew that 
 there was between them that deep fundamental 
 agreement and comprehension without which argu- 
 ment develops into mere contradiction. . . . 
 
 Peter thrust the letter into his pocket as steps 
 sounded on the gravel just behind him. 
 
 "Been sitting here ever since I left you?" asked 
 Silvia. "Oh, Peter, without your hat in this hot 
 sun!" 
 
 She picked it up and perched it on his head. 
 
 "There! Oh, ; what a nuisance it is that this is
 
 196 PETER 
 
 your last day here. But what a last day. Any l-et- 
 ters?" 
 
 Peter's hand fingered Nellie's letter. 
 
 "Yes: one from Nellie," he said. "She wants you 
 and me to go there for the week-end on November 
 10th. Shall we?" 
 
 "Oh, how unkind of her? What are we to do? 
 Shall we say that Mother will be here for that Sun- 
 day? It will be quite true in its way, though it 
 won't mean precisely what she thinks it means." 
 
 Peter looked at her below the rim of his straw 
 hat. She had placed it rather forward over his fore- 
 head, and as she stood beside his chair he had to 
 incline his head sharply back, so that the muscles 
 at the side of his neck stood out below the sun- 
 browned skin. She came a step closer and held his 
 throat between thumb and fingers. 
 
 "What shall we tell her?" she asked. "Speak, or 
 I'll strangle you." 
 
 "Strangle away!" he said. 
 
 "I would sooner you spoke," she said. "I don't 
 want to murder you just yet. So unpleasant for 
 mother." 
 
 "Whether it's unpleasant for me or not doesn't 
 seem to matter," said Peter throatily, for Silvia in- 
 creased the pressure of her hand. 
 
 "Not a bit, darling," said she. "I shall squeeze 
 tighter and tighter until you tell me what we shall 
 say to Nellie." 
 
 "Brute!" said Peter. "Don't do it, Silvia. You're 
 hurting me frightfully." 
 
 He wrinkled up his forehead and drew in his 
 breath quickly, as if in great pain. Instantly Silvia 
 took her hand away.
 
 PETER 197 
 
 "Oh, my dear, I haven't really hurt you?" she 
 asked with compunction. 
 
 "Once upon a time," said Peter, "there was a 
 woman who believed every word that her husband 
 said." 
 
 Silvia sat down on the edge of the long chair. 
 
 "Was? There is one," she said. "If you told me 
 you hated me, I should believe you." 
 
 "I hate you," said Peter promptly. 
 
 "You didn't say that," said she. "Your mouth said 
 it. What are we to tell Nellie? Seriously, I mean. 
 It will be nearly our last Sunday here, if we go to 
 London in December." 
 
 Peter made a short calculation. 
 
 "Dear Nellie," he said, "we are so sorry we can't 
 come, because November 10th will be our last even- 
 ing but twenty-one alone here, as we go up to town 
 the next month. Will that do?" 
 
 "It sounds perfectly sensible," said Silvia. She'll 
 understand : it wasn't so long ago that she was mar- 
 ried. Then you'll write that, will you?" she added 
 hopefully. 
 
 "I will if you really wish it," said he; "but it's 
 not very sane. You see . . . well, some time we've 
 got to begin behaving like ordinary human beings 
 again. And, after all, Nellie is a very old friend of 
 mine, and a very intimate one of yours. She'll think 
 it rather odd." 
 
 Silvia sighed. 
 
 "A whole Saturday to Monday," she said. "How 
 selfish Nellie is. I never knew that before. But 
 perhaps we had better go. Shall I answer it for 
 you?" 
 
 Peter got up. 
 
 "No; I must write to her in any case," he said.
 
 198 PETER 
 
 "What else does she say?" asked Silvia. ''No 
 message for me?" 
 
 Peter could not definitely remember any, but there 
 was sure to have been such. 
 
 "Of course : all sorts of things. Come for a stroll, 
 Silvia. I'm getting chilly in the shade of my straw 
 hat. There's another thing I want to talk over with 
 you. Let's go down by the lake!" 
 
 "Hurrah ! I love being consulted. What is it?" 
 
 "It's about my father. Oh, by the way, the Jack- 
 daw asked me where he should be put, and I said the 
 state-rooms. Is that all right?" 
 
 Silvia pinched his arm. 
 
 "When are you going to understand that you are 
 the master?" she said. "Oh, Peter, it will be lovely 
 for him having the state-rooms. He'll like it tremen- 
 dously. Won't he? I wish I had thought of it. 
 It wasn't that, I hope, that you wanted to consult 
 me about." 
 
 "No. Now, before I consult you, I want to ask 
 you a question or two, which you must promise to 
 answer not tactfully, but truly." 
 
 "Not even a little tact, if I find it necessary?" 
 she asked. 
 
 "Not an atom. Do you like that cartoon of his?" 
 
 Silvia glanced sideways at him. 
 
 "Well — I don't find I go and look at it for pleas- 
 ure," she said. "Not often at least, not every day. 
 Do you like it?" 
 
 "I think it's the most colossal piece of rubbish I 
 ever saw. Now try again to express your opinion." 
 
 Silvia gave a sigh of relief. 
 
 "Oh, I do agree!" she said. "It's the most appal- 
 ling. Now, isn't it?" 
 
 "Question number two," said Peter. "Do you
 
 PETER 199 
 
 think you will like the others any better? Do you, 
 in fact, look forward to seeing the whole wall of the 
 gallery covered with allegorical Mainwarings?" 
 
 "Not in the very smallest degree. But we've got 
 to have them, haven't we?" 
 
 "I don't think so," said he. "In fact, from a letter 
 I have received from my father, I gather that he 
 doesn't consider he made a contract for them at all. 
 It's clear from what he says that somebody else 
 wants to buy them at a higher rate, considerably 
 higher, than your mother paid for the first. In fact, 
 he alludes to the price she paid for it as a pittance. 
 By the way, what did she pay for it?" 
 
 Silvia looked sideways at him again. 
 
 "Do you really want me to tell you?" she asked. 
 
 "If you don't mind." 
 
 "Well, she gave him a thousand guineas for it, 
 Peter. I rather wish he hadn't called it a pittance; 
 it makes mother seem mean. He was quite willing 
 to accept it. And I don't suppose — do you? — that 
 he sells much at that sort of price?" 
 
 "And the rest of the unspeakable six at the same 
 price?" asked Peter. 
 
 "I suppose so. Mother understood so," said she. 
 
 "And does she want to have them?" asked Peter. 
 
 "No. I don't think she does, very much," said Sil- 
 via. "She spoke to-day of 'my cartoons' — wasn't 
 that darling of her? — when I said your father was 
 coming this evening. But I think I could explain to 
 her that she needn't have them ; if I do it the right 
 way, she won't think she wants them. But what 
 about the one we've got?" 
 
 "Sell it back to him at the price she gave for it," 
 said Peter.
 
 200 PETER 
 
 Silvia seemed to consider this simple proposition 
 rather intently. 
 
 "Yes, perhaps she would do that," she said, with- 
 out much conviction as to its probability. "Oh, 
 Peter, haven't we got rather odd parents?" 
 
 "I have; but why have you, except in so far that 
 it was odd to give a thousand guineas for that mon- 
 strosity? I'm delighted at the prospect of getting 
 rid of it, not only, and not chiefly, because it's an 
 atrocious object, but because I hate the idea of my 
 father imposing upon your mother and then talking 
 about a pittance. He would have jumped at selling 
 it in an auction room for a quarter of what she paid. 
 1 wonder who can have offered him more for it. Oh, 
 by the way. Aunt Eleanor has bought his sketches 
 for the cartoons," 
 
 Silvia burst out laughing. 
 
 "Then Aunt Joanna has bought the cartoons 
 themselves," she said. "But don't suggest that to 
 mother. Or rather, if you want me to talk about it 
 all to her, I won't. Aunt Joanna, you see, wants to, 
 what they call wipe mother's eye. I'm quite certain 
 of it. And if mother got wind of it, she wouldn't 
 part with that wretched picture for a million." 
 
 "But how odd " 
 
 "Yes; that's her oddness. I said we had got odd 
 parents. And I doubt — at least, there's no doubt 
 about it at all — whether she will let your father have 
 back the one cartoon that she has got for what she 
 paid for it. She doesn't want any money, and she's 
 as generous as she can be, bless her, but she won't 
 be 'done.' The picture is hers, and she won't let 
 him have it back at a penny less than he -is going to 
 receive for it. Oh, let's talk about something more 
 interesting. Anyhow, you and I don't want the car-
 
 PETER 201 
 
 toon we've got, or any more like it. But people 
 are so queer, and I love their queernesses: they 
 are part of them. After all, the queernesses in peo- 
 ple are exactly what makes their individuality. 
 You're queer, I'm queer." 
 
 "WTiy am I queer?" demanded Peter. 
 
 "I've told you so often," said she. 
 
 Peter guessed at that what his imputed queei:- 
 ness was. It was true that she had told him often, 
 but it was true also that there was a thing which a 
 lover was never tired of repeating. 
 
 "Never: neverionce," said he. 
 
 "As if I wasn't doing it all day," she said. "Tak- 
 ing advantage, I mean, of your queerness — not mere- 
 ly telling you about it directly, but being so much 
 more direct than just telling you. What's your 
 queerness, indeed, if it isn't that you allow me to be 
 queer, just because you are?" 
 
 "You've changed the subject," said he. "You're 
 talking about your queerness now." 
 
 "It's all the same queerness," she said. 
 
 Peter could squint more atrociously than most 
 people, and now, looking at Silvia, he allowed him- 
 self to contemplate the end of his nose. Silvia 
 couldn't stand this trick, and a nonsensical ritual had 
 built itself up upon it. 
 
 "Oh, Peter, put your eyes back!" she cried. 
 
 "I can't. They've stuck. Push them back for 
 
 me. 
 
 He shut his eyes, and Silvia stroked the lids from 
 the nose outwards. 
 
 "They will stick some day," she said, "and then 
 I shall divorce you." 
 
 Peter looked at her straight again. 
 
 "Go on about the queerness," he said.
 
 202 PETER 
 
 "Yours or mine?" she asked. 
 
 "You said they were the same." 
 
 "They are in a way. But your queemess is much 
 the queerest. For it was I whom you loved. What 
 I did wasn't queer; anything else would have been 
 not queer, but imbecile. . . . Peter, don't ever be 
 tired of knowing how awfully I love you. If you're 
 not there, the thought of it frightens me; there's 
 something crushing about it. But when you are 
 with me, the only thing that frightens me is the 
 thought that it shouldn't be so. But why on earth 
 you're like that^ — like me, I mean — that's what is so 
 incomprehensible. Me, you know : this bit of noth- 
 ing at all." 
 
 Peter became aware, more consciously than 
 through the hints he had previously been cognizant 
 of, how, though Silvia's level was some sun-basked 
 plateau far above him, he welcomed and spread him- 
 self in the gleams that came to him. There was a 
 splendour in being loved like that, and at this mo- 
 ment the inherent falsity of his position was just 
 burned out by that consuming ray. Her love, not in 
 the least masculine, was yet male in its adoring self- 
 surrender ; his, as regards her, though not in the least 
 feminine, was female in its reception of it. There 
 v/as an ecstasy in being adored by so magnificent a 
 lover. Even as in material ways, she showered her- 
 self on the Danae for whom, in their drama, he was 
 cast, so in the subtler and splendid beauty of the 
 soul, she poured herself out in a love that passed the 
 love of woman. And that very quality, here 
 triumphantly shining, drew out the essential fra^ 
 grance of his. 
 
 "More," he said, "more nothing at all."
 
 PETER 203 
 
 She seemed to step from her height at that, divmg 
 down to him, entrancingly tender. 
 
 "That's all there is, my darling," she said. "If 
 you want more than I've got, you must teach it me. 
 Now I won't be absurd any longer. Look, there's a 
 moorhen!" 
 
 This was quite in the habitual manner. Like a 
 lark, she sang for so long as she was in the air, then 
 folded her wings and dropped to her nest. The sing- 
 ing was over, and it left her panting with the ecstasy 
 of it. But Peter, to continue that metaphor, re- 
 ceived something of a shock; he had not known she 
 would so swiftly come to ground. Yet that sudden 
 dip was equally characteristic of him; he probably 
 had shown her the trick of it, for often he had done 
 just that. The sky, after all, extended to the actual 
 ground: there was no intermediate element. 
 
 "It's a coot," he said. 
 
 "I don't care. I only hope it's happy," said she. 
 "Oh, my dear, there's the bell for lunch, and we're 
 half a mile from the house. The Jackdaw will peck 
 us for being late." 
 
 "Not our fault. The lake shouldn't have been so 
 long." 
 
 "We might fill some of it up," said she. "Let's 
 talk sensibly. What were we saying before you 
 began to talk nonsense? Oh, yes, pictures, pit- 
 tance " 
 
 "Papa," said he. 
 
 "Peter. ... I can't think of any more." 
 
 "Peter's papa purchases the picture he sold for a 
 pittance," said he. "American headlines. Make 
 another." 
 
 This sort of monkey-gj'mnastics of the mind, at 
 which Peter and Nellie and all the rest of them so
 
 204 PETER 
 
 fluently excelled, was always productive in Silvia of 
 an intense gravity ; she made her contributions with 
 effort, struggle, and bewilderment, amazed at how 
 quickly everybody else — everybody else was so clever 
 — made words out of words, and reeled off the names 
 of eminent men which began with an X. . . . 
 
 "Something about mother," said she with knitted 
 brows. "I must manage — oh, Peter, isn't that good? 
 — I must manage to make mother " 
 
 Peter giggled. 
 
 "That's not the right form," he said. "You must 
 get the right form. Let's see. 'Millionaire mother 
 manages to make — to make — oh, yes — money on Mr. 
 Mainwaring's monstrosity/ " he finished up in a 
 great hurry. 
 
 "Oh, Peter, how lovely!" said she. "How do you 
 doit? And why can't I?" 
 
 Mr. Mainwaring rose magnificently to his tenancy 
 of the state-rooms, feeling that it had been a very 
 proper arrangement to put him there. Here was the 
 father of the master of Howes paying a visit to his 
 son ; here, too, in the same earthly vesture, was the 
 creator of the great cartoons which, among all the 
 futile crosses and cenotaphs and hysterical verse and 
 prose, were not unworthy of the heroic history which 
 they commemorated. With the same abandoned 
 thoroughness with which he could be, when suit- 
 able, the rollicking, jovial boy, hungry for his tea, 
 OT the light-hearted robust-throated Toreador, so, 
 now he saw in the assignation of the state-rooms 
 to his occupancy a very proper and touching homage 
 on the part of Peter and Silvia, or Mrs. Wardour 
 (or more probably on their joint acclamation) to the 
 sovereignty of his Art. These pleasant reflections
 
 PETER 205 
 
 that accompanied the appreciative exploration of 
 his territory suggested that there was, so to speak, a 
 little state business to be done, the nature of which 
 he believed he had adequately indicated to Peter. 
 Peter, good lad, would no doubt have attended to 
 it, and it would be well for him to give his report. 
 
 Probably it was as much the desire of having this 
 conversation with Peter secure from interruption as 
 anything else that caused him to send a message to 
 his son that Mr. iMainwaring would be much obliged 
 if he would spare him a few minutes in the state- 
 rooms before dressing time; but it certainly fitted 
 in pleasantly with his sovereignty that Peter should 
 be requested to present himself, and that Mr. Main- 
 waring should be stationed on a Spanish throne of 
 brocade and gilded wood-work. 
 
 He waved Peter to a seat. Peter seemed to prefer 
 to perch himself on the tall steel fireguard. He 
 divined with sufiicient accuracy his father's pose, and 
 was partly amused, partly irritated. Silvia would 
 have been wholly amused. 
 
 "Hope you'll be comfortable here, father," he said. 
 
 Mr. Mainwaring glanced round him. 
 
 "Yes, indeed," he said. "1 shall do very well. 
 Ah, by the way, before we get to business, I have a 
 letter from your mother which she asked me to give 
 you. Perhaps you would hand me my despatch 
 case. . . . Here it is." 
 
 Peter was lighting a cigarette, and spoke between 
 the puffs. 
 
 "Right. I'll take it when I go," he said. 
 
 His father looked at the tapestried walls. 
 
 "My dear boy," he said, "I don't know if I am 
 right to allow you to smoke here."
 
 206 PETER 
 
 Peter dropped his match on the carpet. He did 
 that on purpose. 
 
 ''Oh, don't bother about that," he said. "I allow 
 myself. Now I suppose you want to talk to me 
 about that cartoon?" 
 
 "You got my letter? You have arranged what I 
 indicated?" 
 
 Peter felt his irritation gaining on him. 
 
 "Well, your letter was rather — rather involved, 
 rather vague and magnificent," he said. "What 
 Silvia and I made out of it was that you had been 
 offered a higher price for work that Mrs. Wardour 
 had commissioned you to do for her, and wanted to 
 call it off. That seemed to be the general drift of it." 
 
 "No; there was no definite commission," said he. 
 "I mentioned that." 
 
 "Mrs. Wardour was under the impression that 
 there was. But that, I think, can be arranged, for 
 the series was intended — commissioned or not doesn't 
 matter — to hang in the gallery here. This is Silvia's 
 house, you see, and in a way mine, so that if we 
 consent there will be — under certain conditions — no 
 difficulty with my mother-in-law. Silvia has talked 
 to her about it. We cordially consent, father. We 
 are both quite willing that you should paint the rest 
 of the series for somebody else." 
 
 Mr. Mainwaring could find no fault with the sub- 
 stance of the speech; indeed, it gave him precisely 
 what he was wanting. But, in spite of Peter's 
 neutrality of statement, he found it dealing some 
 dastardly wound to his vanity. 
 
 "Ha! You and Silvia, it appears, don't want the 
 great series," he remarked. 
 
 "But apparently somebody else does," said Peter. 
 "And you said in your letter that they were exciting
 
 PETER 207 
 
 a stupendous interest in artistic circles. That's all 
 right, then; we are very glad." 
 
 *'Yes, glad to get rid of them/' said the insatiable 
 one. 
 
 Peter practically never lost his temper. He used 
 it as a stored-up force. But certainly the sight of 
 his father, looking like Zeus on the Spanish throne, 
 did not predispose him to exert his habitual pleas- 
 antness. 
 
 "You are, of course, at liberty to make any com- 
 ments you choose," he said. "You are vexed with 
 me because I give you your way quite willingly 
 instead of reluctantly. By the way, don't tell me, 
 and in particular don't tell Mrs. Wardour, whether 
 the 'artistic circles' is another expression for Lady 
 Darley. If it is, I think it highly probable that she 
 would refuse to let you have back the first cartoon, 
 if that is part of your plan. You would, in that case, 
 I suppose, have to copy it if she allowed you to." 
 
 Mr. Mainwaring rose to a splendour of pomposity. 
 
 "Copy?" he said. "And could I copy the fiery 
 execution of it? You speak of pictures, my Peter, as 
 if they could be produced like boots or hats. The 
 intending purchaser — I do not say whether or no I 
 refer to Lady Darley — wants no cold replica. She 
 insists on the one that came hot and terrible from 
 the furnace of my imagination." 
 
 "Then on certain conditions," said Peter, "Lady 
 Darley — I mean the purchaser — may have it." 
 
 "Name them," said his father, looking like a cap- 
 tive king. 
 
 "The first is that you completely withdraw, and if 
 possible regret, the use of the expression 'pittance,' 
 in connection with the price you received for it.
 
 208 PETER 
 
 There's an implication of meanness about it with 
 regard to Mrs. Wardour." 
 
 Mr. Mainwaring clicked his thumb and finger as 
 if to say, ''That for what I sold it for." 
 
 'T make no such implication," he said. "Mrs. 
 Wardour or anybody else is well within her rights 
 in acquiring fine work at such prices as the artist is 
 obliged from straitened circumstances to accept." 
 
 "The point is," said Peter, "that you hadn't often, 
 if ever, been obliged to accept a thousand guineas 
 before for any picture." 
 
 "And may not an artist, after years of unremitting 
 endeavour, be allowed to come into his own and en- 
 joy the appreciation he has long merited?" asked 
 Mr. Mainwaring. 
 
 "Certainly he may: we are all delighted. But 
 when he does — when, that is to say, you at length 
 receive a high price for a picture, you shouldn't, 
 because you are offered immediately afterwards a 
 higher price, talk of a pittance as applied to the first. 
 You thought yourself, father," continued Peter pleas- 
 antly and inexorably, "remarkably fortunate to get a 
 thousand guineas." 
 
 Mr. Mainwaring, at this, displayed the versatility 
 of a quick-change artist. It was pretty well demon- 
 strated that Peter was not impressed by the majes- 
 tic attitude, and he yodelled and burst into a laugh. 
 
 "Well, well, my Peter," he said, "you shall have 
 it your own way. It was no pittance. I ought not 
 to have called it a pittance — mea culpa, mea maxima 
 culpa. Pittance it is — let us distinguish, my dear — 
 when I contrast it with the subsequent ofi"er that 
 has reached me, but at the time a thousand guineas 
 seemed to me a very fair remuneration. I had been 
 too modest about my value, it appears now. Ah, yes.
 
 PETER 209 
 
 but recognition is pleasant enough, and when the 
 brush sUps from my hand, and my spirit flies" (he 
 made a cii'cular motion of his arms as if swimming) 
 "to join the mightier dead, the Mainwaring estate 
 will be found not too inconsiderable to place beside 
 the fortunes of the Wardours. But that will not, I 
 hope, be for a long time yet," he added, as the notion 
 of picturing himself in front of some great canvas 
 with the brush slipping from his nerveless hands, 
 supported by Silvia and Peter, occurred to him with 
 an almost ominous vividness. 
 
 "Quite," said Peter in general acknowledgment of 
 this magnificence. "There remains then one thing 
 to settle, and that is the price at which you repur- 
 chase the cartoon of which Mrs. Wardour is the 
 present possessor." 
 
 Mr. Mainwaring did not for the moment see the 
 bearing of this, and remained splendid. 
 
 "I should not dream of repaying her one penny 
 less than what I received for it," he said. "The full 
 price, Peter: assure her of that." 
 
 Peter thought it better to let another aspect of the 
 case strike his father, without suggesting it, and was 
 silent till Mr. Mainwaring spoke again. 
 
 "H'm. I see what you mean," he said. 
 
 "I hoped you would, because really there doesn't 
 seem to be any reason why she should let you have 
 for a thousand guineas a thing which is now indubit- 
 ably hers, and which you will immediately sell for a 
 considerably higher sum." 
 
 Mr. Mainwaring began to regret that he had said 
 quite so much about the utter impossibility of recap- 
 turing the fire of the original in a copy. 
 
 "You would be offering her, you must remember," 
 Peter added, "a pittance for her picture."
 
 210 PETER 
 
 "You think I ought to give her what I shall receive 
 for it?" asked Mr. Main waring. 
 
 Peter kept steadily before him his distaste of his 
 father "scoring off" Mrs. Wardour. The whole thing, 
 though humorous, was rather sordid; but he knew 
 that he rather iiked himself in the part he was play- 
 ing in it. 
 
 *T think the justice of that view will appeal to 
 you," he said. "You couldn't very well do other- 
 wise." 
 
 Mr. Mainwaring was silent a moment, and then 
 decided to be completely superb. 
 
 "I have no experience in business or in bargain- 
 ing," he said. "If you tell me that is right and fair 
 and proper, I yield." 
 
 "I think it's your only means of getting the pic- 
 ture," said Peter. "So that's settled, is it? Oh, the 
 letter from my mother. Thanks. Dinner at half- 
 past eight."
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 Peter, as he strolled down the corridor, knew that 
 he had been rather signorial — if that was the word 
 — and designedly so, in this inter\dew. In spite of 
 Mr. Mainw^aring's magnificent occupation of the 
 state-rooms, for which, after all, he had his son to 
 thank, Peter was pleased to feel that he had been 
 putting his father in his place. It had certainly been 
 with this object in view that he had smoked his cig- 
 arette, and dropped the expired match on the carpet, 
 not exactly calling attention to his position, but 
 casually assuming it. Again, in the matter of the 
 picture, he had, ever so quietly, ever so indulgently, 
 just hinted at the right course, and like a lamb — a 
 great vain rococo, farcical lamb — his father had 
 bleated his w^ay into the proper fold. 
 
 Peter confessed to himself — he seldom confessed 
 to anybody else — that the motive which inspired 
 these manoeuvres was an unamiable one. He might 
 easily have obtained the results that he now, to- 
 gether with his mother's unopened letter, carried 
 away from this interview, by tact, by pleasantness, 
 by the general small change of sympathy. Hitherto 
 he had been accustomed to use such lubrications to 
 make the wheels of life run smoothly in domestic 
 dealings; but now that no further domestic lubrica- 
 tion was necessary on his part (his father, it is 
 true, might have to flourish the oil-can with des- 
 perate agility, if he was to ensure smooth working) 
 Peter knew that he had just driven ahead and let 
 
 211
 
 212 PETER 
 
 the wheels, if so they felt disposed, squeak and 
 squeal, and grind and grumble. While that small, 
 smelly house off the Brompton Road had been his 
 home, it had paid to make the bearings run easily; 
 but now, when he thought with incredulous wonder 
 that he could have "stuck" all that small stufl&ness 
 so long, he detachedly admired his own past deft- 
 ness and patience in dealing with the daily situation 
 there. He saw in the mirror of his own vanity the 
 incomparable crudeness of his father's, and discov- 
 ered, almost with a sense of shock, how cordially he 
 disliked him. 
 
 For the present his sense of humour with regard 
 to him was in total eclipse; the type of quality which 
 Silvia hugged as being the lovable queerness which 
 makes for individuality, he saw only as tiresome and 
 contemptible eccentricity, a thing to be contem- 
 plated baldly without comment, whenever contem- 
 plation of it was necessary, and to be dealt with 
 summarily. The vexing affair was that Peter caught 
 some broken image of himself in all this. One 
 glimpse of himself in especial was irritating; that, 
 namely, in which he looked with great distaste on 
 his father's profiting by the wealth of the Wardour's 
 without giving a due return for his depredations 
 on it. 
 
 It was natural that when, as now, he was so 
 acutely aware of his father's unique capability for 
 rubbing him up the wrong way, he should wonder 
 afresh at the placid, unruffled tolerance that had en- 
 abled his mother to spend a quarter of a century 
 with him. Women, of course, so ran his reflections, 
 have a greater gift of patience with men than a man 
 can be expected to have. Sex, no doubt, had some- 
 thing to do with it, for on the other hand men were
 
 PETER 213 
 
 more tolerant of a tiresome woman than were other 
 women. Yet that could not wholly explain his 
 mother; she was quite inexplicable, for Silvia even, 
 gifted as Peter ever so cordially recognized with the 
 power of putting herself into the position and realiz- 
 ing the identity of other people, had fallen back like 
 a spent wave from the hard, smooth impenetrability 
 of his mother. She had confessed herself baffled, had 
 no idea whether there was something, somebody, her- 
 metically sealed up behind that neat porcelain face 
 by the inexorable will of its occupant, or if there was 
 nothing beyond that blank imperturbability that 
 cared only whether the door at the head of the 
 kitchen stairs was "quite shut" and had no desire 
 except to be left alone and allowed to read adver- 
 tisements of hotels in railway guides. Had his 
 mother been driven into that small, but apparently 
 impregnable, fortress by his father's colossal and 
 ludicrous personality, or was there indeed no one 
 there at all, no beleaguered garrison grimly holdmg 
 out? 
 
 Peter wandered on to the terrace for a minute of 
 composing dusk and quietness. He half expected to 
 find Silvia there, and felt a little ill-used that she 
 was not. She knew what was the nature of his inter- 
 view with his father, and Peter would have wel- 
 comed the warmth of her applause at his masterly 
 conduct of it. But in her absence he could read the 
 certainly placid communication from his mother. 
 She would hope he was well, she would hope Silvia 
 was well, she would let it be assumed that she was 
 well. She would certainly also say that she was so 
 sorry she could not come to Howes with his father, 
 but that she hope<:l to do so some time during the 
 autumn. She would undoubtedly wind up by say-
 
 214 PETER 
 
 ing that it was nearly post-time, that she had other 
 letters. . . . Peter drew the letter from his pocket, 
 and prepared to let his eyes slide smoothly over the 
 lines of it. She wrote a wonderfully clear hand : you 
 could take a whole sentence in at a glance. 
 
 "My dearest Peter, — I am sending this letter to 
 you by your father, because I want it to reach you 
 without fail. Letters go wrong by post sometimes, 
 and I don't want this to go wrong. When I have 
 finished it, I shall put it into his despatch-box my- 
 self. 
 
 "When your father comes back from his visit to 
 you and Silvia, he will not find me here. It is no 
 use mincing words, so I will tell you straight out 
 that I can't stand him any longer. It would not 
 have answered my purpose just to go away from him 
 for a month, for I should have felt all the time that 
 at the end of the month I should have to come back; 
 I should have been on the end of the string still. As 
 it is, I shall stop away just as long as I choose. I 
 shall be free. I want a holiday without any tie 
 v/hatever. When I mean to come back (if I do) I 
 shall write to him and ask him if he will take me 
 back. I don't know how long it will be before I want 
 to. It might be a fortnight, or it might be a year, or 
 it might be never. I shall simply stay away from 
 him, at some pleasant place which I have selected, 
 until I feel better. 
 
 "While you were living with your father and me 
 I could just get along; but since you have gone I 
 can't get along at all. We weren't much to eaeh 
 other, for all my individuality — isn't that what they 
 call it? — had long ago been hammered back into me. 
 I was like a small person in a large suit of armour.
 
 PETER 215 
 
 But somehow you were a part of me, and while you 
 were there I couldn't go away. 
 
 "I ask you, my dear, not to make any attempt to 
 find me, and I want you to persuade your father not 
 to. I shall be quite comfortable, and as I am never 
 ill I don't see why I should begin to be so now. I 
 shall go to a nice hotel, where I shan't have to order 
 lunch and dinner or add up bills. It is astonishing 
 how many nice hotels there are, quite moderate in 
 price, which will just suit me. 
 
 "Now this may seem unkind, but the fact is that 
 I don't want to hear a word from either j^ou or your 
 father. You and I have nothing in common; in 
 fact, I have nothing in common with anybody, and 
 I only want to be left alone in peace, and not to be 
 reminded of the last twenty-five years of my life 
 at all. I want not to be bothered with anybody. I 
 want to get up and go to bed when I choose, and go 
 for my walk, and read my book, and play patience. 
 You and I have never loved each other at all, so 
 there's no use in pretending to be pathetic over that 
 now. Before you were old enough to understand, I 
 hadn't got any feeling left in me, or, at least, it was 
 hammered right inside me. If any time during these 
 last ten years I had died, you wouldn't have missed 
 me, though I should have missed you to the extent, 
 anyhow, of your absence making my life with your 
 father quite intolerable. I don't bear him the 
 slightest ill will, and I hope he'll bear me none. He 
 has excellent servants, and they will make him quite 
 comfortable, which is all he wants. But I've got too 
 much sense to remain with him any longer. 
 
 "He has been saying great things lately about the 
 immense sums of money he will get for his series 
 of cartoons, so that I have no scruple in withdraw-
 
 216 PETER 
 
 ing from him the £600 a year which is my own in- 
 come. I can't be certain, of course, whether he has 
 not been multiplying everything by ten, in order 
 to glorify himself, but I suppose there is some truth 
 in it all. Anyhow, he has got a cheque from Mrs. 
 Wardour for a thousand guineas, because he showed 
 me that. He was in great spirits that night, dancing 
 round the table and singing and drinking quantities 
 of port. And that, it appears, is nothing to what he 
 is going to get for the rest of his great series." 
 
 Peter took his eyes off the neatly written sheets 
 for a moment and gave a great gasp. The figure of 
 his mother, as he was accustomed to behold it, veiled 
 and still, and sitting in shadow and never giving a 
 sign of individual life, had suddenly cast off its con- 
 cealment and tranquillities, and stood out violently 
 illuminated. That smooth, polished object which 
 had lain inert so long in the midst of railway guides, 
 had proved itself to be a live shell which, without 
 any warning or preliminary sizzling, had exploded. 
 He himself was unhurt, though immeasurably aston- 
 ished and startled, and he exulted in the fact that 
 the thing had been alive after all, carrying within 
 it such store of devastating energy. His own mar- 
 riage, his departure from home, had set off the fuse; 
 he had been, all unconsciously, the controlling agent. 
 
 He dived again into this most lucid report of the 
 explosion, observing with regret that there were but 
 a couple of pages more. At the moment Silvia ap- 
 peared at the door from the terrace into the draw- 
 ing-room close behind where he sat. 
 
 "Peter, is that you?" she asked. 
 
 "Yes; one minute. Or come here, Silvia. Take
 
 PETER 217 
 
 these sheets and read them without saying anything 
 till I've finished. It's a letter from my mother." 
 
 He buried himself in the remainder of the letter, 
 hardly hearing Silvia's gasp of surprise as she came 
 to the second paragraph. 
 
 "Now I want you," the narrative continued, "to 
 consider this before you pass any judgment on what 
 I have done. I am injuring nothing and nobody, 
 except your father's vanity, and I have no doubt he 
 will find some explanation of my leaving hmi which 
 will quite satisfy him. He will not be the least less 
 happy without me, nor will you. I have got no 
 friends, for I am not the sort of person who can make 
 friends or who wants them ; I have been hammered, 
 as I have said, into myself, and I break no ties the 
 severance of which is painful for others any more 
 than for me. I see so few people, and those so very 
 occasionally, that there need be no scandal of any 
 kind ; your father will only have to say, about once a 
 month, that I am on a visit to the country, which is 
 quite true. 
 
 "My solicitor knows where I am, and from time 
 to time he will let you have a note from me, saying 
 how I am. As for news, I shall have none ; I shall 
 take my walk, and read my book, and entertain my- 
 self very well, and I shall be very happy, because 
 I shall be free. I rather believe that you are suffi- 
 ciently like me to understand that, for you have 
 always kept yourself independent of everybody. 
 
 "Finally, I leave it to you (no doubt you will con- 
 sult Silvia) as to whether you let your father find 
 out that I have gone when he returns home, or 
 whether you tell him. I think personally that it 
 v/ould be wiser to tell him, because when he got
 
 218 PETER 
 
 home and found the few lines (not like this long 
 letter) which I have left for him there, just to say 
 I have gone, he might make some dreadful scene 
 and upset everybody. But that I leave entirely to 
 you. 
 
 "All the wages and books were paid up to the 
 end of last week. The bills, with their receipts, are 
 in their place in the third drawer of my knee-hole 
 table. 
 
 "Your affectionate mother, 
 
 "Maria Mainwaring." 
 
 Peter thrust the remaining pages into Silvia's 
 hand, and waited till she had come to the end. Then 
 they looked at each other in silence. 
 
 "I'm going to laugh," said Peter at length. 
 
 "No, please don't," said Silvia. "If you do I shall 
 cry." 
 
 Peter tapped the sheets that lay in her hand. 
 
 "But it's gorgeous," he said. "I should laugh, if 
 I did, not from amusement — though there are amus- 
 ing things — but from pleasure. Every word in that 
 letter is true; that's something to be pleased about, 
 and, what's more, every word in it is right. But the 
 surprise, the wonder of it! There's a splendour 
 about it!" 
 
 Silvia shuffled the sheets together, and, giving 
 them back to him, leaned her forehead on her hands. 
 
 "Ah, haven't you got any tenderness?" she said. 
 "Don't you see the bitter pathos of it? Your 
 mother, you know!" 
 
 "But she says there is nothing pathetic about it," 
 said he. 
 
 "And that's just the most pathetic thing of all!" 
 Silvia said.
 
 PETER 219 
 
 Peter puzzled over this a moment. He understood 
 Silvia's feeling well enough, but he understood 
 equally well, and with greater sympathy, the answer 
 (the retort almost) to it. 
 
 "But if she sees nothing pathetic in the situation, 
 and I quite agi'ee with her, what's the use of trying 
 to introduce pathos?" he asked. 'Tathos painted 
 on — like a varnish — ceases to be pathos at all; it 
 becomes simply sentimentality." 
 
 Silvia turned to him like some patient affectionate 
 teacher to a child who pretends only not to know his 
 lessons. 
 
 "If the absence of love in relationships like these 
 isn't pathetic," she said, "love itself is only senti- 
 mentality." 
 
 Peter again saw precisely what she meant; he 
 know, too, that what she said was true. But he 
 knew that he, for himself, did not realize it with con- 
 viction, with a sense of illumination. . . . The 
 statement of it was just an instance the more of 
 Silvia's shining there aloft of his confining cloudland. 
 The thought of that dealt him a stab of envy, and 
 under the hurt of it his spirit snapped and snarled, 
 and retired, so to.speak, into its kennel, leaving his 
 mind outside to manage the situation. 
 
 "Well, then, it's pathetic," he said, "but it has 
 been pathetic so long that one has got used to it. I 
 know you're right, but what you say hasn't any prac- 
 tical bearing " 
 
 "Ah, my dear, but it has," said she. "It has all 
 the practical bearing. It is up to you, practically, to 
 handle it in hardness in — in a sort of ruthlessness, 
 or you can, recognizing what I say, deal with it 
 tenderly. 
 
 "By all means; but the facts aren't new. Leave
 
 220 PETER 
 
 me out: let's consider my father and mother only. 
 There's the practical side of it. He's got to be told — 
 at least, I suppose so. There's no new pathos there. 
 They've both been aware of lovelessness for years. 
 If my father takes the wounded, the pathetic pose, it 
 will — it will just be a pose. Frankly, I'm all on my 
 mother's side. By one big gesture she has explained 
 herself; she has made a living comprehensible 
 reality of herself. The Bradshaws, the railway guide 
 advertisements — good Lord, we know what it has all 
 been about now! There's flesh and blood in it! I 
 always respect flesh and blood!" 
 
 "But her way of doing it is an outrage," said 
 Silvia. "She's your father's wife, after all: she's 
 your mother. Take your mother's side by all means 
 — we've all got to take sides in everything: nobody 
 can be neutral — but take his side in her manner of 
 doing what she has done. Sympathize with him in 
 that! That letter, too — will you show him the 
 letter? The hostility of it, the resentment!" 
 
 Peter sat still a moment fingering the leaves of the 
 letter. 
 
 "It's not so much resentment," he said, "as repres- 
 sion. She has been hammered back into herself all 
 these years. Oh, I understand her better than you. 
 It had to happen this way. What else was she to 
 do? Could she go to my father and say, 'If you 
 can't put some curb on your egoism and vanity, if 
 you continue to be such a bounder (that's what 
 bounders are) I really shall have to leave you'?" 
 
 "You want to score off him, Peter," said she. 
 "That's the hardness, the ruthlessness. And you 
 aren't hard, my darling. Who knows that better 
 than I?" 
 
 "Are you sure I am not?" he said.
 
 PETER 221 
 
 She did not answer this directly. 
 
 "You've got to be gentle," she said. 
 
 Peter's fingers closed on the letter, hesitated, and 
 then tore the sheets in half. He tore them across 
 yet again. 
 
 "Well, he shan't see the letter," he said. "It was 
 written to me and I've destroyed it. But if, when I 
 tell him, he becomes melodramatic how can I help 
 being what you call ruthless? He's so vain: you 
 don't know how vain he is. This will be a brutal 
 outrage, an attempted assassination of his vanity. 
 But it won't injure it. The dastardly blow will 
 glance aside, and he'll put an extra bodyguard round 
 his vanity for the future. He's a ridiculous person, 
 Silvia," said Peter in a loud, firm voice. 
 
 Silvia gave a sigh. 
 
 "Ah, that's better," she said, "for you've torn the 
 letter up, anyhow, and when you said he was ridicu- 
 lous, you said it, my dear, as if you were justifying 
 yourself rather than accusing him. Oh, you said it 
 firmly and loudly, but — will you mind if I say this, 
 too? — you didn't say it so spitefully. Now, let's be 
 practical. You always used to be practical, Peter. 
 When are you going to tell hun?" 
 
 Peter looked at his watch. 
 
 "That means that if I say that I haven't made up 
 my mind," he said, "you will certainly let me know 
 that there is plenty of time to tell him before dinner. 
 You want me to tell him now: that's where we 
 are. You call me practical: who was ever so prac- 
 tical as you, when it comes to the point?" 
 
 She did not challenge that, but rather proceeded 
 to justify Peter's opinion for him. 
 
 "My dear, you can put off pleasant things if you 
 like," she said, "because you enjoy the anticipation
 
 222 PETER 
 
 of them. But where — where is the use of putting off 
 unpleasant things? That only lengthens a beastly 
 anticipation." 
 
 "He'll make a scene," said Peter. 'T hate scenes." 
 
 There was nothing to reply to this: it all came 
 under the advisability, which she had already ex- 
 pressed, of not putting off unpleasantnesses. So she 
 made no reply, and soon, for the face of her con- 
 tinued to push him, he got up, still wondering if she 
 would prefer to tell his father herself. How strongly 
 she wanted to do that, and how, more strongly, she 
 refrained from doing it, he had no idea. Her incli- 
 nation, that which she combated, was simply to go 
 straight to those voluptuous state-rooms; but her 
 will, her convinced sense of what was right, of what 
 was Peter's own duty and development, kept her 
 silent. 
 
 "Oh, I am sorry for you," she said at length, as 
 he turned to go into the house. "But don't forget to 
 be sorry for him, Peter." 
 
 His only answer to that was a just perceptible 
 shrug of his shoulder (comment on the futility of 
 her sjrmpathy), and he walked away across the 
 crackling gravel. 
 
 Silvia knew how Peter's mere presence stifled her 
 power of judgment with regard to him. Often and 
 often she had to cling, desperately, to a mental 
 integrity of her own, in order not to be washed away 
 by the mere tide of her devotion to him. Her desire, 
 not only the flesh and the blood of her, but her very 
 spirit, would always have surrendered to him, would 
 have given up herself, whole and complete, to what 
 pleased him, to what made him comfortable, content 
 and happy. But somewhere between these two 
 apexes of physical and spiritual longing there came
 
 PETER 223 
 
 another peak, a mental and judicial apex, so she 
 framed it to herself, a thing solid and reliable, a 
 kind of bleak umpire that gave inexorable decisions. 
 
 Already in their fortnight of married life it had 
 several times asserted itself — it was her will, she 
 supposed, clear-eyed and unbribable, which was as 
 distinct from the blindness of love as it was from 
 the abandonment of physical desire. Peter had sug- 
 gested, for instance, that he should "chuck" his work 
 in the Foreign OflBce (this was the most notable of 
 these instances) and live, just live, now at Howes, 
 now in London, always with her. They would travel, 
 they would entertain, they would have plenty of 
 interests to keep him busy enough. He had urged, 
 he had argued, he had appealed to her for her mere 
 acquiescence, willing or not, and she had steadily 
 and unshakably refused to give it. Here, to-night, 
 was another test for this umpire of the mind. It 
 would have been infinitely easier for her to tell Mr. 
 Mainwaring herself, and she knew quite convincedly 
 that she would have proved a far more sympathetic 
 breaker of shocking tidings than Peter would be. 
 Peter would now, on his way to the state-rooms, be 
 framing adroit sentences, be schooling his antici- 
 patory impatience at a melodramatic reception of 
 that news by his father into tolerance and gentle- 
 ness. But she had as little temptation to be intoler- 
 ant or ungentle, as she had to be the reverse; she 
 would naturally have stood in an attitude which 
 Peter would find it gymnastically difficult to main- 
 tain. But he had got to do his best, not to let her 
 do so infinitely better. 
 
 It took but a moment's stiffening of herself to 
 baffle any inclination to follow Peter and shoulder 
 his mission for him, and her thoughts went back to
 
 224 PETER 
 
 Mrs. Mainwaring's letter and its startling effect (or 
 want of effect) on Peter. That had produced, so she 
 found now when she was no longer under the spell 
 of his presence, a certain incredulous dismay. "You 
 aren't like that," she had assured him, but now she 
 found herself saying, ''He can't be like that!" He 
 appeared to have received this intelligence with a 
 savage, or if not a savage, a wholly unpitiful com- 
 ment. He had seemed and indeed seemed now to 
 have applauded the tragic sequel to years of resent- 
 ful companionship. He had confessed to a desire to 
 laugh (this was the ruthlessness) . It might be that 
 the logical result of such years was that Mrs. Main- 
 waring, given that she retained any independent 
 identity of her own, should have been goaded into 
 this assertion of it. It might, in the ultimate weigh- 
 mg of souls, be better that she should have cut the 
 knot like this, rather than have been strangled by it. 
 It was all very well for Peter to take her side, but 
 to take her side competently included an apprecia- 
 tion of what she had suffered, and what she had 
 failed in. Anyone could form a fair idea of what 
 she, as exhibited now, had suffered by the smallest 
 recognition of what it must have been to be tied to 
 the present occupant of the state-rooms, and the 
 same exhibition showed exactly her tragic failure 
 in allowing herself to be driven into this hermetical 
 compartment, where all that reached her was the 
 contemplation of her escape, as shown by her study 
 of hotels. But Peter turned over all this, which was 
 the root of the matter, as he might turn over the 
 leaves of a dull book, and only saw a dramatic com- 
 edy in it, deserving of applause for its fitness, of an 
 exclamation, "Serves him right!" or a laughing, 
 "Well done, mother!" . . . You couldn't deal with
 
 PETER 225 
 
 people like that ; at that rate the whole world would 
 become a relentless machine, always grinding, always 
 seeing others ground, always being diverted at the 
 pitiless revolution of the wheels. Compassion, ten- 
 derness, these were the qualities that just saved and 
 redeemed the world from hell, or at least from being 
 a wounding comedy, at which no human person 
 could laugh for fear of crying instead. 
 
 Silvia got up from the seat where she and Peter 
 had read his mother's letter, definitely desiring to 
 avoid the conclusion to which her thoughts were 
 leading her. He had wanted to laugh — that was 
 certain, but she must forget that. Probably he had 
 not meant it; it was only incongruousness and sur- 
 prise (like funny things in church, which would not 
 be in the least funny elsewhere) which had made a 
 spasm. . . . Peter assuredly was not like that 
 really, and the loyalty of love derided her for sup- 
 posing it. He was (her heart insisted on that) all 
 that her love adored him for being. 
 
 The dressing-bell had already sumptuously 
 sounded from the central turret, and, still quite 
 ignorant of what had been the result of the dis- 
 closure, but conscious of a yearning anxiety to know,, 
 she went up to her bedroom. She was not so much 
 anxious to know how Mr. Mainwaring was "taking 
 it" (how he ''took it" seemed to matter very little), 
 but ] ow Peter had done his part. Between his 
 dressing-room and her bedroom were a couple of 
 bathrooms, and she heard, with a certain clinging to 
 the usualness of life, splashings and hissing of water 
 coming from one of these. Whatever had happened, 
 there was Peter having his bath, and soon, most 
 likely, he would tap at her door, barefooted (he 
 never would wear slippers as he paddled about be-
 
 226 PETER 
 
 tween his room and hers) with the blue silk dress- 
 ing-gown tied with a tasselled cord about his waist. 
 Peter had a wondrous ritual for his bath : he had to 
 immerse himself first of all, and then stand on the 
 mat while he soaped himself from head to foot. 
 Then, still slippery and soapy, in order to get cold 
 and heighten the enjoyment of the next immersion, 
 he turned on more hot taps, and put spoonful after 
 spoonful of verbena salts into the water. Then he 
 got in again, and stewed himself in this fragrant 
 soup. When he was too hot to bear it any longer, 
 he retired into a small waterproof castle at the end 
 of the bath, and turned on all the cold water 
 douches and squirts and syringes. Then, without 
 drying himself at all, he put on the famous blue silk 
 dressing-gown, which had a hood to it, lit a ciga- 
 rette, and tapped at her door, to ascertain whether 
 he could sit and finish his cigarette there. Silvia, by 
 this time, knew precisely the interpretation of these 
 splashings and hissings of water, and she would'hurry 
 up her own dressing, or slow it down, so that she 
 could admit him. Fresh from his scrubbings and 
 soapings, with the glow of the cold water on his 
 skin, he was paganly sensuous in his enjoyment of 
 the physical conditions of the moment, and, sitting 
 by her dressing-table, talked the most amazing non- 
 sense. He dried his feet on the tail of his dressing- 
 gown, he rubbed his hair on the hood of it; there 
 was the scent of soap and verbena and cigarette, 
 and more piercing to her sense than these his firm, 
 smooth skin, the cleansedness and the freshness of 
 him. ... At such chattering undress seances 
 she was most of all conscious of him to the exclusion 
 of herself; for whereas his kiss, his caress, united 
 her with him, and she had part in it, when he came
 
 PETER 227 
 
 in thus, rough-haired, bare-legged, wet-footed, with 
 a smooth shoulder emerging from his dressing-gown, 
 while, enveloped in it, he rubbed himself dry, she 
 felt herself merely a spectator of this beautiful 
 animal. 
 
 But if he came in now — he might or might not — 
 she knew that to-night she would be involved, so to 
 speak, w^ith him; his character, the essence of him, 
 as exhibited in such account as he might give her 
 of the interview with his father, would come like a 
 cloud or a brightness that would obstruct this purely 
 spectator-like view of him. He would not only be 
 the clean, lithe animal, which, for these few minutes, 
 she could look at without passion, without love, 
 without friendship even, and be absorbed in the 
 mere joy that there should be in this world so young 
 and wild and perfect a creature. . . . 
 
 There came his knock, and the usual inquiry, and 
 he entered while her maid, with chaste, averted face, 
 rustled out, not waiting to be dismissed, through the 
 other door. He sat down in the big low chair by her 
 dressing-table. 
 
 "Oh, the simplest pleasures are so much the best," 
 he said. "Just washing, you know, just being hungry 
 and sleepy. I never enjoy a play or a book or a joke 
 nearly so well as a bath and food and getting my 
 head well down into the pillow. But I hate sponges. 
 Why should I scrub my nose with a piece of dead 
 seaweed?" 
 
 Listen as she might, with all the delicacy of 
 divination that love had given to her ear, she could 
 find in his voice no inflection, no hesitation, nor, on 
 the other hand, any glibness (as of a lesson learned 
 and faultlessly repeated) that showed that he was 
 speaking otherwise than completely naturally. The
 
 228 PETER 
 
 topics of bath and dinner and bed came to his lips 
 with quite spontaneous fluency, as if he had not in 
 this last hour been the bearer to his father of a tragic 
 situation — one that, at least, must wound the vanity 
 which was so predominant a passion in him. Or had 
 Mr. IMainwaring taken it with the same ruthless- 
 ness, the same cynical amusement as Peter had ap- 
 peared to? Silvia could not believe that: he must 
 have been hurt, been astounded. But why, in pity's 
 name, did not Peter tell her about that interview? 
 He must have known how she longed to be told, 
 whether there was good or bad to tell. ... 
 
 "A revolving brush covered with wash-leather," 
 continued Peter, ''like a small boxing glove. You 
 would cover it with soap and work it with your foot. 
 But a sponge ! Odious in texture, dull in colour, and 
 full of horrible dark holes which probably contain 
 the pincere of defunct crabs and the fins of dead fish. 
 . . . Oh, by the way, I quite forgot! I did really, 
 darling; I was thinking so much about substitutes 
 for sponges." 
 
 Silvia could not doubt the sincerity of this: he 
 had been thinking about sponges; there was the full 
 statement of the case. And with his acknowledg- 
 ment of that, his mere physical presence, the mere 
 glamour of his radiant animalism, which, after all, 
 was part of his essence and his charm, captured her 
 again, whisking away for the moment all possibility 
 of criticism, or of wishing that he could be other than 
 he was. She knew that her misgivings — they 
 amounted to that^ — would come flooding back, but 
 just for the moment they were like some remote line 
 of the low tide, lying miles away across shining 
 levels. 
 
 "Oh, Peter," she cried, "if you can design a smaU
 
 PETER 229 
 
 revolving wash-leather boxing-glove to use for a 
 sponge, I'll promise to have it made for you. But 
 you must explain just how it's to work. . . ." 
 
 She broke off. 
 
 "And about your father?" she said. 
 
 "Yes, I was just going to tell you when you inter- 
 rupted about the sponge-plan," said he. "By the 
 way, I'll draw you the revolving boxing-glove. A 
 foot-pedal below — below, mind — the water, so that 
 your foot doesn't get cold. And, of course, you hold 
 the socket of the boxing-glove — the wrist, so to speak 
 — in your hand, and it goes buzzing round as you 
 work with your foot, and you apply it, well soaped, 
 to your face. No more dead seaweed and lobster 
 claws! My father now!" 
 
 Peter gathered up his knees in his arms, and sat 
 there nursing them. His dressing-gown had fallen 
 off his shoulder; he looked like some domesticated 
 Satyr, wild with the knowledge of the woodland, but 
 tamed to this sojourn — enforced or voluntary — in 
 human habitations. 
 
 "I went to him, as you told me to do," he began. 
 
 Silvia interrupted him. She wanted him to do 
 himself justice. 
 
 "No, my dear; you went quite of your own ac- 
 cord," she said. "I never urged you." 
 
 Peter's eyelids hovered and fell and raised them- 
 selves again. Often and often had Silvia noticed 
 that shade of gesture on Nellie's face; but never, so 
 it struck her, had she seen a man do just that. The 
 gesture seemed to imply acquiescence without con- 
 sent. 
 
 "Well, I went anyhow," he said. "I tapped on his 
 door, and as there was no answer I went in. He was 
 standing in front of that big Itahan mirror in —
 
 230 PETER 
 
 well, in an attitude. He is intending to paint his 
 own portrait, when he has finished that daub of 
 you." 
 
 Silvia leaned forward towards him. 
 
 "Oh, don't talk like that!" she said. ''Don't be 
 ironical — not that quite: don't feel ironical." 
 
 Peter turned on her a face of mild, injured inno- 
 cence. 
 
 "I was telling you the bald facts," he said. 
 
 "The balder the better," said she. 
 
 'T told him I had read my mother's letter," he 
 continued, "and that there was news in it which he 
 had better know at once. I got him to sit down, 
 and I got hold of his hand. And then I told him just 
 the fact that she had gone away." 
 
 Peter shifted himself a little further back in his 
 chair and drew his legs more closely towards him, so 
 that his chin rested on the plateau of his knees. 
 
 "I am not being ironical," he said. 'T am trying 
 to tell you precisely what happened. He made a 
 noise — a gurgle, I think I should call it — and he 
 asked who the damned villain was with whom shQ 
 had gone. And, to be quite bald, that seemed to me 
 to be unreal. I said that there wasn't any damned 
 villain, and that she had gone just because she felt 
 she must be free. He wanted to see the letter, and 
 I told him that I had torn it up. Then he began 
 throwing his hair-brushes and dress-clothes into a 
 bag, in order to start off and look for her, and asked 
 me where she was. When I told him that I hadn't 
 the slightest idea, he accused me of collusion with 
 her. I merely denied that, and said that her letter 
 was as great a surprise to.me as it was to him." 
 
 Peter threw away the end of his cigarette. 
 
 "Then he began to guess why she had gone. Now
 
 PETEK 231 
 
 the point of my tearing up my mother's letter was 
 that he shouldn't know, wasn't it, darling?" 
 
 Silvia heard herself assent. There was a sickness 
 of the heart coming over her, something too subtle 
 for her to diagnose as yet. 
 
 "So he began to guess," continued Peter, "and as 
 he tried to guess I was sorry for him — really sorry, 
 you understand?" 
 
 Silvia's heart began to thrive again. 
 
 "Yes, yes; I knew you would be!" she cried. 
 
 "He soon hit on the reason," said Peter quietly. 
 "There could only have been one reason, so he 
 thought, and it filled him with the utmost remorse. 
 He had been too big for her, that was what it came 
 to — too giTat. He had not, in the exaltation of his 
 art — this is quite what he said — remembered the 
 limitations of — of the rest of us. She had fainted 
 before the furnace of his genius. It was all his fault: 
 he hadn't made allowance for the prodigious strain 
 on her — for the effects, cumulative no doubt, of the 
 high pressure. He strode about the room, he knocked 
 over a chair " 
 
 Some fierce antagonism to his narrative blazed up 
 in Silvia. She had wanted the facts, and here they 
 were, but she had not allowed for the baldness of 
 their presentation, though she had asked for it. 
 
 "Ah, don't talk Hke that, Peter," she said. "You're 
 not a newspaper reporter." 
 
 Peter gave no reply at all. There he sat with his 
 chin on his knees, quit€ silent. ... If Silvia 
 chose to speak to him like that it was clear that she 
 must either go on or draw back; anyhow, the next 
 word was with her. But all the time that he thus 
 tacitly insisted on his rights, resenting what she had 
 said, there was within him some little focus of light
 
 232 PETER 
 
 breaking through from her sunlit altitudes that il- 
 lumined and justified her protest. Good Lord, 
 wasn't she right? Wasn't his sentiment towards his 
 father immeasurably ignoble compared to the com- 
 prehension of her love? And that very fact — his 
 own unavowable condemnation of himself, that is to 
 say — irritated him. If she was like that there was 
 no use in his continuing his story. 
 
 Silvia spoke first. Humanely, she could not bear 
 this silence in which Peter seemed to mock her, but 
 divinely she must be ever so humble. 
 Humble? How love sanctified humihty and trans- 
 formed it into an ineffable pride ! She pushed back 
 her chair and knelt by his. She longed to unclasp 
 the brown lean hands that enclosed him in himself 
 and make them embrace her also. But that might 
 annoy Peter: there was a suggestion of "claiming" 
 him about it. She did not want to claim him. 
 
 "I don't know why I spoke like that," she said. 
 "I asked you what happened, and you are telling 
 me. Will you forgive me and go on?" 
 
 Peter had never seemed so remote from her as 
 then. In the frantic telegraphy of her spirit, which 
 seemed to be sending all the love that the waves of 
 ether would bear, there came no response from him, 
 in spite of his answer. 
 
 "I never heard such nonsense," he said. "We 
 should be a pretty pair if we had to forgive. How 
 silly — you know it — to ask me to forgive you." 
 
 "Show you do, by going on," she said. 
 
 It was clear to him that what she wanted was to 
 know not his father's part in this interview, but his 
 own. Whether she liked it or not, he was going to 
 be perfectly honest about it. 
 
 "When he knocked over a chair and strode about,"
 
 PETER 233 
 
 he repeated, "and found out the reason for my 
 mother's going away, I began to be less sorry for 
 him. He enjoyed himself: it was all a tribute to his 
 impossible greatness. From then onwards I acted, 
 because he was acting. The alternative was to tell 
 him that my mother simply found his egoism intol- 
 erable. That wouldn't have done any good, so I 
 agreed with him : that was the best thing to do. He 
 is in despair, a rather luxurious despair. I had either 
 to explode that or let him enjoy it. So it was no 
 use being sorry for him any longer." 
 
 Silvia broke out again; it was her love for Peter 
 that spoke. 
 
 "My dear, you ought to have been a million times 
 sorrier," she cried. "If he had been just simply 
 broken-hearted about it, it would have been so much 
 better. Can't you see that? Can you help feeling 
 it?" 
 
 She was shedding the gleam on him. 
 
 "I know what you mean," he said. "But I'm tell- 
 ing you what happened. I was less sorry for him 
 when he began to console himself. I suppose I'm 
 m-ade like that." 
 
 Silvia bit her lip. 
 
 "Indeed you are not," she said. "You're making 
 yourself out to be hard and unloving." 
 
 At the moment the clang of the dinner-bell from 
 the turret just above Silvia's room broke in. . . . 
 The whole neighbourhood must know when the 
 family at Howes were warned that it was time to 
 dress, and that three-quarters of an hour later it was 
 time to dine. Peter, on the first evenings he had 
 spent here with Silvia, had asked whether, like a 
 Court Circular, such publicity need be given to their 
 domestic afi"airs; but Silvia, confessing herself senti-
 
 234 PETER 
 
 mental, had told him that her father had delighted 
 in the installation of that sonorous announcement. 
 The brazen proclamation *'hurt" nobody, and 
 "Daddy liked it." . . . Certainly it served a pur- 
 pose now, and Peter jumped up. 
 
 "Lord, there's dinner!" he said. "And I haven't 
 begun to dress. My father, by the way, wants to 
 dine upstairs. Will you tell them, as you are so 
 much more advanced than I, to send up his dinner? 
 I must fly." 
 
 Peter stood for a moment looking at her. If a 
 situation between them had not actually laid hold of 
 them, it had thrown a shadow over them, and he 
 wanted to get out into sunlight again. 
 
 "Ah, you darling!" he said with a blend of envy 
 and of admiration somewhere gushing up. Envy at 
 her immense nobility — he could think of no other 
 word for it — and admiration at that shrine of love 
 which rose from the ground of her heart. It was so 
 beautiful an edifice: he despaired of being worthy 
 of it, and at times, so he confessed to himself, he 
 wearied of its white stainless purity. . . . Some- 
 how this evening there seemed to have opened a 
 little crack on its soaring vault, which he must mend 
 somehow. 
 
 "Give me a kiss, then," he said.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 Peter, though he often hung a veil over the real 
 workings and processes of his mind for the benefit 
 and admiration of others, before whom he was 
 anxious to present a charming appearance, was 
 honest with himself, and found, during the next fort- 
 night, without any desire to dissimulate, that he was 
 distinctly grateful to Silvia's insistence that he 
 should not resign his place in the Foreign Office, for 
 in the present conditions and environments at 
 Howes, it was certainly preferable to spend the 
 solidity of the day in London rather than enjoy 
 uninterrupted leisure at home. Even then the 
 evenings were full of crashes and crises and intoler- 
 able ludicrousness. . . . 
 
 His father, who still majestically occupied the 
 state-rooms (and showed no indications of vacating 
 them) moved along peaks and summits of the ridicu- 
 lous, which his son really believed had never before 
 been trodden by foot of man. That he was enjoy- 
 ing himself immensely Peter made no doubt what- 
 ever, living as he did on the heights of egoism, and 
 free to indulge in the most extravagant exhibition 
 of it. His standard (victoriously raised), his prin- 
 ciple, his determination (announced with magnifi- 
 cent gestures once if not more, during the evening) 
 was that he would remain rock-like and immovable, 
 fulfilling the destiny of his own supreme will, what- 
 ever bombs Fate might choose to drop on him. That 
 his whole soul was bitter with remorse for his fail- 
 
 235
 
 236 PETER 
 
 ings and failures he did not deny. He should not 
 have isolated himself, as he had done, in the supernal 
 reahns of Art; he should have remembered that he 
 was a man as well as an artist, and had a wife as 
 well as the celestial mistress of his soul. He ought 
 to have been kinder, more tender, more indulgent 
 to the frailty and the weakness of his Carissima. 
 But remorse (so waved his standard), if it was the 
 genuine article, must express itself not in idle repin- 
 ings, but in a manful facing of the consequences of 
 past error. His remorse (the right kind of remorse) 
 did not weaken, but strengthened a man to go for- 
 ward. He must not lose touch with the joy of life; 
 he must not get from the severe spanking that re- 
 morse gave him only a smarting and a humiliation 
 of the flesh. He must draw the lesson from his 
 punishment, and proceed more tenderly but not less 
 sublimely than before. . . . 
 
 It must not be supposed that Mr. Mainwaring 
 used such expressions as "spanking" in actual 
 speech, or that the ironical account of his sublimity, 
 as given above, was verbally his. But such, any- 
 how, was the manner in which these great tirades, 
 delivered to Peter when he went up to see his father 
 on his daily arrival at Howes an hour or so before 
 dinner, impressed themselves on his mind. Usually 
 there was a note for him on the table in the hall, 
 which ran something like this: 
 
 "My Peter, — I am very low and despondent to- 
 night, and I do not know if I can face a sociable 
 evening. Come up to see me, my dear, for you are 
 the only link which is left to me of those happy — 
 far too happy — years, and see if your sweet spirit 
 will not, like David playing before Saul, exorcise the
 
 PETER 237 
 
 demons of remorse and regret which shriek and 
 gibber round the head of your unhappy father. I 
 have tried so hard — ah, so hard — all day not to make 
 myself a burden and a shadow to your dear ones, 
 but I fear I have acquitted myself very ill. Come 
 and cheer me up, Peter." 
 
 Peter, to do him justice, always went, and in the 
 majesty of egoism, his father, without any en- 
 couragement at all, would talk himself into a 
 splendid courage. At whatever cost to himself, at 
 whatever effort from worn and debilitated nerve- 
 strings, he would show that there was some music 
 yet left in him. He would twang his mental guitar, 
 and if the frayed string snapped — well, his lawyer 
 would know that his affairs were in order. . . . 
 Then, sooner or later, to Peter's great relief, the 
 sonorous dressing-bell would ring, and he could go 
 and have his bath. As likely as not, before he defi- 
 nitely quitted the room, his father would allude to 
 the magnificent 1896 port which formed so admir- 
 able a feature in the cellars of Howes. 
 
 Usually after the bath he went in to see Silvia, 
 but, for some reason or other, the spontaneous non- 
 sense of these interviews had wilted and withered. 
 Silvia, so it seemed to him, held herself in reserve, 
 waiting for something from him. Peter would give 
 an account of his day, of his talk with his father, 
 and still Silvia seemed to wait. She was full, so to 
 speak, she was overbrimming, with all that she ever 
 had for him, but to his perception what she waited 
 for was for him to turn the winch of the sluice. 
 
 Once there had been a really outrageous scene 
 with his father, in which, after tears, Mr. Main- 
 waring had slid from his chair with a groan, and lay,
 
 238 PETER 
 
 an ignoble heap, upon the floor. Peter on this occa- 
 sion had given Silvia a perfectly colourless precis 
 of the degrading exhibition, and had endorsed it, 
 brought collateral evidence to bear on its nature by 
 the production of one of the notes which usually 
 awaited him on his return from town. He had done 
 that in some sort of self- justification: Silvia could 
 not fail to realize how trying, from their veiy un- 
 reality, such scenes were for him, and he gave her 
 also every evening a very respectable specimen of 
 his patience with his father. And yet he felt that 
 Silvia was not waiting for that; it was not how he 
 behaved, how patient and cordial he schooled him- 
 self to be, that she waited for. He was patient, he 
 was cordial, and though she often gave him a little 
 sympathetic and appreciative word for his reward, it 
 was no more than a sugar-plum to a child, some- 
 thing to keep it quiet. What she wanted, what she 
 longed for the evidence of, was an internal loving, 
 driving force which turned the wheels of the ma- 
 chinery of his impeccable conduct, and that he had 
 not got for her. He spun the wheels with a clever 
 finger from outside. 
 
 But usually these wheels went round merrily 
 enough. He reported his father's despondence; he, 
 ever so lightly, alluded to the fact that he had 
 cheered him up, and his estimate was justified, for 
 Mr. Mainwaring, on the crashing of the dinner-bell 
 in the turret, would sometimes announce his progress 
 from the state-rooms by a jubilant yodelling, and 
 would remain for the greater part of dinner in a state 
 of high elation. True, he would have a spasm now 
 and then : if he happened to have his attention called 
 to Mrs. Wardour's pearls, he might for a brief dra- 
 matic moment cover his eyes and say in a choked
 
 PETER 239 
 
 voice: "My Carissima had some wonderful pearls"; 
 but then, true to his manly determination, he would 
 dismiss the miserable association and become master 
 of his soul again. 
 
 Peter usually had a second dose of his father's 
 Promethean attitude later in the evenmg, after 
 Silvia and her mother had gone upstairs. 
 
 "Your treasure, your pearl of great price, your 
 angel!" he would ejaculate. "Her sweet pity, her 
 divine compassion! It is she — she and you — who 
 reconcile me to life. But I must not bask too long 
 in that healing effulgence. I must get back to Lon- 
 don ; I must reinstate myself in my desolate house, 
 and face it all, face it all. I must stand on my own 
 feet again, poor sordid cripple that I am." Then 
 perhaps, if quite overcome, he would bury his face in 
 his hands, but much more usually he would stand 
 up, throw out his chest, breathe deeply, and draw 
 himself up to the last half-inch of his considerable 
 stature. 
 
 "Work!" he said. "Work is the tonic that God 
 puts in the reach of all of us. Remember that, my 
 Peter, if grief and sorrow ever visit you. But then 
 you have by your side the sweetest, the most sym- 
 pathetic woman ever sent to enlighten the gloom of 
 this transitory world. So had I, by God, so had I, 
 and I did not recognise her preciousness and her 
 fragility. . . . Enough ! Silvia ! Did you notice 
 her exquisite love towards me at dinner to-day, when 
 for a moment the sight of Mrs. Wardour's pearls 
 unmanned me?" 
 
 Peter on this occasion was lashed to the extremity 
 of irritation. 
 
 "I don't think I did," he said. "I only remember
 
 240 PETER 
 
 that she instantly asked you if you would have some 
 more pheasant." 
 
 He tried to do better than that. Certainly there 
 was no use in saying that sort of thing. 
 
 "But she looked at you, father," he added hastily. 
 "You felt what she was feeling. Was that it?" 
 
 His father clasped his hands. 
 
 "A divine beam came to me," he said. "A mes- 
 sage of consolation. It made me live again. Surely 
 you saw its effect on me?" 
 
 Peter, at such moments, longed for his wet woods. 
 He wanted to be by himself, or, at any rate, with 
 someone who could understand and enjoy this stu- 
 pendous farce. If only Nellie, for instance, had been 
 sitting there with him, how would their eyes have 
 telegraphed their mental ecstasy. Silvia, at this 
 same moment, would not have served the purpose; 
 she might see how ridiculous his father was being, 
 but below her perception of that, which might easily 
 have made her telegraph and smile to him, there 
 would have been that huge, unspeakable tender- 
 ness which, when you wanted an answering percep- 
 tion of farce, would have spoiled it all. That uni- 
 versal embracing compassion required salting. Be- 
 fore now she had seen, and communicated to him, 
 her sense of his father's absurdities, but now, when 
 he turned trouble into an empty arena for his pos- 
 turing, her sense of comedy completely failed her. 
 Or, if she still possessed it, Peter could not get at it. 
 With a flare of intuition he guessed that it might be 
 unlocked to him, if only he could use the right key 
 to it. But the key was compassion, and it was he for 
 whom she waited to thrust it into the wards. If 
 only he loved they could laugh at anything to- 
 gether; without that the gate was locked.
 
 PETER 241 
 
 Well, if it was locked, he would enjoy his imper- 
 fect vision of what lay within, 
 
 *'Yes, I saw its eflPect on you," he said, trying to 
 imagine that Nellie was here, enthralled and wide- 
 eyed. "You amused us all very much immediately 
 afterwards by making that lovely sea-sick passenger 
 out of an orange. Perfectly screaming!" 
 
 His father thrust his hands through his hair; it 
 stood up like some glorious grey mane. 
 
 "Yes, yes," he said, "I made an effort. I won't, 
 no, my Peter, I will not lose sight of the dear gaieties 
 of life, God knows what it costs me! Even after a 
 little thing like that I was more than ever plunged 
 in the gulf of despondency. I know how wrong I 
 am. I must never relax my efforts; I mustn't give 
 myself time to think. Work and laughter — those 
 divine twins." 
 
 He poured himself out a glass of whisky and soda, 
 and chose a cigar with proper care. 
 
 "A word or two on practical affairs," he said, 
 "before I go to my lonely and wakeful bed. You 
 will be here, I understand, till early in December. 
 By then I trust (I insist, indeed, on thus trusting) 
 that I shall have schooled myself to face the desola- 
 tion of my home (what once was home) again. May 
 I, do you think, ask to remain here till then? I look 
 upon your beautiful Howes as my hospital. Soon 
 still maimed, still limping, still in the blue unifomi 
 of pain, I know that I must, indeed I insist on it, 
 face the world again and make the best of my 
 shattered existence. But till then? Silvia, whom I 
 consulted with regard to this matter, told me that 
 you were the master of Howes, and suggested my 
 speaking to you about it." 
 
 Peter saw an opportunity. His father, it is true,
 
 242 PETER 
 
 was an odious infliction of an evening, but there was 
 something to be gained by his own eager tolerance 
 of that, which quite outweighed the inconvenience. 
 But he must do more than tolerate; he must wel- 
 come; and Silvia — here was the point — must know 
 how splendidly he had risen to it. Before he 
 answered he made himself remember what the in- 
 tonation of cordiality sounded like. 
 
 ''But that is perfectly charming of you," he said. 
 "It's lovely that the suggestion came from yourself. 
 She and I may be away for a day or two in Novem- 
 ber " 
 
 Peter did not quite know what arrangement he 
 vras to suggest about such days when he and Silvia 
 would be away, for instance, on their visit to Nellie. 
 He was spared the trouble of formulating one by his 
 father, who gave a great gesticulation, admirably 
 expressive of courage. 
 
 "I will go home — home for those days," he said. 
 "I will, with set teeth and firm mouth, begin to grow 
 accustomed to my desolation and lonelmess. I will 
 learn to bear it, taking in long draughts the inestim- 
 able tonic of work. Peter, Peter" — and the voice 
 shook — ''when will my Carissima come back to me?" 
 
 He was unmanned only for a moment, and his 
 mastery of himself returned to him. 
 
 "Was ever a stricken man so blessed by the love 
 of his children?" he exclaimed. "God bless you, my 
 Peter. You are going to bed?" 
 
 The abruptness of this benediction convinced 
 Peter that his father had got what he wanted and 
 had no more use for him that night, and he went 
 along the corridor to his room and Silvia's. His first 
 impulse was to tell her how cordially, for his part, 
 he had welcomed his father's suggestion ; the second
 
 PETER 243 
 
 and wiser one was to say nothing about it. Mr. 
 Main waring was sure to make the most of it to her; 
 he might even attribute to it that force from inside 
 which turned the wheels. Yes, Silvia should learn 
 about it like that. 
 
 He let himself very quietly into his room, and 
 undressed and went to bed without going in to say 
 good night to her. If he went in to see her, it was 
 more than likely that she would ask him whether 
 his father had alluded to the question of his remain- 
 ing with them, and he wanted the information con- 
 cerning that to be conveyed to her by one who would 
 give him, Peter felt sure, a florid testimonial for 
 cordiality. He had passed, moreover, a monotonous 
 and fatiguing evening, and wanted not to talk at 
 all, but to sleep. His father had been slightly more 
 dreadful than usual, Mrs. Wardour had more than 
 ever been non-existent, and Silvia, so it struck him, 
 had been waiting, had been watching him, not, it 
 need hardly be said, with fixed eye or stealthy 
 glances, but with some steady psychical alertness 
 that was incessantly poised on him. Without look- 
 ing at him, without any talking to him or talking 
 at him, he had felt all evening — this, perhaps, had 
 been the most fatiguing part of it — that she had 
 scarcely been conscious of anyone else but him. 
 Though her eyes were on the cards, and she ruefully 
 bemoaned that the goddess of piquet, whom she 
 jointly invoked with Peter's father, had been so nig- 
 gardly in her favours towards herself, it had been 
 no more than an automaton that was thus vic- 
 timized to the extent of three lost games, including 
 a rubicon. 
 
 Peter, as he curled himself up in bed, let his mind 
 stray drowsily over such details of the evening.
 
 244 PETER 
 
 coming back always to this impression of Silvia's 
 watching him. Whenever he spoke to her of his 
 father she watched him — seldom with her eyes — in 
 just that manner. By aid of his quick perception, 
 that felt rather than reasoned, Peter had, he was 
 sure, arrived at what she watched for then. She 
 watched for some token, she listened for some inflec- 
 tion that indicated tenderness, sympathy, affection 
 toward his father. She could not have been watch- 
 ing for any such token as that for herself, for he gave 
 her those; she knew they were hers. But he had 
 never felt more certain about anything in these dim, 
 vague regions of sentiment and desire than that she 
 wanted something more than that which he gave 
 her, and a certain impatience gained on him. What, 
 after all, had been her own first words to him when 
 he asked her to marry him? Had not her face flamed 
 with the light of the beacon that welcomed him as 
 she whispered that all she asked was to be allowed 
 to love him? At the time that had seemed to him 
 a divine intuition, one that, in a word, precisely 
 defined her way of love and his. 
 
 There came at that door of his bedroom which led 
 to her room the lightest, most barely audible of 
 touches; he was scarcely sure whether he had heard 
 it or not. But he did not reply, for either it was 
 imaginary, and needed no answer, or it was Silvia 
 come to see whether he was in his room yet. In that 
 case, even more, an answer must be withheld, for 
 after this evening of strain and high pressure all he 
 wanted was to be let alone and to go to sleep. But 
 underneath his eyelids, not quite closed, he watched 
 the door which was opposite his bed and was dimly 
 visible in the glimmer of starshine that came in 
 through the open and uncurtained window.
 
 PETER 245 
 
 Round the edge of the door, though he had heard 
 no click of a turned handle, there came a thin "L" 
 of light, which broadened until, in the shaft of it, 
 appeared Silvia. She held a lighted candle, which 
 she screened from his bed with her hand, the fingers 
 of which, close to the flame, were of a warm trans- 
 parent crimson. Apparently his clothes, tumbled 
 together on a chair, first caught her notice, and from 
 them she looked straight towards the bed. Her face 
 was vividly illuminated, and when she saw him 
 lying there with shut eyes, some radiant, ineffable 
 tenderness came like dawn over it. Never had he 
 seen so selfless and wonderful a beam; she might 
 have been some discarnate spirit permitted to look 
 upon him who had been the love of her earthly heart. 
 That, then, was how she regarded him when she 
 thought she was unobserv-ed by him ; he meant that 
 to her. Next moment, round the half-open door, 
 the light naiTowed and disappeared, and he was left 
 again in the glimmering dusk. Never had he seen 
 with half such certainty and directness what Silvia 
 was. She had thought he w^as asleep, and so she 
 could let free her very soul. Neither by day nor 
 night had she come to him quite like that; all other 
 emotions, amusement, interest, sympathy, desire, 
 passion even, had concealed rather than revealed 
 her. They had been webs and veils across the sanc- 
 tuary, illumined, indeed, by the light that burned 
 there, but still hiding it. Now for one moment Peter 
 had seen her with those veils drawn aside, the holy 
 place of her, and her love was the hght of it. 
 
 He was sitting next afternoon in his room at the 
 Foreign Office, rather harassed by the necessity of 
 being polite to everybody. The clerk senior to him
 
 246 PETER 
 
 in his department was on leave, and it happened 
 that an extra King's messenger had to be sent off 
 to Rome, carrying a new cypher. That was a per- 
 fectly usual incident in Peter's routine, but this 
 messenger was fresh to his job, and had been in and 
 out of the office all day, fussy and pompous, wish- 
 ing to be assured that he had got reserved compart- 
 ments and a private cabin. There was a strike on 
 the French railways going on, and Peter had told 
 him that it might be impossible to secure a com- 
 partment further than Paris, but all that could be 
 done had been done, and, anyhow, he would find 
 a seat reserved for him. Usually Peter rather en- 
 joyed applying soothing ointments to agitated 
 people, and his skill as a manipulator of pompous 
 and fussy persons was so effective that by common 
 consent (he quite agreeing) tiresome officials were 
 often turned on to him for emollient manipulation. 
 But to-day the telephonings and the interruptions 
 and the pomposity and the prime necessity of re- 
 maining dulcetly apologetic for inconveniences 
 which were wholly out of his control had got on 
 his nerves, and when finally, in answer to inquiries, 
 it had been determined that the King's messenger 
 had better, in order to secure a journey probably 
 unvexed by strikes, go round by Southampton and 
 Havre, Peter had been treated to some very acid 
 talk. Of course, the man was an ass, no one knew 
 that better than he, and it was ludicrous to be infu- 
 riated by an ass. 
 
 About six then, that afternoon, Peter had done all 
 that patience and civil inquiries from French 
 station-masters could do for the ass, and with un- 
 diminished civility he had wished him a pleasant 
 journey. In half an hour, or, if he chose, now, since
 
 PETER 247 
 
 there was nothing more that could detain him, he 
 could telephone for his car and slide down to Howes. 
 He did not in the least look forward to his evening 
 there; it would assuredly be an evening of as high 
 a pressure as the day had been. His father would 
 certainly be voluble with blessings and gratitude and 
 Peter hated the prospect of these benedictions. In- 
 stalled as Mr. Mainwaring now was for a couple of 
 months more, he would surely develop the idea 
 which he had before now outlined, when he assured 
 Peter that duiing his daily absences in London he 
 himself would act as his vice-regent. He had already 
 caused the luncheon hour to be changed in order that 
 he might get an extra half-hour of work into the 
 morning ; already he had got the estate carpenter to 
 "knock him up" an immense frame in which he could 
 see his second cartoon, now dismally approaching 
 completion, more satisfactorily displayed. And then 
 Peter thought of that short candle-lit glimpse last 
 night, when Silvia had looked into his room. 
 
 For one moment the remembrance of that mag- 
 netically beckoned him; the next, as by some inex- 
 plicable reversal, the needle of that true compass 
 swung round and pointed in the opposite direction. 
 It no longer gave him his course back to Howes; it 
 steadily pointed away from Howes. But even as 
 he told himself how inexplicable that was, his sub- 
 conscious self gave a convincing explanation of it. 
 To hurry back to Silvia and her watch of love, to 
 feel that there were veils which only he could draw 
 aside, but which, when drawn aside by God knew 
 what aspirations towards a light he did not compre- 
 hend, would reveal to him again the glory of her 
 sanctuary, was a task for saints and lovers. He 
 would rise to it in time, he would learn to be worthy
 
 248 PETER 
 
 of an ideal that somehow, in spite of its white heat, 
 had the chill of asceticism frosting it; but just now 
 he longed for ordinary, unreflective, unstruggling 
 human gaiety. She — Silvia — lived naturally on 
 those heights, just as his father lived in the cloud — 
 or the shroud, maybe — of his own inimitable 
 egoism. 
 
 He was tidying up his table, intending to ring up 
 very soon for his motor to take him back to Howes. 
 If he started in half an hour he would have time to 
 see his father before dressing, and to talk to Silvia 
 between bath and dinner. Then he changed his 
 mind and determined not to ring for his motor at all. 
 Instead he would walk back across the park — no, not 
 across the park, but up Whitehall, and so by streets 
 all the way to Piccadilly. He would have time to 
 get a cup of tea at home and start from there imme- 
 diately afterwards. The rather longer route by the 
 streets was infinitely preferable. There would be 
 crowds of ordinary human beings all the way, people 
 not monstrous on the one hand, so far as he knew, 
 from swollen egoism, nor irradiated by idealisms 
 which made you pant in a rarefied atmosphere. 
 There would be just masses of people, people gay, 
 people sulky, ugly people, pretty people, but above 
 all ordinary people. 
 
 At the moment when his tidying was complete, 
 and his table ready for his next day's work, the tele- 
 phone on his table tinkled. He resigned himself 
 to more inquiries from the incomparable ass, but 
 they could not last long, for his train left Waterloo 
 within a manageable number of minutes. But in 
 answer to his intimation that it was indeed he who 
 waited at the end of the wire, there did not come 
 the voice which he had listened to so often that
 
 PETER 249 
 
 day, but one quite other and equally recognizable. 
 
 ''Nellie?" he said. 
 
 "Yes, my dear. How lucky I am to catch you. 
 You're in town, then?" 
 
 "At the moment," said he. "I'm going back to 
 Howes in half an hour." 
 
 "Oh, what a pity! You won't be in town to- 
 night, then?" 
 
 "Why?" asked Peter. 
 
 "Only that Philip and I were going to the play, 
 and Philip's got a cold and thinks it wiser not to 
 go out. I thought perhaps — just a lovely off-chance 
 — that you might come instead. Oh, do, Peter." 
 
 "Hold on. Wait half a minute," said he. 
 
 He put the receiver down on the table, seating 
 himself on the edge of it. Here in excelsis was pre- 
 cisely what he longed for. Dinner, a theatre, a talk, 
 all with Nellie, who represented to him (though in 
 excelsis) the ideal epitome of the world of human- 
 ity. He had thought a moment before, with the 
 sense of anticipating a "break," the mere walk 
 through crowded streets. She would in this pro- 
 gramme give him all that intimately, she would give 
 also the sense of intimate friendship without effort. 
 They would jabber and enjoy 
 
 He took up the receiver again. 
 
 "Yes, all quite easy," he said. "It's late already, 
 and when it's late and I can't get down there, I 
 can always sleep in town. Silvia and I settled that 
 when I began work again in this doleful office." 
 
 Nellie appeared to laugh at that. 
 
 "Silvia evidently spoils you," she said. "But it's 
 too lovely to catch you like this. Will you dine 
 with me at the Ritz? Seven? The play — can't re- 
 member what it is — begins at eight. So we shan't
 
 250 PETER 
 
 have to hurry, and can sit with our elbows on the 
 table for a bit and talk." 
 
 "Sit with what?" asked he. 
 
 "Elbows on the table/' said Nellie with elaborate 
 distinctness. "No hurry — talk." 
 
 This time he laughed. 
 
 "Oh, don't let's go to the Ritz," he said. "Come 
 and have elbows at my great house. I'll go back 
 there now and order dinner. It'll probably be beast- 
 ly, but it's more private. Shall we do that?" 
 
 "Much nicer," said Nellie. "How are you, Peter? 
 Oh, I can ask that afterwards. Seven, then. War- 
 dour House?" 
 
 "Yes. Give condolences to Philip. Not congratu- 
 lations, mind." 
 
 Peter hung up the receiver, and then took it off 
 again at once in order not to give himself time to 
 think. There would be clamour and argument if 
 he thought, and he wanted nothing of that sort. 
 Ten minutes afterwards he left the oflSce, having 
 telephoned to the Jackdaw that he was detained 
 here and would be obliged to sleep in London. 
 
 Two months had passed since Nellie and he had 
 met, but whatever frontier-change of limitation or 
 expansion had been decreed for each severally since 
 then, their meeting to-night had the power to put 
 such aside, and they hailed each other without the 
 embarrassment of altered circumstances. Their 
 compasses were rigidly in accord, and as the excel- 
 lent impromptu meal proceeded the talk sailed 
 towards northern lights, so to speak, in the direction 
 of their steadfast needles. Soon they were sitting 
 (at the elbow stage) with their coffee and cigar-
 
 PETER 251 
 
 ettes, with a quiet quarter of an hour in front of 
 them before they need start, 
 
 "Motor at ten minutes to eight/' said Peter to the 
 servant, glancing at the clock. "Tell me when it 
 comes round." 
 
 He shifted his chair a little sideways towards her. 
 
 "Oh, this is jolly," he said, "for we've gone on 
 just where we left off. You're just the same. It's 
 two months, you know, since I set eyes on you. Do 
 say you've missed me." 
 
 "What else did you expect?" said she. "Marriage 
 
 isn't Oh, Peter, what's the name of that 
 
 river?" 
 
 "Thames?" asked Peter. 
 
 "No, the forgetting one — Lethe. Because I'm 
 married to Philip I don't forget — other people. But 
 tell me, has Silvia been giving you Lethe to drink 
 instead of early morning tea?" 
 
 "Not a drop. She's given me everything else in 
 the world." 
 
 Nellie still had that habit of plaiting her fingers 
 together. 
 
 "You ought to be very grateful to me," ^e said. 
 "It was I, after all, one night at my mother's flat, do 
 you remember?" 
 
 "I was Jacob that night," remarked Peter. 
 
 Nellie frowned. 
 
 "Don't tell me how," she said. "I want to see if 
 we think side by side still. Ah, I've got it! Phihp 
 was Esau — isn't that clever? — and I told him I was 
 tired, and so you supplanted him." 
 
 "Right. Get on," said Peter. 
 
 "Yes, about your gratitude. It was that night 
 that I told you to ask Silvia to marry you. Didn't 
 I?"
 
 252 PETER 
 
 "Yes. -hank you, dear Mrs. Beaumont," said 
 Peter effusively. ''So good of you to tell me." 
 
 "It was a good idea, wasn't it?" 
 
 Nellie's mind stiffened itself to "attention" at that 
 moment. Before, it had been standing very much 
 at ease. 
 
 "The best idea in the world," he said. 
 
 "I'm awfully glad," said she. "What you say, 
 too, makes it all the more delightful of you to stop 
 up in town to-night, instead of going back to 
 her." 
 
 Though up till now they had fitted into each other 
 with all the old familiar smoothness, it appeared 
 now, when they got near, in their conversation, to 
 what had happened to each of them (not, so he still 
 felt, altering them, but putting them into new cases) 
 that there was fresh ground to be broken; hitherto 
 they had only picked their way over the old ground. 
 Nellie felt this even more imperatively than he. 
 They had got to run the plough (so why not at once 
 on this admirable opportunity?) through the un- 
 turned land. . . . Peter's servant had already ap- 
 peared in the doorway, announcing the motor, and 
 she had noticed that, but Peter had not. She con- 
 cluded from that, that he, easy as their intercourse 
 had up till now been, was feeling some pre-occupa- 
 tion. His hesitation in answering her last acknowl- 
 edgment of his amiability in remaining in town in- 
 stead of going back to Howes, confirmed that im- 
 pression. Then, before the pause was unduly pro- 
 longed, so as to amount to embarrassment, she put 
 her word in again. 
 
 "I appreciate that," she said, "because it shows 
 that the new ties haven't demolished the old. And 
 on my side I admit, far more definitely than you,
 
 PETER 253 
 
 that if my poor Philip must have a cold, I am glad 
 — ever so glad — it visited him to-night, so as to give 
 me an evening with you." 
 
 She swept her plate and coffee-cup aside, to make 
 room for an advance of the elbows. 
 
 "Oh, my dear, I have missed you," she said. 
 "Naturally, however perfectly Philip is himself, he 
 couldn't be you. My mind — perhaps you haven't 
 noticed it- — has wonderfully improved these last 
 months — I am learning Italian, and we read Dante 
 — but it needs just a little holiday. And I've found 
 out such a lot of things about Philip, and all of them 
 are good, worse luck." 
 
 Peter looked up at her with that liquid seriousness 
 of eye which to her meant that he was walking in 
 the wet woods. 
 
 "Oh, poor thing," he said. 
 
 For some reason which she did not choose to in- 
 vestigate, Nellie found that remark immensely en- 
 couraging. Certainly, a few minutes ago, she had 
 tried to provoke him to talk — really talk, but the 
 ironical perfection of his condolence, which, so she 
 felt, saw all round what she was saying, made her 
 more than acquiesce in his listening instead of talk- 
 ing. She felt sure that this beloved Peter under- 
 stood 
 
 "I knew you would sympathize," she said; "but 
 there's my tragic prosperity. My Philip isn't lazy 
 or spiteful and inconsiderate or selfish, or bad-tem- 
 pered or greedy or — or anything at all, except that 
 he knows so much about birds. He has taught me 
 a lot, and he's quite absolutely devoted to me. He 
 never liked anybody so much as me. But do you 
 know, darling, to a woman, at any rate, having a 
 good, nice man quite devoted to her, as far as his
 
 254 PETER 
 
 affections go, gives her, once in a way, a little sense 
 of strain. She has to find her hymn-book and 
 sing." 
 
 "I'll lend you mine," said Peter, speaking with- 
 out thought, but only by instinct. 
 
 "Thanks. When will you want it back? No; I 
 won't borrow it. But the fact is, that an undilutedly 
 good man wants something to make him fizz. You 
 must have humour or a vile temper or cynicism or 
 greediness, or something to make you drinkable. . . . 
 My dear, what am I saying?" 
 
 The clock on the mantelpiece struck the hour at 
 which the curtain of their play rose; but the chimes, 
 eight sonorous thumps, preceded by the quarters, 
 penetrated Peter's brain no more than the announce- 
 ment of the motor ten minutes ago had done. 
 
 "You're talking awfully good sense," he said. "At 
 any rate, you're talking a language I can understand. 
 You always did; we quarrelled and wrangled, but 
 we were on the same plane." 
 
 "So we are now, thank heaven," said she. "It's 
 time you gave me some news, you know." 
 
 Whatever pre-occupation it was that held Peter, 
 he seemed to shake himself free of it. 
 
 "Yes, I've got news all right," he said. "Domestic 
 tragedy." 
 
 "Oh, my dear, what?" asked she. "Nothing 
 awful?" 
 
 He seemed to know for certain that she was figur- 
 ing in her mind something about himself and Silvia. 
 So, in the upshot, the sequel, the development, he 
 was. But he tested her, so to speak, over the domes- 
 tic tragedy itself. 
 
 "My mother has run away from home," he began.
 
 PETER 255 
 
 Nellie did not laugh. She only bit her tongue with 
 firm purpose. 
 
 "Dear Peter!" she said, when she released it. 
 
 "She has simply gone," he said. "Round about 
 ten days ago, when father arrived to study his first 
 cartoon, with a view to the rest of the series — Mrs. 
 Wardour bought it, by the way — gracious me, what 
 a lot we have got to talk about," 
 
 "Never mind the cartoon," said Nellie with 
 thrilled interest. "Get on with the tragedy." 
 
 Quite uncontrollably Peter's mouth began to 
 lengthen itself. He did not quite smile, but the 
 promise of a smile was there. 
 
 "Tragedy, then," he said. "My mother sent me 
 a long — oh, such a priceless letter, to say that when 
 my father came home again — his home, I mean — he 
 would find she had gone." 
 
 The Dryad, the gay conscienceless Nellie, could 
 not, in spite of her improved mind, quite contain her- 
 self. 
 
 "But your mother?" she asked. "At her age? 
 How absolutely wonderful of her! Do you know 
 who he is?" 
 
 Peter tried not to laugh, and completely failed in 
 that dutiful endeavour. She could but follow his 
 lead, and the two, drawing psychically nearer to each 
 other every moment, abandoned themselves, just for 
 natural relief, to this irrepressible mirth. 
 
 "You are such a damned fool, Nellie," he said at 
 length. "Do listen: don't be funny. It's quite dif- 
 ferent." 
 
 " 'Pologies," said she, rather shakily. 
 
 "It wasn't anything so romantic, but it was just 
 as human," said Peter. "You know how my mother
 
 256 PETER 
 
 was hammered into herself — that phrase came in her 
 letter, by the way: it's not original." 
 
 "But I never guessed there was anything to ham- 
 mer," said Nellie. 
 
 "Nor did I; at least, I only half guessed. But 
 there was. A breaking point came, and she couldn't 
 stick to my father any longer. She has just gone 
 away. Do you remember how she used always to be 
 looking up hotels in railway guides?" 
 
 "I remember that most of all," said she. "Well?" 
 
 "She's gone to one of them. She's just gone away 
 to be free, not to lead somebody else's life any more. 
 When she has got a good breath of air, she may, 
 apparently, come back. But she doesn't promise." 
 
 Nellie had grown quite serious again. 
 
 "That's even more wonderful of her," she said. 
 "She just went away because she wanted to be 
 herself. My dear, what a mother ! And waiting till 
 you were married ! And your father? Go on." 
 
 This time Peter's mouth strayed beyond the lim- 
 its of mere reflective meditation, and smiled broadly. 
 
 "He has discovered, to his complete satisfaction, 
 why she left him," he said. "He knows — as if 
 Gabriel had told him — that his tremendous person- 
 ality, his devotion to Art, all that sort of thing, was 
 too much for her. He reproaches himself bitterly — 
 and oh, my dear, how he enjoys it — with having 
 failed to realise the frailty — not moral — the weak- 
 ness, the ordinariness of other people. She was 
 scorched in his magnificent flames, and escaped from 
 that furnace with her life." 
 
 "But how lovely for him!" said Nellie. "Lovely 
 for her, too. But why tragedy? You said it was a 
 tragedy?"
 
 PETER 257 
 
 His whole body gave a jubilant jerk. If he had 
 been standing up he must have jumped. 
 
 "Ah, you do see that, don't you?" he cried. "I 
 just rejoice in her! At least, I would " 
 
 Nellie divined perfectly well that "if Silvia un- 
 derstood" really completed the sentence. But if 
 Peter wished, for the present anyhow, to leave that 
 unspoken, loyalty to their comradeship prevented 
 her from suggesting it. Another motive, not less 
 potent than that, dictated her silence on the point, 
 for she infinitely preferred that he should volun- 
 teer some such information concerning himself and 
 Silvia than that she should give away her knowl- 
 edge of it. Certainly she longed to know in what 
 real relation he and Silvia stood to each other, but 
 it would be a tactical error (tactical was too busi- 
 nesslike) to let him know that his incomplete sen- 
 tence gave her so certain a hint. 
 
 "I see," she said quickly, "You would rejoice in 
 her if it wasn't for your father." 
 
 Until the two ultimate words of that were spoken 
 Peter's eyes had been bright and expectant. He 
 evidently waited for the termination which she had 
 refused to utter. When her sentence was complete 
 she saw, unmistakably again, that his eyes accepted 
 and acquiesced in her conclusion. 
 
 "Quite," he said in a level voice. "So for the 
 present my father is consumed with remorse, and is 
 occupying the state-rooms — you've never seen them; 
 gorgeous tapestry and Lincrusta Walton ceihngs — • 
 till we come up to town. He is painting away at 
 the series of cartoons." 
 
 Peter poured himself out a second cup of coffee 
 from the tray that had been left between them half 
 an hour or more before.
 
 258 PETER 
 
 "Aunt Joanna!" he said. "You never heard such. 
 V, plot or saw such a person. She's my mother-in- 
 law's sister, you know. She's 'got at' my father, 
 there's no doubt of it, and she's secured all the car- 
 toons by bribery and corruption, instead of their 
 being painted for the gallery — the Art Gallery, I 
 should say — at Howes. Aunt Eleanor — she's my 
 father-in-law's brother's wife — has secured the 
 sketches for the cartoons. They've been to Howes 
 once, but my father quite dominated them. That 
 was before the crash, so you may judge how much 
 more, with that added string of tragedy to his bow, 
 he would dominate them now. They are more price- 
 less than words can say. There will be a family 
 gathering at Christmas, I understand. Nellie, do 
 come. YVe would have such a gorgeous time if you 
 were there. We would sit quiet and notice and 
 drink in, and then we would sit over the fire together 
 when Uncle John and Uncle Abe " 
 
 "Uncle Abe?" asked Nellie in an awed voice. 
 
 "Yes. Sir Abel Darley, K.B.E., husband to Aunt 
 Joanna. Don't interrupt. When Uncle John and 
 Uncle Abe and Aunt Eleanor and Aunt Joanna have 
 gone, not staggering at all, but 'full up,' to bed, we 
 would have such holy convocations about them." 
 
 Nellie had inferred a little more information about 
 Silvia by this time, but what occupied her most was 
 not what she was inferring about anybody. It was 
 quite enough for her to realize that for the duration, 
 anyhow, of the first act of the play which they had 
 meant to see she was in the old full enjoyment of 
 Peter again. They had stepped back into the can- 
 dour and closeness of their friendship, and though he 
 had not, as she had, confessed that he was having a 
 holiday, it was transparently clear that this was the
 
 PETER 259 
 
 case. But just there the candour was clouded; she 
 guessed that, even as she was having a holiday from 
 Philip (God bless him), so Peter was having a holi- 
 day from Silvia. Only — here was the difference — 
 he did not or would not own up to that. Even 
 in the projected scheme of Christmas-hilariousness 
 at the uncles and aunts, Silvia did not appear as ever 
 so faintly ridiculous, or as ever so faintly partaking 
 in the midnight merriment. Throughout their talk 
 Peter had kept her hermetically apart. Once or 
 twice, Nellie conjectured, he had pointedly enough 
 refrained from introducing her. She could visualize 
 the rest of them down at Howes, but the part that 
 to Peter Silvia played was mysteriously shrouded. 
 When you were laughing at everybody all round, 
 why should you except one person from the compli- 
 ment of amused criticism? It was clear that Silvia 
 had no applause for the comedy of Peter's parents, 
 for he had so cordially welcomed her — Nellie's — 
 appreciation of it. What, then, was Silvia's line, 
 what was her relation, above all, to Peter? 
 
 She decided not to burn all her boats, but to set 
 fire to just a little one. 
 
 "Won't Silvia enjoy them too?" she asked. 
 
 "Can't tell," said Peter. 
 
 If there was a lapse of loyalty there, if, in a 
 minor degree, there was a sense conveyed of dis- 
 appointment, though of accepting that disappoint- 
 ment without comment, Nellie decided that Peter 
 was not intending to enlarge on it. She still (after 
 that small burned boat) clung to the chance of 
 Peter's volunteering information, but clearly she 
 would not get that just now; and another heavy 
 booming of quarters from the clock gave her an ex- 
 cellent opportunity of abandoning that which, after
 
 2G0 PETER 
 
 all, had never been a discussion on her own initia- 
 tive. 
 
 "Good gracious, it's a quarter to nine," she said. 
 "You wretch, Peter! We've missed one act, if not 
 two." 
 
 "Let's miss them all," he said, "and have an even- 
 ing." 
 
 That made her pause, but only for a moment. 
 Peter had consistently shied away from that one 
 topic she wanted to hear about, and a break of some 
 sort was much more likely to produce in him the 
 pressure that would eventually "go pop" than if 
 they remained just sizzling here. 
 
 "But we absolutely must go," she said. "Philip 
 will ask me about the play, and I couldn't tell him 
 that you and I simply sat talking till it was over." 
 
 "Why not?" said Peter. 
 
 "Because it isn't done. My dear, you and I have 
 signed on to the conventionalities of life. Come 
 along. A bore, but there it is. Besides, how would 
 you account for your evening to Silvia? Dining at 
 seven, you know. That requires a theatrical explana- 
 tion." 
 
 "Oh, don't be vulgar," said Peter. "As if Silvia 
 wouldn't delight in my spending an evening with 
 you." 
 
 "I know that," said she. "Don't lose your sense 
 of humour, Peter. It was a mild kind of joke." 
 
 "Come on, then," he said. "And as for its being 
 my fault that we're so late " 
 
 The second act was drawing to an end when they 
 stole into their box. On the stage there was pro- 
 ceeding the most elementary of muddles, to which it 
 was not in the least worth while to devote any in-
 
 PETER 261 
 
 genuity. It was clear at the first glance that these 
 people who pretended to be servants were really 
 landed gentry, and that just before the end the Earl 
 (who had taken the house) would propose to the 
 cook and be violently accepted. Psychologically 
 they presented no point of interest. Far more en- 
 grossing to Nellie w^as the fact that she had got 
 Peter with her, and the pleasure of that and the 
 general problem it propounded was far more absorb- 
 ing. Marriage had certainly quickened her emo- 
 tional perceptions, and she inferred, from the ex- 
 traordinary delight that it was to be with him again, 
 how much in the interval she had missed him. She 
 had no reason to complain, either, of the welcome 
 he had given her, but it was manifest (how she could 
 not definitely have said) that the quality of that 
 was different from hers to him. To his sense, as he 
 had openly stated, they had taken up the old atti- 
 tude, the old intimacy, without break, but as she 
 thought over that in the few minutes that elapsed 
 before the act was finished, she found that, for her 
 part, she did not altogether endorse his view. Cer- 
 tainly the old intimacy was there, firm and un- 
 shaken, but somehow, hovering over it, like a mist 
 which to her eyes seemed to be luminous with tears, 
 there was some new atmospheric condition, sunny 
 and tremulous. 
 
 Peter turned to her as the house sprang into fight 
 again. 
 
 "Oh, what a waste of time," he said. "We should 
 have done much better to have left our elbows on 
 the table. We're always doing it too. Do you re- 
 member the last play at which we met? That time 
 you were with Philip and I with Silvia and Mrs.
 
 262 PETER 
 
 Wardour. Then we had our talk afterwards; to- 
 night we had it first. I like the other plan best." 
 
 Though Peter had here stated several things with 
 which she was in cordial agreement, his tone was 
 not in tune with the old footing, the old intimacy. 
 Not many minutes ago it had been she who, in op- 
 position to his inclination, had insisted on break- 
 ing their tete-a-tete; now, with all possible light- 
 ness of touch, she suggested its resumption. 
 
 ''I've seen enough," she said. "I can tell Philip 
 all about it. Let's go back, my dear, and have half 
 an hour's more talk. It was my fault that we broke 
 up; but how could I have told that the play would 
 have been as silly as this? We shall talk more sense 
 in five minutes than they'll put into the whole of 
 the next act." 
 
 Peter's eyes were wandering round the house. At 
 this moment they were attracted by a feather fan 
 violently signalling from a box directly opposite, 
 and the general buzz of the theatre was quite dis- 
 tinctly pierced w'ith a shrill scream of laughter 
 which came from precisely the same direction as the 
 gesticulating fan. It was hardly necessary to put up 
 his glasses to ascertain the authorship of these phe- 
 nomena. 
 
 "Mrs. Trentham," he said unerringly, "with the 
 usual myrmidons. She has seen us, Nellie. Come 
 round and be conventional." 
 
 "Oh, why?" said she. "If she wants to see us she 
 can come here, can't she? But she doesn't want to 
 see us: she only wants to be seen." 
 
 She felt that at that moment she was becoming, 
 to Peter, part of the general foreground, a prominent 
 object in it, but still only part of it. His next words 
 confirmed the impression.
 
 PETER 263 
 
 "Oh, come along," he said. "Let's embark on the 
 ordinary ridiculous evening. Let's all go back to 
 supper with me. Or perhaps there's a dance going 
 on. Come round and forage, Nellie. I've been in 
 the country for a month, you know. Besides " 
 
 She knew perfectly well what he had left unsaid, 
 and answered it. 
 
 "But what does it matter how much she talks?" 
 she asked. 
 
 Peter gave her a glance of brilliant surprise. 
 
 "How did you know that that was what I didn't 
 say?" he demanded. 
 
 "Because it's you, of course. Or, if you like, be- 
 cause it's me." 
 
 The fan waved more vehemently than ever. 
 
 "We'd better go," said he. 
 
 Nellie got up. In the old days she would almost 
 certainly have been able to superimpose her wish 
 over his. Now it was the other way about. She 
 seemed to be in the grip of some internal necessity 
 of doing what he wanted. He had to have his way, 
 not because he had become stronger of will, but 
 because she had lost her power of self-assertion with 
 regard to him. It was not any general debility of 
 will on her part; she had her way with Phihp, for 
 instance, with an effortless ease. But then she was 
 not part only of the foreground to Philip, nor to her 
 was Peter part only of the foreground. . . .
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 Peter managed to get away from, the Foreign 
 OflBce next day, in the absence of anything to detain 
 him, an hour or so before his usual time, and arriv- 
 ing at the gilded gates of the battlemented lodge 
 of Howes while the warm October twilight still lin- 
 gered in the sky, he got out to walk across the mile 
 of park that separated hmi from the house. His 
 truant evening m town last night, the plunge into 
 the froth and noise and chatter, had quieted some 
 sort of restlessness, had assuaged some sort of hun- 
 ger, and he was still licking the chops of memory, 
 content in a few minutes now to "wipe his mouth 
 and go his journey" again. He just had the sense 
 of having enjoyed an evening out, of having lolled in 
 the old familiar tap-room, with the usual habitues, 
 over a pot of beer, while a friendly barmaid (this 
 was Mrs. Trentham) made the usual jokes over the 
 counter as she served him. Some of these seemed 
 to have sounded better by electric light, 30 to speak, 
 than did the timbre of their memory in the dusky 
 crimson of the dying day, and he recalled the wel- 
 come of screams and shrieks she had given to Nellie 
 and himself when, at his insistence, they had visited 
 her in the box opposite. She threatened when she 
 learned they had already dined alone (appearing 
 so very late at the play) to send anonymous letters 
 to Silvia and Philip. There was a judge in the 
 divorce court, she added, who was much devoted to 
 her, and would no doubt give her admission for the 
 
 264
 
 PETER 265 
 
 two cases when they came on. The robust wit of 
 Lord Poole had ably seconded her. 
 
 Then, with the exception of Nellie, who had to go 
 home to put an end to Philip's solitary evening, they 
 had all gone back to Wardour House, where Peter 
 promised some sort of scratch supper, and Nellie, 
 finding that her husband had already gone to bed, 
 joined them again. It had been altogether a pleas- 
 ant ridiculous evening which had made itself, in this 
 impromptu and accidental manner, an ordinary hu- 
 man evening. Just twice there had for Peter been 
 a slight check, a signal momentarily against him — 
 once when he found that Nellie had left again, very 
 soon after her reappearance at supper, without a 
 word to him; once when, without warning, it had 
 entered his mind that at just about this time, the 
 night before, he had seen his bedroom door open, 
 and Silvia's face look in on him as he lay with closed 
 eyelids, feigning sleep. That was rather a dreadful 
 thing to have done. . . . 
 
 He paused a moment on the bridge that crossed 
 the lake, looking at the image of the house duskily 
 reflected on its far margin. There was someone com- 
 ing towards him along the path that led along the 
 edge of the lake, and joined the road here, and before 
 his eyes had time to tell him who it was, she waved 
 a hand at him, without the screams, without the 
 violent gesticulations by which Mrs. Trentham the 
 night before had made herself known. She quick- 
 ened her pace as he answered her signal, and in three 
 minutes more he had joined her. 
 
 "The chauffeur told me you had walked from the 
 lodge," she said, "so I came to meet you. You're 
 early." 
 
 Peter kissed her.
 
 266 PETER 
 
 "I'll go away again, shall I?" he said. 
 
 "No; as you've come, you can stop," she said. 
 "And what did you do with yourself last night? Not 
 all alone, I hope: you found somebody?" 
 
 Peter smiled at her. 
 
 "Somebody?" he said. "Crowds! First of all, 
 Nellie rang up at the F.O., saying that she had 
 been going to the play with Philip, but that he had 
 a cold. So would I? We dined at home first, and 
 talked so long with elbows on the table that we 
 didn't get to the play till toward the end of the 
 second act." 
 
 "Ah, that was luck to find Nellie," said Silvia. 
 "I w^as afraid you might have a horrid lonely even- 
 ing. And then?" 
 
 "Then just one act of Downstairs.. But one act 
 was better than four. There had been railway 
 whistles and flags waving from the box opposite." 
 
 "That was Mrs. Trentham," said Silvia. 
 
 "It was. So we swept in her lot — the usual one — 
 with Lord Poole, who told me to kiss you for him, 
 and they all came to supper at home. Really, that 
 plan of keeping the house open was an admirable 
 one. It's awful fun doing that sort of thing, and we 
 talked and smoked and laughed until everyone 
 melted away." 
 
 She saw (and loved to see) the brightness and 
 briskness of him; she heard (and loved to hear) his 
 cheerfulness and alacrity. 
 
 "Oh, I am glad you had a nice evening," she 
 said. "I nearly telephoned to say I was coming up 
 to keep you company. But then I thought I had 
 better stop and — and try to make myself disagree- 
 able at home." 
 
 "Did you succeed, darling?" asked Peter.
 
 PETER 267 
 
 Exactly then it struck Silvia that if Peter had 
 dined, had sat "so long" with elbows on the table, 
 and had got to the theatre in time for anything at 
 all, he could not have been detained very late at 
 the Foreign Office. She instantly drew down, with 
 a rush and a rattle, some mental blind in front of 
 that. She shut it out: she did not choose to see it. 
 
 "Yes, pretty well," she said. "Mother went to 
 bed at ten, anyhow, which is early for her, so I 
 must have been fairly successful." 
 
 "Not proved," said Peter. "She may have been 
 sleepy. It's a sleepy place, you know." 
 
 "I know," she said. "Two nights ago I came and 
 looked into your room, as I had not heard you come 
 to bed, and there you were, fast asleep." 
 
 "Snoring, I suppose you'll tell me?" said he. 
 
 This point about detention at the Foreign Office, 
 with time yet to dine and confabulate and go to the 
 theatre, had struck him too. He had meant it to be 
 assumed that he had telephoned to signify the 
 knowledge that he would be detained, and now by 
 this stupid inadvertence in giving the account of his 
 evening, he had shown, for all who cared to think, 
 that he had not been detained. But Silvia appar- 
 ently had quite missed that, or she would surely have 
 said something to that effect; as it was, she passed 
 it by: it was out of sight by now, behind another — 
 well, another misunderstanding. 
 
 She proceeded to put a further corner between her 
 consciousness and it. 
 
 "No, I don't say snoring," she said. "Oh, Peter, 
 your father has told me how delightful, how angelic 
 you were to him, about his stopping on here till we 
 go back to London. It touched him very much." 
 
 She took his arm. "It touched me too, dear," she
 
 268 PETER 
 
 said, "and I must tell you that it furnished a reason 
 — one out of several — why I came to meet you. I've 
 got a confession " 
 
 Peter guessed what this reason was and what the 
 confession. When he made a plan he was quite 
 accustomed to find it work itself out as he had 
 meant. But now in the very apex of its success he 
 felt ashamed of it. If it came to confessions he 
 could make his contribution. He interrupted her. 
 
 "I don't care about that reason," he said. "Tell 
 me the other ones instead." 
 
 "The other ones will come afterwards," she said, 
 "if you want to hear them then. This has got to 
 come first, so don't interrupt, darling. I will tell 
 you : it's an affair of conscience." 
 
 "And I'm a conscientious objector," said he. As 
 it became more and more certain in his mind what 
 Silvia's confession was, the less he wanted to hear 
 it, though he himself, patting his own back for his 
 cleverness, had contrived the plan of which this was 
 the logical sequel. But when he did that he had not 
 yet pretended to be asleep one night nor, on another, 
 telephoned his detention in town. 
 
 Silvia went on with a gentle but perfectly deter- 
 mined firmness. 
 
 "I've misjudged you altogether, Peter," she said, 
 "and I've got to confess. For days now — more days 
 than I like to number — I have been watching you, 
 looking for something I missed in you. I thought 
 you were unkind and sarcastic and cynical about 
 your father, and what he told me of the manner in 
 which you welcomed his proposal to stop on here 
 convinced me how utterly I had been wronging you. 
 It was owlishly stupid of me to suppose you could
 
 PETER 269 
 
 be like that, and, what was worse, it was brutally 
 unloving." 
 
 Peter laughed. 
 
 "Any more big words coming?" he asked. "Owl- 
 ish, stupid, brutal, unloving? That's you all over. 
 Have you murdered anybody?" 
 
 She shook her head. 
 
 "It's no use making light of it," she said. "It 
 was stupid, it was unloving of me. I thought that 
 because you saw certain absurdities and unrealities 
 about your father, you saw nothing but them, and 
 were impatient and untender with him. Do you 
 forgive me for being such a fool?" 
 
 Peter tried to imagine himself telling her that she 
 had been perfectly right throughout: that only a 
 piece of trickery^ on his part, in getting his father to 
 give an account of the welcome his proposition had 
 met with, had deluded her into thinking she was 
 wrong. But his vanity, the thought of the sorry 
 figure he would present, made it quite impossible to 
 contemplate so fundamental an honesty. Short of 
 being honest, he had better be superb. 
 
 He stopped, facing her, knowing well the effect 
 his physical presence had on her. 
 
 "You darling, there's one thing I don't forgive 
 you for," he said, "and that is for being such a fool 
 as to think there was anything for me to forgive." 
 
 Even as he made this neat phrase, the truth of it 
 came home to him. There was indeed nothmg for 
 him to forgive. She gave a long sigh. 
 
 "Oh, you must teach me to be generous," she 
 said. 
 
 Peter felt himself unutterably mean at that mo- 
 ment. But the thing was done ; he had been superb 
 as well as dishonest, and if honesty had been too
 
 270 PETER 
 
 high for his vanity to attain to, it was just as in- 
 capable of demohshing the golden image of himself 
 that he had set up for Silvia. Then there was the 
 point concerning his apparent slumber two nights 
 ago; there was the point concerning his telephone 
 last night. . . . He wished intensely that she hadn't 
 asked him to teach her generosity. 
 
 "Now for the other reasons why you came to meet 
 me," he said. There would be balsam and food for 
 his vanity here. He had the grace to recognize that 
 even while he asked it. 
 
 "Because I wanted to see you," said she. 
 
 "I like that reason. Have you any more of that 
 brand?" 
 
 He knew that the word which took lightly what 
 was so immense would, after her confession, cause 
 her to smile. It was of the species which she had 
 thought cynical, and which she now knew was just 
 the everyday garb in which affection and tenderness 
 clothed themselves. 
 
 "Because it seemed so long since I saw you," she 
 said. "Oh, Peter, there's only one reason really 
 which matters. Because I love you." 
 
 . . . And that brought home to him a meanness, 
 a dishonesty against which all the rest was but feath- 
 ers in a scale weighted on the other side with the 
 world itself. Often before now he had known how 
 unintelligibly great that was; now for the first time 
 he was irritated at himself for his want of com- 
 prehension with regard to it. He was accustomed 
 to understand things to which he gave his mind, but 
 here his mind was brought to a dead stop by this 
 great shining wall that was unscalable and impene- 
 trable. But, to be honest, was his irritation quite
 
 PETER 271 
 
 confined to himself, or did that shining wall from its 
 very incomprehensibility, provoke a portion of it? 
 
 Silvia seemed to herself to miss something in his 
 silence, but with Peter there, nothing could really be 
 missing. . . . 
 
 "How often I say that," she whispered ; "but how 
 often I feel that there's nothing else worth saying." 
 
 "More of that brand," said he. 
 
 "Not a drop. We must go in. You haven't seen 
 your father yet, and after that you must have your 
 bath." 
 
 "And after that you must send your maid away 
 so that we can get a few minutes' sensible conversa- 
 tion," said Peter. 
 
 "I'll begin it now," said she. "Sometimes, you 
 know, your bath goes to your head, and you're not 
 quite as serious as you might be." 
 
 "Say I'm drunk and have done with it," suggested 
 he. 
 
 "Very well ; sometimes your bath makes you tipsy. 
 But while you're sober, I want you to promise me 
 something." 
 
 "Shall I like it?" asked Peter prudently. "It isn't 
 to spend a week with Uncle Abe or anything of that 
 kind?" 
 
 "Nothing of that kind. Poor Uncle Abe! You'll 
 like it. At least, you'll find you'll like it; you'll 
 know it does you good." 
 
 "That's not the same thing," objected he. "It 
 does me good to get up bright and early, so as to 
 start for town without hurrying, but I hate it." 
 
 Silvia laughed. 
 
 "It will relieve you of that to some extent," she 
 said. "Oh, do be quick and promise instead of 
 making such a fuss!"
 
 272 PETER 
 
 "Right. But if you've deceived me, I'll never 
 trust you again. I promise." 
 
 "Well, for as long as we are here I want you to 
 spend at least one night in the week in town." 
 
 "I shall do nothing of the kind," said he. "I don't 
 care an atom about my promise. Pish for my prom- 
 ise! And how will it relieve me? Oh, I see. But I 
 shan't — unless you come too, that's to say." 
 
 Silvia stopped. 
 
 "Now listen to me," she said. "You enjoyed last 
 night immensely. It's perfectly natural that you 
 should have. I should think you were ill if you 
 hadn't." 
 
 "How do you know I enjoyed it? I never said 
 so," said he. 
 
 "You did better than that. You beamed all over 
 your atrocious countenance when you told me about 
 it. You were obliged to stop in town, and being 
 obliged you found, and you know it perfectly well, 
 that it was a sort of night out. You saw your 
 friends: you had a beano." 
 
 Silvia kept her finger on the cord of the blind she 
 had chosen to pull down in her mind. She refused 
 with a sublime intellectual dishonesty to look at the 
 fact that Peter certainly could have come down here 
 by dinner time if he had time to dine early in town ; 
 she would not see it. Already, so she told herself, 
 she had once fallen into an owlishly stupid error 
 and worse, by doubting him, by watching him ; now 
 at least she could repair that to some extent by the 
 supreme honesty of trusting him without question. 
 Something had happened to keep him in town, and 
 it was no business of hers to think of that at all. He 
 had said he was detained at the Foreign Ofiice, and, 
 for her, he was detained there. She held her eyes
 
 PETER 273 
 
 open to the intensest light of all, which was that of 
 her own love, and the more it blinded her to every- 
 thing else the better. It was only creatures like bats 
 (and owls), things of the night, that were blinded 
 by the dayspring. 
 
 "You enjoyed it: you had a beano," she repeated. 
 "Why not say so?" 
 
 Peter hesitated, but for a reason that she had 
 refused to entertain the existence of. The fact, now 
 shiningly clear, that Silvia had never so remotely 
 seen that he could easily have got down here in time 
 for dinner, made it unintelligibly and unreasonably 
 needful for him to tell her so. There was some- 
 thing sordid in not doing so. Had she shown the 
 smallest suspicion of it, he would probably have ex- 
 plained it away in some ingenious manner. 
 
 "Yes, I enjoyed it," he said. "That was why I 
 did it. I could easily have got down here in time 
 for dinner." 
 
 Up went the blind at that with a snap and a 
 whirr, and Silvia's face, beaming and delighted, 
 smiled out at him. 
 
 "Oh, Peter, how lovely of you to tell me," she 
 cried. "Of course, I guessed, only I wouldn't guess. 
 There's just the joy of it all." 
 
 That came from her like the stroke of a bird's 
 wing, that bore it through the sunny air. With 
 another stroke she returned to him. 
 
 "Now you've got no excuse for refusing my beau- 
 tiful plan," she said. "And it was nice of you not 
 to tell me at once: you knew you had to some time, 
 and it was all the better for keeping. My dear, 
 there's the dressing-bell. Just go and see your father 
 for a minute: you can talk to him in the smoking- 
 room after mother and I have gone to bed."
 
 274 PETER 
 
 As Silvia heard through her bedroom door the 
 splashings and the rinsings and the gurglings which 
 regulated her own speed of dressing, she was 
 absorbed in the perception of the one thing that was 
 great, or its original manifestations. Up the trunk 
 of the tree and through the branches and to the 
 remotest ends of the twigs flowed the sap, and all 
 — the firmness of the trunk, the vigour of the 
 branches, the elasticity of the twigs, the decoration 
 of flower and leaf and fruit which made the tree 
 lovely — were manifestations and embodiments of the 
 sap. If there was a wound in its bark, the sap 
 healed it; if there was a nest among its boughs, an 
 external loveliness of life which visited it, it was 
 still the sap which had fashioned its anchorage. The 
 remotest leaf of that tower of forest greenery was 
 nurtured by it, and all the being and the beauty 
 sprang from it. . . . There was nothing big or little, 
 if you looked at it in that way, though just now she 
 had decided that only one thing was big and all the 
 rest was little. . . . 
 
 Then came a rare, an unusual splash. Occasion- 
 ally when Peter began to stand up in his bath after 
 the hot soaking, he fell down again ; his foot slipped 
 en the smooth surface, and this made the rare and 
 enormous splash. This always caused her a certain 
 anxiety: he might hit his head against the edge of 
 the bath. . . . 
 
 "Just tap at the bathroom door, Wilton," she 
 said, ''and ask if Mr. Mainwaring is all right." . . . 
 But before the chaste Wilton could get as far as the 
 door, a new splashing began. ''It doesn't matter, 
 Wilton," she said. 
 
 "Your pearls, ma'am?" asked Wilton.
 
 PETER 275 
 
 Then came the tap at the door, and Wilton slid 
 out of the picture. 
 
 "I fell down," said Peter. "I might have hurt 
 myself, but I didn't. I wish you weren't so won- 
 derful." 
 
 'T can't help that," said she. 'Tou should have 
 thought of it before," 
 
 Peter began dr^-ing his toes. 
 
 "I've had quite a long talk with my father," he 
 said. "He thinks you're wonderful, too. He adores 
 you: they all adore you, pailicularly Lord Poole." 
 
 "Peter, don't be tipsy," said she. 
 
 "I shall be as tipsy as I like. I want to know 
 one thing. Why weren't you annoyed with me for 
 saying that I couldn't get back last night?" 
 
 Silvia held out the pearls for him to clasp round 
 her neck. 
 
 "If you don't understand that, you must be tipsy," 
 she said. 
 
 "And if I do?" he asked. 
 
 She leaned her head a little back. 
 
 "Why, then you understand it all," she said. 
 "You understand, for instance, why I insist on your 
 having a night in town every week." 
 
 "Yes, I see. Just that you shall get rid of me 
 now and then," he said. 
 
 "Quite right. You're as sober as — as a commoner, 
 I suppose." 
 
 She moved in her chair, and one end of her neck- 
 lace slipped from his fingers. 
 
 "Am I putting them on for dinner," he asked, "or 
 am I taking them off for bedtime?" 
 
 "Whatever you're doing, you are being wonder- 
 fully clumsy," said she, as his fingers, warm and 
 soft from his bath, touched the back of her neck.
 
 276 PETER 
 
 She was down before hiin next morning to give 
 him his breakfast, and, waiting for him, strolled out 
 on to the terrace. There had been one of those 
 exquisite early October frosts, and in the air was 
 that ineffable fragrance derived from absence of 
 smell, the odourless odour of frosted dew. The sun 
 was already warm with promise of a hot, cloudless 
 day; but as yet the heat had not set in motion the 
 weaving of the scents of earth and grass and flowers 
 which would soon decorate and veil the virginal 
 beauty of the morning. Last night, when she and 
 Peter had lingered here in the end of the twilight, 
 the air was not less clear and windless, but it had 
 been charged with all the myriad scents distilled by 
 the hot hours of autumn sun. Now there was a pre- 
 cision, a crystalline quality. . . . Some such sort of 
 clear sparkle bathed her spirit also ; her love basked 
 in some such virginal beauty of young day, flame- 
 like and scentless. 
 
 All the evening before, from the time when she 
 met Peter by the lake, she, body and soul and spirit, 
 had been rising towards some new peak of passion, 
 and the true topmost summit seemed to her now 
 to be where she stood in this cool brightness, able to 
 see that the upward path which led here was below 
 her. They had dined after Peter had clasped her 
 necklace for her; there had been the usual piquet 
 for her and Mr. Mainwaring, and for the latter a 
 triumphant psean of achievement over some effect of 
 lightning in the second cartoon, which positively, as 
 he stood aside as artist and became spectator, ap- 
 palled him, and before they settled down to their 
 cards he must needs conduct them to the master- 
 piece in question, and let them also feel the cold 
 clutch of fear.
 
 PETER 277 
 
 But whatever Mr. Mainwaring did or said, what- 
 ever her mother, it was Peter whom, in this rising 
 tide of flame and self-surrender, Silvia watched, no 
 longer looking for those signs of tenderness and af- 
 fection which (owlish) she had missed, but in the 
 rapturous contemplation of them. Often she had 
 seen him charming to her mother and to his own 
 father; but always, so she had thought, she could 
 detect in him politeness and amenity, the controlling 
 hand of breeding, the practice of pleasant behaviour. 
 But this evening there had been no "behaviour" 
 about him at all, he had been radiant with them 
 both, divinely natural. . . . He had sat next Mrs. 
 Wardour on the sofa, as the piquet was in progress, 
 and entertained her with ludicrous but hopelessly 
 recognizable caricatures of her and his father over 
 their cards; he had held a skein of her wool, he had 
 mixed her hot water and lemon juice for her. All 
 these things he had often done before, and they 
 were all trivial enough. . . . He was the same with 
 his father, looking over his hand when so bidden, 
 dutifully observing exactly how to play that puz- 
 zling game; eager to anticipate his wants, chaffing 
 him sometimes, behaving to him — this again was the 
 wrong word — being to him, rather, all that his own 
 sonship implied, fulfilling in every word and gesture 
 the welcome which he had given to the suggestion 
 of his remaining with them till they went to Lon- 
 don. And all that was ''the world's side" which any- 
 one might see, and behind it in "lights and darks 
 undreamed of" was that other aspect and reality of 
 him, which was hers alone. . . . She was already in 
 bed when she heard him, after his smoking-room 
 chat with his father, come into his room, and pres- 
 ently, after tapping on her door, he looked in, coat-
 
 278 PETER 
 
 less and shoeless. She pretended — in parody of what 
 happened two nights before^ — to be asleep, and be- 
 tween her eyelids, nearly closed, she saw a broad 
 smile overspread his face. 
 
 "I don't believe a single word of it," he remarked. 
 
 All this — all it was and all it meant — Silvia now, 
 as she waited for him, looked at, looked down on 
 even from this crowning pinnacle, as on upward 
 ultimate slopes. Even, as in the cool scentless air 
 of the morning, the miracle of the sunshine on the 
 windless world was more itself than when its beams 
 had drawn that response of fragrance from all living 
 things, so shone for her, untroubled with passion 
 and desire, the essence itself of love in its own crys- 
 tal globe. Not less precious, now that it was con- 
 veyed to her in no material manifestation, would be 
 the bodily presence of him through whom that es- 
 sence was conveyed to her, who embodied love to 
 her mortal sense, but for ever far more precious was 
 it now that she, in this pause of content that crowned 
 passion with a royal diadem, could for the moment 
 see that in loving him she loved not him alone, but 
 I.ove itself that "moved the sun and the other stars," 
 and being all, gave all. . . . 
 
 The duration of the moment in which Silvia 
 reached that point, not theoretically, but as a felt 
 and experienced reality, was infinitesimal, just as in 
 significance it was infinite. ... At the sound of 
 Peter's step on the bare boards of the dining-room 
 just within, the atmosphere of the summit where she 
 stood grew laden and fragrant with the scents of the 
 world. She did not come do^n from it: it did not 
 rise up above her. She was there still, but she was 
 there in body as well as in spirit, the fragrance of
 
 PETER 279 
 
 material sweetness was near her, even as when now 
 she stepped back into the dining-room, a waft of 
 rose-scent from the sun-warmed wall smothered her 
 nostrils. 
 
 Peter was poking about among dishes on the side 
 table, and turning round at her entry, gave her a 
 grunt, neither more nor less, in answer to her saluta- 
 tion. He had said before now that to be in good 
 spirits at breakfast-tune was a symptom that could 
 not be taken too seriously. By that test there was 
 nothing wrong with him this morning. 
 
 He sat down with an ill-used sigh. 
 
 "I've got a headache," he remarked. 
 
 "Oh, I'm sorry," said she. "Where?" 
 
 "In my left ankle, of course," said he. 
 
 Silvia, passing behind him, just tweaked the short 
 hair at the back of his neck. 
 
 "Oh, don't finger me," said Peter angrily. 
 
 He gave her so quick a glance that she could 
 scarcely tell whether he had actually looked at her 
 or not, and went on without pause and without 
 hurry, clinking out his worda like newly-minted 
 coins, separate and crisply cut and hot. 
 
 "Just let me alone sometimes," he said. "You 
 know how I hate dabbing and pressing and grasp- 
 ing. You're the lunit, you know." 
 
 He had got her stiff and staring, and still with- 
 out pause and in precisely the same voice he 
 went on : 
 
 "Don't let me have to speak to you Hke that 
 again," he said. "And don't be so owlish, but con- 
 fess that you've fallen into that trap." 
 
 Still she stood staring, and he took one step 
 towards her and flung his arms close round her
 
 280 PETER 
 
 neck, pressing her face to his, and then, more di- 
 rectly, finding and claiming her mouth. 
 
 "You utterly divine girl," he said. "I never 
 dreamed I should take you in. I did. Kiss me 
 three times to signify 'Yes,' and three times more 
 to signify that you are a darling, and once more to — 
 well, once more." 
 
 "Peter, I thought you were cross with me," said 
 she, when she could say anything. 
 
 "How perfectly splendid! That joke did come 
 off, didn't it?" 
 
 She could smile again. 
 
 "You brute!" she said. "But never take me in 
 over that again, darling. Anything else; not that." 
 
 Once more before his motor came round they 
 strolled on the terrace outside. It was thick now 
 with the web of scents, for the sun's weaving was 
 busy. The late roses gave their fragrance, and the 
 verbena and the mignonette, but these were but 
 strung like beads on to the smell of the damp, fruit- 
 ful earth. By now Silvia could laugh at herself 
 about that fierce phantom moment, for never had 
 Peter seemed more utterly hers. Usually in these 
 early morning half-hours he was rather silent, rather 
 morose; to-day, penitent perhaps, or, at any rate, 
 consolatory for the fright — it was no less — that he 
 had unwittingly given her, there was something of 
 the bath-intoxication about him. 
 
 "If you were in any sense a devoted wife," he 
 said, "you would drive up with me, deposit me at 
 the P.O., and then wait three hours for me in the 
 motor till lunch time. I could give you an hour 
 then, after which you would wait four hours more 
 and drive back with me. Therefore shall a woman
 
 PETER 281 
 
 leave her father and her mother and cleave to her 
 husband." 
 
 ''Yes, of course I'll come," said she, "if you want 
 me to. You must just say you really want me." 
 
 He took hold of her elbows from behind and ran 
 her along the terrace. 
 
 "Motor-bike," he observed. "I'm pushing you till 
 you get your sense of humour working on its own 
 account." 
 
 "It's working — I swear it's working," shrieked Sil- 
 via. "Don't be such a bully." 
 
 A seat on the balustrade of the terrace seemed 
 indicated after this violent exercise. 
 
 "There's another thing," said Peter. "My mental 
 power of association of ideas is decaying, which 
 is a sign of softening of the brain. Aren't you 
 sorry?" 
 
 "Is that the brain in your head?" asked she. 
 
 "No; in the same place that ached when I had 
 a headache. Left ankle. Don't interrupt. But 
 there's something in this house front, and I believe 
 it's the cornice, or whatever they call it, which runs 
 all along there underneath the windows on the first 
 floor, which — that's the cornice — reminds me of some 
 other house." 
 
 Peter pointed to the broad frieze-like band which 
 projected some foot or so from the wall of the house. 
 It was of Portland stone, amazingly carved with 
 masks at intervals, and ran, as he had said, just 
 below the first floor wmdows from end to end of 
 the fagade. Then he gave a yodel which, consciously 
 or not, was a hoarse and surprising parody of his 
 father's favourite method of indicating a general 
 sumptuousnes of sensation. 
 
 "That's done it," he said. "Just speaking of it
 
 282 PETER 
 
 has reminded me what it was. It's not so awfully 
 like really, but that's what I meant. And there's 
 the motor, bother and blight it, confound and 
 curse it." 
 
 "And what is the house it reminds you of?" she 
 asked. 
 
 "The flat belonging to Nellie's mother. Just be- 
 low the windows there ran a band like that. I no- 
 ticed it one day last summer. She had said some- 
 thing about it, but at that point there's softening 
 of the brain again. All I said about the motor holds, 
 though." 
 
 "Send it away. Walk up to town instead," sug- 
 gested Silvia. 
 
 "Likely with that headache in my ankle. But 
 I would so much sooner sit here with you than do 
 either." 
 
 Silvia waved to him as he drove off, and waiting, 
 waved again as he crossed the bridge over the lake. 
 The air was thick with earthly fragrances now, and 
 her mind with fragrant memories, and among them 
 there was some new s<5ent, not quite strange to her, 
 but one from which she had always, whenever it 
 presented itself, turned her head. Now it insisted 
 on being analyzed, on being recognized. 
 
 When, half an hour ago, she had just tweaked 
 his hair as she passed him, his remonstrance, to her 
 ears, had been wholly instinctive and sincere; he 
 objected to being "fingered." He had piled that up, 
 so she seemed to see, making of it a joke against 
 her, until the joke grew preposterous. Then, ever 
 so convincingly, he had smothered her with kisses. 
 Yesterday evening, too, how convincing had been, 
 on some other plane, his "dearness" — that word must
 
 PETER 283 
 
 serve — with her mother and IMr. Mainwaring. On 
 one side were bright tokens of affection, and to her 
 of 80 much more than affection; on the other that 
 one little hot coin that clinked with a true ring 
 before, with admirable mimicry of himself, he had 
 showered out a whole flood of such. 
 
 "VVTiich was the more real? And where, in these 
 mists, was that austere and shining summit?
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 Just before Christmas, after three weeks in Lon- 
 don, Silvia was driving down alone to Howes, in 
 preparation for the party which was to arrive next 
 day. Peter would come then: he had got a devas- 
 tating cold, and it was far wiser, in this grim incle- 
 mency of weather, that he should not come down 
 with her to-day, only to come up for his work again 
 next morning. It was much more sensible — Silvia 
 had suggested it — that he should nurse his cold that 
 evening, and, well wrapped up, make a smgle instead 
 of a double journey to-morrow. It was quite sub- 
 sidiary to that piece of good sense that she did not 
 want, just for this evening, to be alone with him; 
 even if his cold had not supplied an excellent argu- 
 ment in favour of this plan, she would have sug- 
 gested her own solitary departure. 
 
 Wilton, the correct virginal Wilton, sat opposite 
 her on the front seat. Wilton had, at the start, 
 deposited herself next the chauffeur, but Silvia had 
 made her come inside. But there was little use, so 
 thought Wilton, in coming inside, if her mistress still 
 kept both windows open. 
 
 The sleet had turned to uncompromising snow, 
 and Silvia seemed to notice it no more than if she 
 were a Polar bear. Eventually, as the car flowed 
 up the long hill through Putney, Wilton had been 
 able to stand the draught no longer. 
 
 "You'll be catching a worse cold than Mr. Main- 
 waring's, ma'am," she said, "if you sit in that 
 
 284
 
 PETER 285 
 
 draught." . . . That made it more comfortable. Sil- 
 via roused herself for a moment. 
 
 "His man doesn't take such care of him as you 
 do of me, Wilton," she said. 
 
 "And so much pneumonia about, ma'am," ob- 
 served Wilton encouragingly. 
 
 Silvia began to think consecutively, starting not 
 from far back, but from the immediate past. Nellie 
 had lunched with her alone, just before she started, 
 for Mrs. Wardour had been out, and Nellie had 
 hailed this tete-a-tete as the most delightful thing 
 that could have happened. Nellie had been at War- 
 dour House, too, the night before for a concert ; dur- 
 ing this month of December, hardly yet three weeks 
 old, she had been there a dozen times, for Mrs. War- 
 dour, resuming with extraordinary vigour after four 
 months in the country, her social activities, had, 
 without the aid of any godmother, turned Decem- 
 ber into June. 
 
 "You know the real name of this delicious house, 
 darling," Nellie had said. "Everyone calls it the 
 New Jerusalem, because its gates are never shut day 
 or night. Your mother brings light into the darkest 
 homes of the upper classes. There's such dreadful 
 discontent among them: if it wasn't for people — 
 angels — like your mother, they would all go and live 
 in converted garages or in country cottages, and pre- 
 tend to be the proletariat. It's being amused and 
 entertained that keeps the upper class together; 
 otherwise they would be the leaders of Bolshevism. 
 The Order of the British Empire now! Why isn't 
 she the only Dame in it? The stability of the upper 
 class depends on her, and the King depends on the 
 upper class, and the Empire, in fact, if you see what
 
 286 PETER 
 
 I mean. I'm not quite sure that I do, but I do mean 
 something. We should all have groaned and grum- 
 bled if your mother hadn't set such a brilliant 
 example." 
 
 With Nellie's brilliant presence and charm to help 
 out this engaging nonsense, it was a cheerful scintil- 
 lation. Last June, so Silvia told herself, she would 
 vastly have enjoyed such a month as she had just 
 spent, and Nellie's resume of it made her wonder 
 whether she — only she — ^had been dull and unappre- 
 ciative. . . . 
 
 The snow was driven against the glass which Wil- 
 ton had put up: she could hear it softly tap at the 
 window. . . . 
 
 "And Peter!" Nellie had said. "What have you 
 done to him, darling, or rather what haven't you 
 done to him? Everybody — I think I told you so 
 once — used to be devoted to Peter: we used all to 
 be in love with him, for he was so priceless, so mar- 
 vellous, in not caring one atom for anybody. How 
 long did it take you, do tell me, to discover his heart? 
 Did you mine for it, and dredge for it, and blow up 
 all the rocks round it? Or did you get an aeroplane 
 and fly up to it. Perhaps, after all, it was in the 
 sky — so tremendously remote that nobody ever 
 thought of looking for it there. You and Peter, up 
 in the blue like the queen bee and her lover ! How 
 wildly romantic! Or were you there, and did he fly 
 up to you? You met in the blue, anyhow, and left 
 us all staring up after you till our eyes watered with 
 the glare." 
 
 Silvia, as the car hooted its way through King- 
 ston, did not concern herself to recall with what 
 small accompaniment she had sustained those arpeg- 
 gios. She must have said something, for Nellie had
 
 PETER 287 
 
 gone on talking, talking. . . . Silvia had blinked be- 
 fore that brilliant vitality, which so decorated all 
 that lay under its beams; but for the first time, when 
 she spoke like that about herself and Peter, the light 
 hurt her. It dazzled rather than illuminated, and 
 when it fell on certain dark places it did not illumin- 
 ate them, it only showed up their blackness. She, 
 with Nellie's light, Nellie's impressions, to help her, 
 peered into them. Such glimpses as she caught be- 
 tween the dazzle and the darkness made her turn 
 away with protest agamst this bull's-eye that now 
 seemed to intrude on privacy. What, after all, had 
 her relations with Peter to do with Nellie? 
 
 The streets were slippery with the newly-fallen 
 snow, and at some corner, while they were still pass- 
 ing through houses, there was a furious hooting of 
 the horn outside, which to Silvia at that moment 
 was not so much a warning of danger aliead on the 
 road, as of danger lying somewhere deep within her- 
 self. They came to a dead stop, which made Wilton 
 scream faintly and clutch the jewel-case, and for a 
 yard or two they slid backwards. All that, too, 
 seemed instantly translated in her mind into interior 
 action, and, keeping pace with it, she slid a little far- 
 ther back in her journey of thought. 
 
 She brought out from the locked cupboard of 
 her very soul, where she had turned the key on it, 
 one particular moment. It was yesterday that she 
 had put it there. She was in a room of a house in 
 Welbeck Street, and at the end of the consultation 
 the great man, jovial and kindly, had got up from 
 his chair, and smoothed the pillow of a sofa on which 
 she had lain just before. 
 
 "Be quite active," Dr. Symes summed up, "with- 
 out overtiring j^ourself. Appetite good? That's all
 
 288 PETER 
 
 nght. Just go on with your ordinary life. What? 
 No: no doubt of any kind. Your husband well? A 
 cold? Everyone's got a cold." 
 
 Silvia paused over that while a wheel of the car 
 slipped or skidded. Soon it hit the ground again. 
 But in that pause she faced the fact that she had 
 not told Peter. She meant to last night, but — 
 but . . . He had bewailed his cold : he had accepted 
 her proposal that he should stop in London to-night. 
 He had waved his hand at her and left her, not 
 kissing her for fear of giving her his cold. But that 
 was not the reason — it was only the excuse — for not 
 telling him. She had welcomed it, at the time, as an 
 adequate excuse ; but if she had not found any such, 
 she would have done without it. 
 
 For a second or two her thought paused, merely 
 contemplating this fact as if looking at some pic- 
 ture. It seemed quite incredible that she had not 
 gone straight to him with her news, blurted it, whis- 
 pered it, kissed him with it. Yet if he had been sit- 
 ting here now instead of Wilton, in this privacy of 
 snow and twilight-travel, she knew that she would 
 again be struggling, and in vain, to tell him. 
 
 From that point she swept back to one morning 
 in October. It was then that some seed of knowl- 
 edge which had previously lain dormant in her soul 
 began to sprout. For two months now she had been 
 conscious of its growth, and for two months she had 
 steadily refused to acknowledge it. Her relations 
 with him had been of the most normal and friendly, 
 but the fact, as she saw now, of his content and 
 tranquillity was sunshine and rain to the growth of 
 it. Then, at the news Dr. Symes had given her, it 
 burst into bitter blossom, and she could ignore it no 
 longer.
 
 PETER 289 
 
 Peter had never loved her: he had never, in find- 
 ing her, lost himself. Mentally and sympathetically 
 she knew that he liked her — liked her, she was pre- 
 pared to say, immensely; physically she attracted 
 and satisfied him. To think that he had married 
 her "for" her money would be an exaggerated and 
 hysterical estimate ; her wealth had not been a coun- 
 terweight that overcame some opposing disadvant- 
 age, but it was, so she now believed, a determining 
 factor. Without it he would not have sought her. 
 
 It seemed odd to herself how little that mattered. 
 Her wealth was an advantage — so, too, was her 
 beauty; and even if he had married her "for" her 
 wealth, that would have semed to her no worse than 
 if he had married her "for" her beauty, or "for" 
 (had she been witty) her wit, or "for" any quality 
 whatsoever of mind or body. All these were ad- 
 vantages, pleasant circumstances; but all of them, 
 singly or together, compared with love, were no more 
 than the bright shells on the seashore compared with 
 the sea. 
 
 It was just here that she blamed him with a bit- 
 terness that appalled her; it was this that had made 
 it possible for her to accept any excuse (or if neces- 
 sary to have done without one) for not telling him 
 what she had learned yesterday. He had bidden 
 her shut her eyes, and picking up a shell had held 
 it to her ear, and had told her that what she heard 
 there was the sea. ... He had looked, he had 
 spoken, he had acted as if he brought close to her 
 that splendid shining vastness. She had trusted 
 him, and had listened with all the rapture of love to 
 that murmuring. Therein he had cheated her, 
 passed ofi" on her a "fake" which, had she not been
 
 290 PETER 
 
 blinded by his hand over her eyes, he knew she must 
 have recognised as such. 
 
 There was just one excuse for him; she hesitated 
 to adopt it, because while it excused him, it far more 
 terribly accused him. It was that he did not know 
 what love meant. From the very first, from the day 
 when he had asked her to marry him, he had not 
 known. She had told him that all she wanted in the 
 world was to be allowed to love him, and he had 
 never seen that her surrender presupposed his own. 
 He could not burn in her love without being alight 
 himself. There was the root of it all, his ignorance. 
 
 At that, compassion deep as love itself inundated 
 her bitterness, not diluting it, but from its very 
 nature neutralizing it. Sorrow was there, but ''with- 
 out sorrow" (who had said that?) "none liveth in 
 love." Not as by one drop out of the whole ocean 
 was her love for him diminished ; but, while he did 
 not understand, he ploughed his way in drought and 
 desert: he could not reach her. 
 
 It was through his constant affection for her and 
 his gentleness, rather than through any failure in 
 these, that the realization of this had come to her. 
 She did not believe that she wearied him ; she knew 
 that she attracted him physically, that he was faith- 
 ful to her not on principle, but by inclination, and 
 yet all this was nothing. He had not begun (say for 
 a, minute or two) by loving her, and then dropped 
 into mere affection, mere desire: simply he had never 
 loved her at all as she understood loving. He did 
 not love anybody else, and Silvia, so far from being 
 consoled by that thought, found herself passionately 
 wishing that he did. He might love Nellie, or that 
 fool of a woman who screamed; for then, at any rate, 
 he would know what love meant, and they would
 
 PETER 291 
 
 have common ground to meet on, though that very- 
 ground parted them. That might ruin her own life, 
 which ah-eady she had given into his cool, careful 
 hands ; and if only, by smashing it to atoms, he could 
 find his soul's salvation ! 
 
 There were problems ahead, and how they should 
 be solved she did not know : she only knew what the 
 upshot must be. Inconceivably dear as the mere 
 touch of his hand was to her, she knew that never 
 again, unless he learned what love was, or she forgot 
 it, could hand clasp hand and mouth meet mouth. 
 Not again could she give him those symbols of the 
 infinite as the playthings for enjoyment. All that 
 she had or was, was his except just that; unless he 
 loved her, the banners of her love must remain un- 
 furled. Somehow she must let him know that, just 
 as, somehow and soon, she must let him know about 
 what she learned yesterday. 
 
 As the car turned in through the park gates the 
 snow beat in from the other window. It fell un- 
 heeded on her face and hands, till Wilton, encour- 
 aged to take care of her, drew up the sash. 
 
 Peter's head on her shoulder, his breath coming 
 soft and slow through his mouth. . . . Peter's eyes 
 close to hers, so that if he winked his eyelashes 
 brushed her cheek. . . . Peter's arm lying languid 
 and relaxed across her bosom. . , . She would give 
 her body to be burned for him, but not with such 
 burning as this. Anyone, not she alone, could sup- 
 ply such need as his; none could supply hers but he, 
 and he only if he loved her. Loving him as she 
 did, she could not (so the leaping firelight in her 
 bedroom that night illuminated it for her), she could 
 not shut out her ideal in some burning chamber of its
 
 292 PETER 
 
 own, and take the rest of her, in ordinary human 
 manner, to him, nor could she take from him, even 
 though it was the highest he could give, anything 
 that made its approach on some other plane. He 
 must want her as she wanted him, surrendered and 
 lost, and found again in a new completeness, before 
 they could come together as lovers. She conjectured 
 that she was singular, exceptional in this: most men, 
 most women gave what they could and got what 
 they could. But there was no compromise possible 
 for her that could produce this easily negotiable 
 felicity. She could not, and if she could she would 
 not, have accepted that in exchange for this drawn 
 sword that lay between Peter and her. She had to 
 tell him that. . . . She had to tell him also that the 
 fruit of love on the one side, of affection on the 
 other, was ripening. She must wait her occasion for 
 that; some moment must be seized upon when he 
 was most himself, most nearly, that is to say, what 
 she had once thought him. 
 
 She had nothing of her own; all was his. That 
 was her one inestimable possession, that she had 
 given him all. Whatever happened, her utter penury 
 was the one thmg she must cling to. 
 
 Peter had rung up Dr. Symes before he left the 
 Foreign Ofl5ce that evening, asking for five minutes 
 of his time at any hour of morning or afternoon 
 next day. Perhaps it was rather fussy to consult 
 a physician over a cold, but really there never had 
 been such a cold. Dr. Symes gave you a cabalistic 
 slip of paper which, being duly interpreted, proved 
 to be some marvellous tonic stuff, or, when he had 
 felt a pulse, and looked at a tongue, and tapped you 
 on a stomach or made your knee jump in a curious
 
 PETER 293 
 
 manner, he even more probably told you that you 
 had the constitution of an armadillo, and roared 
 you out of his room for wasting his time. With 
 a week of uncles and aunts ahead, even though Nel- 
 lie was to partake in the secret joys of them, Peter 
 felt he would like some robust reassurance of that 
 sort. Or, on the other hand, since there never was 
 such a cold 
 
 These speculations, as he drove to Welbeck Street 
 next morning, were cut short by his arrival and his 
 internment in a waiting-room. There were several 
 persons with sad faces there, reading illustrated 
 papers, who looked up when he entered, and there- 
 after regarded him with evident suspicion, fearing, 
 so Peter figured it, that he might, though the latest 
 arrival, be summoned before those who had waited 
 longer. This, in fact, happened, and to the accom- 
 paniment of sour looks he was conducted down a 
 long passage into the consulting room. As he went 
 he considered whether he slept well, and whether 
 he had a feeling of oppression on his chest, or a pain 
 in his right side. 
 
 "How-de-do?" said Dr. Sjmies. "I've managed to 
 squeeze you in between two of my patients, and I 
 can give you just a couple of minutes, which will 
 be quite enough. Naturally you wanted to see me. 
 Well, there's nothing that should give you a mo- 
 ment's anxiety at present. Don't think about it 
 at all, and don't let your wife think you're thinking 
 about it." 
 
 He turned backwards over the leaves of his en- 
 gagement book. 
 
 "Yes, as you know, I saw her the day before 
 yesterday," he said. "All healthy and normal. But 
 don't be fussed yourself, and certainly spare her all
 
 294 PETER 
 
 fuss. Of course, as I told her, there's no doubt 
 at all. Let her — if she doesn't want to make her — 
 lead an ordinary active, normal life." 
 
 Peter had arrived by this time. 
 
 "My wife?" he asked. 
 
 Dr. Symes gave his great rollicking laugh. 
 
 "Yes, and your grandmother, too, for that mat- 
 ter," he said. "Don't let her confuse child-bearing 
 with invalidism. They're radically opposed. Mind 
 you, the way she spends these months is important. 
 Make her go out, make her keep busy and employed. 
 Don't let her get fancies into her head that she must 
 coddle herself; there's no greater mistake." 
 
 "I see," said Peter. 
 
 "Just use your common sense," said the doctor. 
 "She's got to bear a healthy child, and so she's got 
 to be just as fit as we can make her. But take care 
 of her too. What's her age now? Twenty- two, I 
 suppose. Well, regard her as a woman of forty in 
 robust health. Make her behave like an older 
 woman than she is." 
 
 He rang a bell that stood on his table. 
 
 "I've told you everything," he said. "You look 
 fit enough, anyway, though you've got a bit of a 
 cold, haven't you? Getting down into the country 
 for Christmas, eh? Change of air. I wish I was 
 going to get some." 
 
 He looked at his table of appointments. 
 
 "Ask Mrs. Lucas to step this way," he said to the 
 maid. "Good-bye. Good luck." 
 
 As Peter drove down to Whitehall he kept de- 
 tached, as by some dexterous jerk, such part of his 
 mind as dealed in emotion, and contemplated with 
 the same isolation, as through his closed car-window 
 he looked out on the snow-slushy street, what he
 
 PETER 295 
 
 had just learned. He wanted to assimilate it before 
 in any sense he studied it, and to do that he had 
 first to wipe off his sheer surprise, which stood like 
 condensed vapour on the glass of this astounding 
 picture which had just been presented to him. Again 
 and again he had to wipe that away before he could 
 get any clear vision of the fact itself, that Silvia 
 knew that she was with child and had not told him. 
 When he had assimilated that he could perhaps ar- 
 rive at what it meant. 
 
 The glass was clear now; he had got it, and the 
 enigma of it all stared him in the face ; and the more 
 he contemplated it the greater grew his bewilder- 
 ment as to the meaning of it. How often, with the 
 hesitation of an intensity that choked utterance, 
 had she said a word or two, given him a glance, a 
 smile that conveyed better than any stamped symbol 
 of speech, what the incarnation of their union, his 
 and hers, would be to her. She had wondered how, 
 just how, she would tell him; no one knew into 
 what shapes such joy would crystallize. And now it 
 had come and she had not told him at all. Except 
 for a trivial visit of his own, a superficial, unneces- 
 sary visit, he would still be ignorant. She had 
 chosen to leave him in ignorance of what he had 
 learned by accident. 
 
 Nellie had often told him that he went walking 
 in the wet woods and telling nobody, and Silvia, 
 in some frank chaffing discussion, had affirmed that 
 she knew precisely what Nellie meant. Certainly, 
 thought Peter now, it was likely enough she did 
 know. Had anyone ever gone solitary so far into 
 the wet woods as Silvia? Had anyone ever so im- 
 measurably told nobody? 
 
 He searched back through his impressions and
 
 296 PETER 
 
 memories of these last two months to see if he could 
 discover any clue that should lead him to an inter- 
 pretation. As far as he knew their relations had 
 been uniformly harmonious, without hitch or check ; 
 there had been so sign, no warning of any sort 
 on her part of an emotional change. As for 
 
 himself 
 
 Yes, there had been a change. A change was 
 here, and as it was not in her it must be in him. 
 Some psychical pigment, grain after grain, had been 
 dropping, continually dropping, into his clean cup 
 of life, each sinking down into it quietly, lying there 
 at the bottom. Now it seemed that the astonish- 
 ment of this morning's discovery had violently 
 stirred up the whole, and the whole, so he saw, was 
 tinged with the colour of that which had been dis- 
 solving in the cool depths. For often and often, in- 
 creasingly and ever more vividly — here was the drop- 
 ping of those grains of colour — he had had the image 
 of Silvia moving splendidly on sunny heights, the 
 rays from which shone down on him through rent 
 clouds and patches of blue. There those grains had 
 settled, dissolving perhaps, but only locally tinging 
 minute remote areas of his consciousness: they had 
 not affected the full contents of the cup, that clear, 
 cool, untroubled self of his. Now with this rough 
 shaking and stirring, he was suffused with the colour 
 of them. There, high above, was Silvia and her 
 splendour, felt now, not only recognized. He had 
 scrambled to his feet (was that it?), stung into 
 standing, finger on mouth, instead of remotely con- 
 templating. The ray that had merely shone on him 
 now shone in him, and its light pierced the fogs of 
 his egoism. It was the news itself, beyond doubt, 
 not Silvia's withholding of it, which gave him that
 
 PETER 297 
 
 enlightenment, for to his feminine nature the fact of 
 his impending fatherhood struck more intimately 
 than it would have done on one more virile. It 
 evoked, too, a dormant virility; his fatherhood was 
 the sequel of another relationship. Clearer shone 
 the ray; he must climb, he must go to her, he must 
 give. . . . 
 
 Close on the heels of that, and swiftly as reflec- 
 tion answers light, came the remembrance, lost for 
 that moment, that Silvia had withheld the knowl- 
 edge from him. He could guess now with a conjec- 
 ture that verged on certainty what the reason for 
 that was, and his egoism, his deep-rooted vanity, 
 returned and reinforced, cried out against the out- 
 rage of it. She from those heights, shining no longer, 
 but merely superior, looked down on him, and 
 judged him unworthy to share that white joy which 
 crowned and enveloped her love. All his pride stif- 
 fened at the thought. He knew how to walk in the 
 wet woods, suflScient unto himself. 
 
 Of intention Peter had started from London rather 
 late, so that he should find the little party ah-eady 
 assembled. His father, he rested assured, would 
 have taken on himself the mantle of host, and would 
 be wearing it far more superbly than he. That he 
 found to be the case: John Mainwaring had com- 
 plete possession of the place and all the members of 
 what was, with the exception of Nellie and her hus- 
 band, the same unique little family gathering which 
 had preceded Peter's marriage. There was Aunt 
 Eleanor, stout and seal-like, there was a column of 
 locomotive floral decoration around Aunt Joanna, 
 there was Uncle Abe, now possessor of three mon- 
 strous cartoons, and Uncle Henry, the possessor of a
 
 298 PETER 
 
 nice stiff brandy and soda, for tea still continued to 
 burn his heart. The cartoons, in fact, and the orig- 
 inal sketches were the subject, as Peter entered, of 
 debate between the aunts, to the glory and honour 
 of their creator, who sat in clouds of incense. Mrs. 
 Wardour had already got reconciled to the fact that 
 her sister had been the purchaser, and bore it well. 
 
 "Lovely they look," said Aunt Joanna; "all three 
 in a row, with the rest to come opposite. Many a 
 half-hour do I spend at my buhl writing-table there, 
 not getting along at all with my correspondence by 
 reason of looking at them. I'm sure I don't know 
 which I like best." 
 
 "Tea, Peter?" asked Silvia. She had looked up at 
 his entry; now she kept her eyes on her tray. 
 
 "Yes, indeed," said Aunt Eleanor, "I'm sure they 
 look very fine, Joanna. Three already finished. 
 That's wonderful. I suppose, Mr. Mainwaring, 
 you'll be soon wanting to borrow the fourth of my 
 sketches?" 
 
 "Dear lady, I hesitate. I positively hesitate to 
 ask you," said he, "for I know how you will hate 
 parting with it even for a week or two. But with- 
 out it I can never paint the larger version. The 
 inspiration, the first rapture, is there; I must study 
 it again." 
 
 Aunt Eleanor turned triumphantly to Nellie. 
 
 "You must positively come to see those sketches, 
 Mrs. Beaumont," she said. "I have all the original 
 sketches of Mr. Mainwaring's great cartoons. Such 
 a treat!" 
 
 "I'm sure they're charming," said Nellie. 
 
 "Charming indeed! Masterpieces! Such fire! 
 Such inspiration as never could be realized again." 
 
 "The three great cartoons," said Aunt Joanna
 
 PETER 299 
 
 firmly, while the floral decorations trembled, "fill up 
 the whole side of Sir Abe's last addition to our 
 house. A new wing, I may call it, with bedrooms 
 above." 
 
 "My sweet little sitting-room," said Aunt Eleanor 
 absently. "All the sketches: the fire. . . ." 
 
 "Yes, dear, and as I was telling you, the great 
 cartoons," said Aunt Joanna. "That was what I was 
 telling you." 
 
 Uncle Henry made a diversion. He liked peace 
 and plenty. "Capital good brandy this," he said. 
 "You should try my plan, Abe. Have a drop of 
 brandy and leave the tea alone. A'most a pity to put 
 soda into it." 
 
 (He had not put much.) 
 
 "Well, I don't say you're not right, Henry," said 
 Uncle Abe. "But to my mind what's given me at 
 my dinner, if it's a drop of something good, tastes 
 
 all the better if I haven't had There's some 
 
 old dry Petiot now. There's a wine ! You must get 
 on the right side of Peter for that." 
 
 Silvia handed Peter his cup. 
 
 "And your cold's better?" she asked. 
 
 " 'Bout the same, thanks." 
 
 Nellie more than once had tried to catch Peter's 
 eye in order to telegraph to him her rapt apprecia- 
 tion of the family. But though Peter had met her 
 glance, he had nothing to send in reply. 
 
 "I see the whole history of the war in my 
 sketches," proclaimed Aunt Eleanor. "News from 
 headquarters, I call them. Such insight! And the 
 fourth, dear Joanna, the submarine, you know. Ah, 
 no, you haven't seen that yet, but if Mr. Mainwar- 
 ing's cartoon from it comes up to the sketch, there'll 
 be something for you to look at."
 
 300 PETER 
 
 "Capital good brandy," said Uncle Henry. Some- 
 thing had to be said. 
 
 Peter drifted away from the tea-table and estab- 
 lished himself next Nellie. 
 
 "So you got down all right," he said. 
 
 She let a circular sweeping glance pause infinites- 
 imally four times, once for each of the aunts and 
 uncles. 
 
 "Yes, and what a delicious room," she said. "You 
 hadn't told me half." 
 
 Peter was surely rather distrait, she thought. 
 Even now he didn't catch the point of her apprecia- 
 tion. 
 
 "It's good panelling," he said. "There's more of 
 it in my sitting-room next door. We'll go there 
 after tea." 
 
 She held out her cup. 
 
 "Silvia, darling, one inch more tea, please," she 
 said. "An inch. Pure greed." 
 
 Silvia had an absent smile for her but no speech, 
 and took the cup from Peter's hand without looking 
 at him till he had turned again towards Nellie with 
 the desired inch. She then followed him, quick as a 
 lizard, with one glance of mute raised eyebrows. 
 Nellie got that, too; plucked it off, put it in her 
 book. She felt that she was surrounded by interests: 
 there were the priceless uncles and aunts: there 
 was also something else going on, not so farcical, 
 not farcical at all, perhaps, but quite as interesting. 
 
 "My dear, you have got a cold," she said to Peter. 
 
 "I thought I had," said he wheezily. 
 
 "I rather like having a cold," she went on. "It's 
 an excuse for going to a doctor and being told that 
 one has a brilliant constitution. That's Dr. Symes's 
 cure. You're a Symite, aren't you?"
 
 PETER 301 
 
 Peter looked right and left, then for a single 
 second straight in front of him, where Silvia sat. 
 
 "Rather," he said. "We're all Symites." 
 
 He paused a moment. 
 
 "What a pity I didn't go to see him this morn- 
 ing," he said very deliberately, "before I left Lon- 
 don. I might have been well by this time." 
 
 Silvia did not look up: she turned away to Mr. 
 Mainwaring, who was on her right. Some jerked 
 movement of her hand caused a teaspoon to clatter 
 from its saucer and fall on the floor. 
 
 His father gave a little yodel, adapted to the 
 drawing-room. 
 
 "Let me have a word with you some time, my 
 Peter," he said. 
 
 "Yes. I'll come to see you before I dress. Just 
 now Nellie and I are going to have a talk. Will 
 that do? Come, Nellie." 
 
 Peter drew two chairs up to the fire. 
 
 "That's nice," he said. "Priceless, aren't they? 
 Aunt Eleanor is really the most wonderful. Can 
 you bear it for three days, do you think? They go 
 day after Christmas." 
 
 He lit a cigarette and threw it away again. 
 
 "Muck!" he said. "By the way, Nellie, do stop 
 till we go up to town." 
 
 "Oh, my dear, I wish I could," said she. "But 
 I know Philip's got some county business on the 
 twenty-eighth that obliges him to go home. Some- 
 thing ridiculous about forbidding people to shoot 
 golden orioles, of which there aren't any." 
 
 "Can't you let him go alone?" asked Peter. 
 
 "Well; yes, I think I might. I'll get my mother
 
 302 PETER 
 
 to go down. Mother will always go anywhere for 
 board and lodging." 
 
 "Don't I remember that feeling!" said Peter. "So 
 do stop. I heard Silvia ask my father." 
 
 Nellie produced an admirable mimicry of Aunt 
 Eleanor's views on art, which, however, elicited from 
 Peter only: 
 
 "Very funny: yes, very like her," and he subsided 
 into silence and fire-gazing again. 
 
 "Silvia seems rather silent," said Nellie at length. 
 
 Peter roused himself. 
 
 "Did she?" he said. "The aunts were talking so 
 much that I didn't notice it. This is the panelling 
 I spoke to you of, by the way." 
 
 "Charming. Just the same as in the drawing- 
 room, isn't it?" 
 
 "The green drawing-room, please," said Peter. 
 
 "I beg its pardon," she said. 
 
 "Granted, I'm sure," said he without a smile. 
 
 Nellie tried a handful of other topics, and her 
 curiosity to know what was the matter vastly in- 
 creased. She had narrowed down the field of her 
 conjectures to a certainty that, whatever it was, it 
 concerned her host and hostess. Yesterday at lunch, 
 when she had been alone with Silvia, she had the 
 first impression of it, yet she had seen Peter that 
 same evening in town (by way of nursing his cold 
 he had come to the theatre with her), and he, in 
 spite of that afiliction, had been immensely cheerful, 
 chuckling with prophetic delight at the feast that 
 the uncles and aunts would spread for them. And 
 he had not seen Silvia since (for she had already left 
 London) until his entry into the green drawing-room 
 half an hour ago. 
 
 She would much have preferred, as on th at even-
 
 PETER 303 
 
 ing a month ago, when they dined alone together 
 in London and he had been so pointedly reticent 
 on the subject of Silvia, that he should volunteer 
 a statement, but his reticence then seemed of totally 
 different quality from what it was now. . . . She 
 tried one more topic. 
 
 "Peter, dear, isn't it lovely?" she said. "I'm going 
 to have a baby." 
 
 Peter jerked himself upright in his chair. 
 
 "Really?" he said. "And here are you telling me 
 that!" 
 
 He broke off. 
 
 "What's the matter, my dear?" she said. "There's 
 something wrong." 
 
 He got up and drove with his foot into the log 
 fire. 
 
 "It's really screamingly funny that you should tell 
 me that," he said. 
 
 Nellie felt that they were getting near it now. 
 
 "Funny?" she asked. 
 
 "Oh, Lord, I said funny, didn't I?" said he. 
 
 She got up too, laying a hand on his shoulder. 
 
 "My dear, we're very old friends," she said. 
 
 He turned round to her with some unspoken bit- 
 terness blazing in his eyes. 
 
 "Then I'll let you have the joke," he said. "You 
 tell me that, and yet my wife, who knows the same 
 thing about herself, has not told me." 
 
 He paused a moment. 
 
 "I found it out by accident this morning," he 
 said. "I went to see Dr. Symes about my cold — odd 
 that you should have spoken of him — and before I 
 told him anything he began telling me, and that 
 was what he told me. Of course, he assumed I knew ; 
 thought that I had come to him for some general
 
 304 PETER 
 
 directions, which he gave me. Silvia had been to 
 him two days before. She hasn't said a word to me. 
 Not a word." 
 
 Nellie heard herself give some ejaculation. 
 
 "Now you're fond of psychological problems," he 
 said. "Also you're a woman, and know how women 
 feel. Under what circumstances, feeling how, in 
 fact, would a woman do that? Interesting point, 
 isn't it? It's beyond me." 
 
 "No quarrel? No misunderstanding? Nothing 
 of that sort?" 
 
 "None. I've felt she was watching me sometimes. 
 I've " 
 
 "Well? Can you describe that?" she asked. 
 
 "I've only thought of that this minute," he said, 
 "and now I don't really see any connection. But 
 when my father knew my mother had gone, and was 
 posing and posturing as a lost and stricken man, 
 Silvia was watching me to see, I think, if I had real 
 sympathy, real pity for him. I did feel then as if I 
 was being tested. But I made that all right. I did 
 it cleverly. I gave the most cordial welcome to his 
 stopping on here — Lord, what evenings they were! 
 — for endless weeks, and left him to tell her about 
 it." 
 
 "Are you quite sure you made it all right?" she 
 asked. 
 
 "She told me she had been wrong about what she 
 had thought about my feeling towards him," he 
 said. "But even if she made a reservation, or recon- 
 sidered it, what then?" 
 
 Nellie's hand still rested, now with pressure, on 
 his shoulder. 
 
 "And what if Silvia put herself, so to speak, in 
 your father's place?" she said. "What if it occurred
 
 PETER 305 
 
 to her that you had boen charming with her, and 
 clever with herf Mind, that's only a guess." 
 
 Again Peter thrust the logs together. 
 
 "She trusts me too much/ he said at length. "She 
 loves me too much." 
 
 This time Nellie was silent. 
 
 "Well?" said he at length. 
 
 "She thinks you've been clever with her and 
 charming with her," she said. "That's it. I think 
 that she was quite wrong in keeping this news from 
 you, but that's why. Silvia isn't like us, you must 
 remember. We may be complicated and clever in 
 our way, but she's not like that. There's something 
 tremendous about Silvia. A simplicity, a splen- 
 dour." 
 
 "And just when I was beginning to realize that, 
 to adore it, she does this. I can't forgive it," said 
 he. 
 
 She felt then, as perhaps never before, the charm 
 of his egoism: it really was such a charming fellow 
 he was egoistic about. 
 
 "My dear, it's just because you, as you say, are 
 beginning to realize that and to adore it, that you 
 feel you can't forgive it. You would forgive it easily 
 enough if you didn't care. But put yourself in her 
 place. Assume, as I feel sure we're right in assum- 
 ing, that we have got at the reason for her not tell- 
 ing you; it is exactly what a woman of that sim- 
 plicity and splendour would do. With all there is 
 of her, she loves you." 
 
 "A charming way of showing it," said Peter. 
 
 "You're hurt; you're smarting," she said. "Other- 
 wise you wouldn't say that." 
 
 "She has spoiled everything," exclaimed Peter. 
 "Just when "
 
 306 PETER 
 
 All through their talk Nellie had been conscious of 
 a dual stirring, not only in him — that was clear 
 enough — but in herself. Not many weeks ago she 
 would certainly have had her whole sympathies 
 enlisted on his side. She would have fanned, secretly 
 and stealthily no doubt, the flame of his resentment 
 against Silvia, and with the same hidden action have 
 insinuated into his mind that there was somebody 
 who was eager to console, to help him to forget — one 
 who gave him a welcome. . . . Even now some 
 breath of woodland irresponsibility, the morality of 
 Dryads and Satyrs, swept over her, with the whis- 
 pering of wild things and the stirrings in the bushes. 
 Like sought like there, deriding the consequences to 
 others. Should she twang that string, let the wind 
 blow on that harp in the trees, she knew well that 
 something would answer it. He was hurt and sore; 
 there were woodland balms. . . . 
 
 Something within her again jerked back the finger 
 that hovered over the string, ready to pluck it, and 
 turned her hand into a shield instead, that prevented 
 the wind from making the harp vibrate. Silvia had 
 her harp, too, and he had begun, ever so faintly, 
 to vibrate in answer to Silvia's harp and not to 
 her's. ... In this second impulse there was compas- 
 sion for Silvia, there was motherhood. She made her 
 choice. 
 
 ''You can't say that she spoiled it, my dear," she 
 said. 'Tou know how she loved you when you asked 
 her to marry you." 
 
 Peter had a frown for this. 
 
 *'I thought " he began. 
 
 "I know what you thought. Silvia very likely 
 told you that she wanted just to be allowed " 
 
 "I never told you that," said he quickly.
 
 PETER 307 
 
 "Of course you didn't. But wasn't it clear that 
 before you married, she loved you as a boy loves, 
 with some tempestuous desire of possession?" 
 
 "But she's got me," said he. "It isn't as if there 
 were anyone else." 
 
 "I know that, and she knows that for certain. It's 
 nothing of that^kind that revolts her." 
 
 "Revolts?" asked he. 
 
 "Oh, my dear, short of that, wouldn't she have 
 told you what she has known for two days, and 
 suspected long before? But you would be quite 
 wrong to think that she loves you any less. What 
 you don't see, especially, beyond that, is that Silvia 
 has become a perfectly changed person. She keeps 
 her splendour. Keeps it? Good heavens! I should 
 think she did. But what she learned the other day 
 quite changes her. She has become a woman, and 
 she must have not just a man to love, but a man to 
 love her. You've hinted that she's on the way to 
 get one. That's the sum of the consolation I've got 
 for you." 
 
 Nellie, having* determined, having chosen, was 
 being magnificent just then, and all the time the 
 Dryad within her scolded and derided her. 
 
 "You fool, you conventionalist," the Dryad 
 shrieked. "He might be yours; he's as weak as 
 water, and vain, vain! You want him: wait a few 
 months and see how you want him! Idiot!" 
 
 Nellie heard all that as plainly as she heard the 
 whistle of the wind in the chimney. 
 
 "It won't be easy," she said. "You've got to get 
 out of yourself, Peter, a thing, by the way, that I've 
 never succeeded in doing. And when you've got 
 out of yourself you've got to convince her that you've 
 got into herself. I wouldn't bet on your chance."
 
 308 PETER 
 
 "Have I been a brute?" asked he. 
 
 Nellie hesitated; she had never yet realized how 
 close to love had been her intimacy with Peter, or 
 how far from love her own marriage-bond. And 
 now, when, bitterly resenting what Silvia had done, 
 he turned to her. . . . 
 
 Peter, in her silence, repeated his question. 
 
 "A brute?" he asked, and now his voice shook. 
 
 She took her hand briskly off his shoulder. They 
 had stood there like that, comrades and friends, for 
 ten minutes now, and her fingers had dwelt on his 
 shoulder, the bone and the muscle of it. 
 
 "Not a brute at all," she said. "You couldn't be 
 a brute, you darling. But a liar and a cheat." 
 
 "Ha!" said Peter. 
 
 He walked round the room after this, with a 
 whistle for her and him, and a kick for a footstool 
 that got in his way. 
 
 "You don't help me," he said. "What's to be 
 done?" 
 
 Somehow, at his absence of resentment at what 
 she had said, and at his appeal to her for help, the 
 old delightful level of comradeship smoothed itself 
 out. 
 
 "Tell her that you know," suggested Nellie. "Do 
 it nicely." 
 
 "I couldn't possibly do it nicely. Confound it 
 all " 
 
 She considered this. 
 
 "If you can't do it nicely, it will only make it 
 worse," she conceded. 
 
 "What then?" 
 
 "Wait." 
 
 "For her to tell me?" demanded Peter. 
 
 "Yes, or for you just to know. It won't come
 
 PETER 309 
 
 to that. Oh, you absurd people! Shall I tell her 
 that you know?" 
 
 Peter thought over this. 
 
 "It's becoming comic," he said presently. "That's 
 the silliest thing you've said yet." 
 
 "Perhaps. But it isn't comic, my dear." 
 
 "I know it isn't. That's my ferocious flippancy. 
 Gravediggers." 
 
 "And it isn't comic for Silvia," she added. 
 
 The spasm of the woodland died away again. 
 
 "She hasn't told me," said Peter hopelessly. "I 
 can't get over that." 
 
 "You've got to get over that. Otherwise there's 
 nothing ahead. She's got to get over more than 
 that." 
 
 All the worst of him returned. 
 
 "You speak as if I hadn't given her all I had got," 
 he said. 
 
 "You're getting more, my dear. Keep on getting 
 it, and keep on giving it." 
 
 Peter looked at the clock. 
 
 "Here endeth the first lesson," he said. "Not even 
 out of the prophets. I must go and see my father. 
 More acting. Necessary, you know." 
 
 He flung his arms out. 
 
 "I daren't be real," he said. "No one knows what 
 an abomination I am." 
 
 Quite unexpectedly Nellie felt weary and done 
 for. She pulled herself together for a final encour- 
 agement. 
 
 "Ah, what a hopeful sign!" she said. 
 
 He lingered a moment. 
 
 "Quarter to eight," he said. "We dine at half- 
 past. Think of the old quarter-to-eights! Ritz, 
 opera, Mrs. Trentham! Charlie and Robby and
 
 310 PETER 
 
 Tommy and me and you, and Sophy and Ella and 
 any fool you like to mention. Lord Poole, now " 
 
 *'No, that won't do," said she. "He was real. I 
 grant you the rest weren't. But he was real: he 
 completely enjoyed himself — does still, bless him!" 
 
 "Wish I did," said Peter. "I used to. And I 
 don't." 
 
 "You won't as long as you think about it." 
 
 There was the woodland touch to finish with. 
 
 "You're only ninety, are you?" she said. "Or is it 
 ninety-one?" 
 
 "Ninety/' said Peter, grinning.
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 The grin soon cleared off. His father rose from 
 the sofa on which he had been so elegantly resting, 
 as Peter entered, and clasped his hand, though he 
 had seen him at tea a couple of hours before. 
 
 "Have you heard from your mother?" he asked. 
 "My loved and lost one?" He smoothed his vel- 
 veteen coat as he spoke. 
 
 My loved and lost one! The velveteen coat! . . . 
 The little demons swarmed into Peter's soul — the 
 demons of ridicule and cynicism and contempt and 
 all the host of such. But rebel and ridicule as he 
 might, he knew that he had been sham and char- 
 latan on an immeasurably greater scale than his 
 father. 
 
 "I had a report of her a couple of days ago," he 
 said. "Just a message through her solicitors." 
 
 Mr. Mainwaring put the tips of his fingers in a 
 neat row into his mouth, as if, in his suspense, to 
 gnaw the nails of them. But he committed no such 
 feat of violence. He merely sucked them, and took 
 them out again. 
 
 "Tell me," he said. 
 
 Peter tried to evoke any sort of kindliness or 
 sympathy from his mind, and failed. 
 
 "She is quite well apparently," he said, "and 
 she " 
 
 "She asked after me?" suggested his father. 
 
 "Yes, she asked after you. She hoped you were — 
 comfortable, I think she said." 
 
 311
 
 312 PETER 
 
 "Comfortable! My God! Comfortable!" 
 
 Peter waited till this paroxysm of irony was spent. 
 
 "I ought to have written to her to-day," he said, 
 *'but I didn't. I shall write to-morrow. What shall 
 I tell her about you?" 
 
 "What your heart bids you," said he. "Tell her 
 about me, as I am. Miserable, homeless, except for 
 the charity of my children. I count Silvia as a 
 child," he explained. 
 
 Peter felt absolutely relentless. 
 
 "So you long for her to come back to you," he 
 said. "I will tell her." 
 
 He regarded Peter With his chin in the hollow of 
 his hand. 
 
 "You don't understand, my dear, the depth " 
 
 he began. 
 
 "Explain it to me, then, father," said he. 
 
 "Take your own case, then. Supposing Silvia— 
 I use your case for the absurdity of it — suppos- 
 ing Silvia left your house. What would you do? 
 Would you not give her complete freedom to return 
 or not to return? Would not your heart say 'My 
 love for her wants only what she wants.' " 
 
 "Then I won't say that you long for her to come 
 back to you," said Peter. "I only want to know 
 your wishes. I will transmit them. But — but why 
 not do it yourself? You know her solicitors. Any- 
 thing you send them will be forwarded to her." 
 
 "The scoundrels!" cried Mr. Mainwaring. 
 
 "Oh, I don't see that," said Peter. He stifled a 
 yawn : it was all too stupid. 
 
 "Scoundrels!" cried Mr. Mainwaring. "Ai^en't 
 they " 
 
 He appeared unable to say exactly what they were, 
 and Peter got up.
 
 PETER 313 
 
 "I'll convey any message you like, father/' he said. 
 "I only suggest that you might just as well send it 
 yourself. There are two things you can do. You 
 can summon my mother back, and, if you choose, 
 divorce her if she doesn't come, on the grounds of 
 desertion. The other is to acquiesce in her stopping 
 away as long as she chooses. I don't see why you 
 put a hypothetical case about Silvia and me. You 
 want her to come back, or you don't." 
 
 This point of view necessitated some more strid- 
 ings on the part of Mr. Mainwaring. 
 
 "My angel, your angel, your Silvia," he said, "has 
 asked me if I would not like to spend the rest of 
 the winter on the Riviera. A little sun for me, she 
 said only to-night, a little change, a little chance of 
 the healing of my wound. She offers me two months 
 on the Riviera. Should not I be wrong if I did not 
 accept her sweet charity?" 
 
 "Leave it over, you mean, about my mother?" 
 asked Peter, "till you get back. Get a little sun first, 
 and that sort of thing. I think that would be a very 
 sensible arrangement. That was a charming idea of 
 Silvia's." 
 
 He laid his hand on Peter's shoulder, and his voice 
 broke. 
 
 "Make Silvia happier than I have made any 
 Maria," he said. "The love of a good woman ! My 
 God! What brutes we men are! No, not brutes: 
 heaven forbid that I should call you, or indeed, my- 
 self, a brute. But more tenderriess, my Peter, more 
 making of allowances. Experto crede." 
 
 He paused a moment in a fine attitude. 
 
 "Abe Darley!" he said. "Henry Wardour! They 
 and their wives! Their pleasant chaff: their gentle 
 fun! Yes, when you begin to step down from the
 
 314. PETER 
 
 tableland of life you want to find such hands as 
 those in yours. A brilliant woman, too, is Joanna 
 Darley. How she appreciates the cartoons. And 
 your Aunt Eleanor! Eleanor, as she suggested that 
 I should call her. We are John and Eleanor. She 
 has commissioned me to do her portrait before I 
 attack the fourth, the tremendous cartoon. Sub- 
 marines: you remember my sketch for it." 
 
 Peter went down the corridor to his room and 
 Silvia's with the gravity that attaches to the con- 
 clusion of a comic interlude. The tragic burden, all 
 the worse for its temporary suspension, must be 
 taken up again, and the interlude had hardened 
 rather than softened him. He despised his father 
 for being a "fake," and that contempt stung him 
 also, as with the back-stroke of his own lash. Smart- 
 ing from that, his mind went back to what Silvia 
 had withheld from him, and there was the shrewdest 
 hurt of all. . . . 
 
 His bath w^as ready for him, and as he soaked 
 and sprayed himself some tautness of physical 
 vigour pictured the usual sequence to his bath, the 
 dressing-gowned and drying seance in the chair close 
 to Silvia's toilet table. He would sink his resent- 
 ment; he would tap at her door and go in to her with 
 a flood of normal nonsense. Then, if she told him 
 now, as she must surely do, the news she had with- 
 held, he would receive it as news hitherto unknown 
 to him. 
 
 He arrived at this stage of resolution, finished his 
 bath and came out. And at that moment, even as 
 his knuckles were raised to inquire at her door, his 
 resentment against her, seizing upon some new pre- 
 text of bitterness, poured over him again. His hand 
 dropped as he turned and went into his own room.
 
 PETER 315 
 
 He was late also — that served for an excuse — for at 
 tJ-ie moment the sonorous bell in the turret above 
 Silvia's room ma/Je its proclamation to the listening 
 earth that dinner was served at Howes. 
 
 On the other side of the door Silvia, fully dressed 
 and following the familiar sounds, was waiting for 
 him to enter. How often had she waited like that, 
 longing for him! She longed for him now, though 
 dreading his coming, and so intertwined were these 
 two that she could not disentangle the one from the 
 other. She would tell him just what she had deter- 
 mined that he must know, she would ask his pardon 
 for not having told him of the news before. She 
 had used up, so it seemed to her, all the emotion of 
 which she was mistress; what lay immediately in 
 front of her covered like some hard integument the 
 longing and dread with which she waited for him, 
 though it left her superficial perceptions alert. The 
 clink of the coals in the grate, the flapping of the 
 flame there, were more vivid to her senses than any- 
 thing else. There was the beating of rain on her 
 windows, for the snow had ceased, and a wind from 
 the southwest was beginning to bluster outside. 
 . . . Then she heard Peter come out of his bath- 
 room, and presently the door of his bedroom shut. 
 Already the bell sounded sonorously above her: she 
 must tell him then that night, when he came up to 
 bed. There was relief in that. For an hour or two 
 more the only barrier between him and her was in 
 her own knowledge: it was not formally erected. She 
 was conscious now that her heart had been beating 
 fast in the anticipation of his coming, and she sat 
 down for a few minutes (Peter would be late also) 
 to recover her poise before she went downstairs. 
 There was to be a jollification that night for tenants
 
 316 PETER 
 
 and servants: a dance for the elders, a Christmas 
 tree for the children. 
 
 The wind which just now she had heard flinging 
 the rain against her windows rose to a scream, and 
 Peter, hurrying on with his dressing next door, saw 
 a cloud of smoke driven out from his grate, followed 
 by another and yet another, till in a few minutes 
 tlie room was thick with its pungency. He remem- 
 bered then that the Jackdaw had told him that some- 
 thing had gone wrong with the cowl of the chim- 
 ney, and no doubt this change of wind caused this 
 regurgitation . . . these things always happened just 
 before Christmas or bank holidays, when the British 
 workman became even more deliberate than usual. 
 Opening the window seemed only to make things 
 worse, and, heavy with his cold, he had no intention 
 on this chill and bitter night of sleeping fireless. As 
 with choking throat and streaming eyes he redoubled 
 the speed of his dressing, he rang his bell and told 
 his servant to transfer the necessaries for sleep and 
 toilet to some other room. The uncles and aunts oc- 
 cupied the next suites, but farther along, beyond the 
 head of the main stairs, was an unoccupied bed- 
 room and dressing-room, and he ordered that a fire 
 should be lit there, and the change made during 
 dinner, so that he would find the room ready for his 
 tenancy that night. As he came out from that me- 
 phitic fog on to the corridor Silvia also emerged from 
 her room. 
 
 *'My chimney's smoking like the devil," he said. 
 "I remember now that the Jackdaw told me there 
 was something wrong with it. It's quite impossible 
 to sleep there. I'm having my room changed." 
 
 He finished buttoning a shirt-link as he spoke, not
 
 PETER 317 
 
 looking at her. Somehow this set a key of coobiess, 
 of casuahiess. 
 
 "How tiresome for you," she said. "Where" — she 
 stumbled over the question — "where have you 
 gone?" 
 
 "Oh, somewhere down the passage," said Peter. 
 
 Just now, if he had come in to talk to her after 
 his bath, she would have told him what he had to 
 know. Now her resolution had a little cooled : it was 
 not hot enough to enable her to ask him to come 
 and talk to her when he came upstairs that night, 
 nor yet to ask him more definitely where his room 
 was. Besides, with the entertainment for the ser- 
 vants they would all be very late, and to-morrow 
 would furnish a more convenient occasion. Or if not 
 then, and not spontaneously on her part, he would 
 come to her some night, seeking her, and then she 
 would tell him. ... In the interval there was the 
 family farce of jollity to be kept up : it would only 
 add to the difiiculty of that if from her communica- 
 tion to him something unconjecturably critical arose. 
 She had no idea how Peter would take it: there could 
 be no mortal wound, for that implied that she was 
 to him all that she missed being. But his pride, his 
 vanity : how she longed to kill it, and how she hated 
 to hurt it. 
 
 On his side, as they went down the broad stairs, 
 resentment at what he knew she had withheld out- 
 shouted all the counsel Nellie had given him, out- 
 shouted, too, the authentic whisper of his own heart. 
 He had but to listen to that, to act when action 
 came, and always to think and to feel and to be with- 
 out forethought, just blindly following its sugges- 
 tions. But for that small voice to be heard he must 
 unstopper his ears from that cotton-wool of vanity
 
 318 PETER 
 
 which shut out from his hearing all but the com- 
 plaints and self- justifications that so audibly mut- 
 tered to him. It had been and it was her business 
 to tell him. ... 
 
 "My father says you have treated him to a month 
 or two in the South," he said. "That is very good 
 of you: he will enjoy it." 
 
 There was the ring as of a duty discharged in 
 this that robbed it of spontaneousness, and it gave 
 to her its own woodenness. Peter had not meant it 
 like that: he wanted to thank her for her kindness, 
 to let her know that he appreciated it. But all that 
 passed now had to travel tlirough the falsity of that 
 situation between them, as through some mould 
 which made it take a shape not truly its own, coming 
 out at the end and distorted. 
 
 "January and February are delightful on the 
 Riviera," she said. "A change will do him good." 
 
 To him that seemed to double-lock the wards of 
 the gate that should have stood open. They looked 
 at each other through its bars: the very attempt on 
 both sides to meet the conventional needs of the 
 moment — the friendly word or two on the stairs — 
 had but served to sever them. The femininity of 
 his nature, already resentful at what had been with- 
 held from him, construed her reply into a further 
 withdrawal of herself, overlooking the fact that it 
 was his own resentment that had led him into con- 
 ventionalities of speech. His pride choked him: was 
 it nothing to her that she was ripening with his fath- 
 erhood? Had she no inkling that not his head only 
 but his heart was, as in some belated dawn, begin- 
 ning to glow with her splendour? The male element 
 in him was awakening, like Adam from the sleep 
 which the Lord God had laid on him, and was begin-
 
 PETER 319 
 
 ning to find, to realize that what he expunged and 
 expelled from himself became the living glory and 
 the complement of him. All such perception was 
 still clouded with the blanketing vapours of his own 
 resentment and egoism, but through the rifts, from 
 high above Silvia shone. . . . 
 
 His pride choked him. What choked her was her 
 love, that could not breathe but in its own high 
 air. 
 
 Uncle Henry-, on the occasion of his first visit to 
 Howes, just before Silvia's marriage, had found (and 
 deplored) a certain "standoffishness," so he expressed 
 it, in his new nephew. His wife had not agreed 
 with him; she found Peter to be 'Very refined." 
 But during the three days that followed now Uncle 
 Henry quite scrapped his previous verdict. There 
 could not have been a more seasonable host: Peter 
 was full of fun, and indeed Aunt Eleanor was almost 
 disposed to follow her husband's example and re- 
 consider her favourable opinion of Peter's refine- 
 ment. It was really naughty of him to put up that 
 bit of mistletoe without warning her of it, and Mr. 
 Mainwaring's chaste salute had come as a great sur- 
 prise to her, before she realized the public tempta- 
 tion she was making of herself by standing so 
 squarely and indubitably just below it. But there 
 was no harm in a good old-fashioned Christmas, and 
 if Peter would insist on having a bowl of wassail to 
 usher in the midnight, after all, he .was the host, 
 and it would have been mere churlishness to refuse 
 to drink that second (or was it third?) glass that he 
 filled up for her when she was not looking. There 
 were foolish games on these evenings, and when the 
 ladies went to bed roars of laughter ascended from 
 the billiard-room, where the men "kept it up" till
 
 320 PETER 
 
 any hour. There was no harm in being young, so 
 she and Aunt Joanna agreed, melted into unwilling 
 cordiality over this riotous hospitality. 
 
 Indeed, if there was any "standoffishness" to be 
 detected, it was Silvia who must be impeached. Yet 
 "standoffishness," even to Uncle Henry's limited 
 power of analysis, did not quite express Silvia's 
 quality. "Just a bit under the mark, not up to 
 romps," was the definition that he and Uncle Abe 
 arrived at, as, after waving their fat hands from 
 the window of the motor that took them to the 
 station at the conclusion of their visit, they lit the 
 first cigars of Peter's Christmas present to them. 
 Naturally they had not begun on them when they 
 were staying with him, for there was always a box 
 open in the smoking-room. 
 
 "Come on wonderful, has Peter," said Uncle 
 Henry. "A jolly boy. Handsome, too. Not much 
 wrong with that marriage." 
 
 Uncle Abe had a short attack of what he called 
 his "morning cough." Joanna, who was in the other 
 motor, called it "smoke and drink." 
 
 "Shouldn't wonder if you're right, Henry," he said 
 when he recovered. "I had the same idea." 
 
 "Well, I must say it occurred to me," said Henry. 
 "She seemed a bit thoughtful. And that would ac- 
 count for Peter's high spirits. Amazing!" 
 
 Uncle Abe put up his window. 
 
 "I've a bit of a cough this morning," he said. 
 "And there's a pretty fortune for any child to come 
 into." 
 
 Peter was sitting over the fire in his bedroom that 
 night watching it, and trying to determine that when 
 a certain coal ceased flaring with its spray of bub-
 
 PETER 321 
 
 bling gas he would go to Silvia's room, and, one way 
 or another, make an end of an intolerable situation. 
 He had no idea (so much depended on her) what 
 his "line" would be. Certainly he would tell her 
 that he knew what she, all these days, had kept 
 from him; but, beyond that, he could not, in the 
 vaguest manner even, forecast the development of 
 the situation. During these four days she had shown 
 him nothing that he could construe into a signal; not 
 once had he seen her privately, and, when in public, 
 he had kept up his role of the rollicking host. He 
 had no idea, for instance, whether she knew into 
 what lodging his surly chimney, not yet coaxed into 
 proper behaviour, had driven him. She had asked 
 no further question since that general inquiry on the 
 stairs, and he had volunteered no information. 
 Equally had he avoided any private conference with 
 Nellie; sometimes in a casual meeting of their eyes 
 he had conjectured an unspoken communication; 
 but he knew her views, as the situation concerned 
 himself and Silvia, and there was no use in ham- 
 mering at that any further. Nothing else, com- 
 paratively, concerned him. 
 
 There had been a general air of fatigued reaction 
 abroad this evening. Mrs. Wardour, Silvia, and 
 Nellie had gone to bed within a couple of hours of 
 the termination of dinner, and he and his father 
 had had but a short seance in the billiard-room be- 
 fore parting. Peter had an excuse for his early dis- 
 persal, for he must be at Whitehall by ten o'clock 
 to-morrow morning, to deal with accumulations. 
 
 Yes; when that lump of coal collapsed he would 
 go to Silvia. Sleepily he watched it, trying in some 
 ill-defined manner to abstract himself from agitat- 
 ing thought, to give himself a rest before he plunged
 
 322 PETER 
 
 into some sort of breaking waves. He drowsed for 
 a little, and, still looking at his fire between half- 
 closed lids, he fell fast asleep. 
 
 The fire had gone out except for a glimmer of 
 dying embers, and for the moment of bewildered 
 awakening before he realized that he was still in his 
 armchair in front of the grate he thought that he 
 was back in his old room, and that the chimney was 
 smoking. As he came to himself, he realized where 
 he was, and even more keenly realized why his mind 
 had caught hold of that idea of the smoking chim- 
 ney. There was a strong smell of smoke in the 
 room, and, jumping up, he turned on the switch 
 of the electric light, which was close to his hand. 
 He heard it click, but there was no illumination in 
 answer. He had matches in his pocket, and, light- 
 ing one, kindled one of the candles that stood on 
 the mantelpiece. Wide awake now, he was more 
 than ever conscious of that smell of burning, and 
 going to the door he opened it. A great swirl of 
 smoke came in, bellying up from the main staircase 
 on the left. Through it there came the noise of 
 crackling wood, and a shoot of veiled flame. 
 
 Peter gripped his own mind. On his right, close 
 at hand, were the rooms where his father and Nellie 
 slept. Farther along to the right was a second stair- 
 case, communicating with the ground floor, and com- 
 municating also with the servants' wing. Half shut- 
 ting his eyes against the sting of the smoke, he 
 groped his way first to Nellie's door. 
 
 "Nellie," he cried, throwing it open, "get up at 
 once: there's a fire in the house." 
 
 He never felt more completely himself; all his 
 brain was tingling awake, and behind his brain 
 something else. , , . As she started up in bed, he
 
 PETER 323 
 
 lit her candle for her, for here too the wu-es were 
 fused. 
 
 "Don't wait a moment," he said. "Get along the 
 passage and down the stairs. I'll send my father to 
 you." 
 
 He saw her on her way and plunged into hig 
 father's room. 
 
 "House on fire, father," he said. "Go straight 
 through to your right into the servants' wing, and 
 bang on every door. Wake Mrs. Wardour, two doors 
 away. Then join Nellie downstairs. Don't wait: 
 I don't know how serious it is." 
 
 Away to the left, beyond the column of smoke 
 and flame now pouring up the main staircase, was 
 the baize door behind which were the rooms which 
 he and Silvia had occupied, and where now she was 
 alone. He tried to dash along the corridor to reach 
 them, but the heat drove him back. Already tongues 
 and swords of flame licked through the bannisters 
 of the main staircase, past which he had to go in 
 order to get to her. He was cut off from that access. 
 
 Suddenly and serenely he remembered another 
 access. Along the front of the house below the win- 
 dows of the room he at present occupied and those 
 rooms behind the baize door beyond the flaming 
 staircase, there ran externally the cornice which had 
 reminded him of that which ran along the flat be- 
 longing to Nellie's mother in London. He remem- 
 bered in the same flash the discussion that Nellie 
 and he had held: how she had told him that, if he 
 ever loved, he would be forced to make the passage 
 of such a road at the bidding of that divine compul- 
 sion. It would not concern him, so she had said, 
 that he incurred a mortal and a useless risk. He 
 might not be able to rescue (here was the thesis) the
 
 324 PETER 
 
 beloved of his soul. Any thought of rescue was out- 
 side the question. But, so she argued, he would 
 not be able, if he loved, to resist the imperishable 
 impulse. 
 
 Through the thick scorching air, with his candle 
 guttering in the heat, he groped his way back to his 
 room, and shutting the door against that burning 
 blast, he went to the window. The gleam of the 
 white stone cornice was just visible, and taking off 
 his coat and waistcoat, so as to be able to get closer 
 to the wall, and kicking off his shoes, so as to secure 
 a better grip, he let himself down on to it. There it 
 was some ten or twelve inches in width ; by standing 
 very straight up, with his arms flat out against the 
 wall of the house, he had his balance well below 
 him. 
 
 He moved his left foot first and brought the right 
 foot up to it. He rocked for a moment at this first 
 movement, and recovered himself. . . . And then 
 when once he had started on his perilous way, the 
 dawn and morning of it all broke on him. Cau- 
 tiously and clingingly he advanced, but the caution 
 — there was the sunlight of it — was no longer for 
 himself, but for her whom he sought. For himself 
 it seemed to matter not at all whether a step ter- 
 minated his expedition: the object of it, the neces- 
 sity, sheer as the drop below him, of reaching Silvia 
 was utterly dominant. From outside now he could 
 hear a dim roaring inside the house, but it neither 
 delayed nor hastened him. 
 
 He had come to the window of her room, and now 
 he could lean an elbow on the sill of it, while he 
 rattled at the sash and tapped at the glass. Through 
 her blind he saw her room spring into light, and 
 found himself recording the fact that this electric
 
 PETER 325 
 
 circuit was still working. Immediately he heard her 
 voice: 
 
 "Who is it?" she cried. "What is it?" 
 
 "Peter," he said. "Open the window quickly. 
 
 The sash flew up, and she was there, close to him. 
 
 "Give me a hand, darling," he said. "Just pull 
 me in. Don't ask any questions." 
 
 The window-sill was high above the cornice, but 
 with her hands, firm and strong as a boy's, on his 
 arm, he scrambled into the room. 
 
 "The house is on fire," he said. "We're cut off. 
 The main staircase is blazing. But it will be all 
 right: don't be frightened. My father will have 
 roused the servants by now." 
 
 He paused, panting from some retarded terror of 
 his climb, unfelt while he made it. 
 
 "Silvia!" he said. 
 
 She stared at him a moment. 
 
 "But you were safe, Peter," she said. "What good 
 was it that you came? Along that cornice, did you 
 come, all the way from your room?" 
 
 "I'm here anyhow; good, broad cornice," he said. 
 "Now, can we do anything more? Let's be prac- 
 tical: let's think." 
 
 For an immortal second she held him close. 
 
 "The big bell in the turret!' she said. "The rope 
 goes through the corner of the little lobby outside 
 my bathroom." 
 
 "Oh, good thought," said he. "Come and help me 
 to pull it. We'll talk afterwards, when we've done 
 all we can." 
 
 The sound of that reached the little town a mile 
 away; the glare on the sky endorsed the signal. Out- 
 side on the terrace, facing the lake, and now vividly 
 illuminated, were the other occupants from the
 
 326 PETER 
 
 house, busy with rescuings, and presently, shouted 
 up to the two through the open window by which 
 Peter had chmbed in, came the news, conveyed here 
 by telephone, that the fire-engines were on their way. 
 A ladder was being fetched from the stables. . . . 
 Had they no rope? . . . Then, as the conflagration 
 spread, the electric light snapped itself out. 
 
 They had gone back, when the bell had done its 
 work, to Silvia's room. The angry glare from outside 
 shone in through the window, and smoke drifted in 
 from below and around the baize door that shut 
 them off the burning corridor. Already the fog 
 of it obscured the glare. 
 
 "That's all we can do," said Peter. "Come close, 
 my dear. You mustn't be afraid. There's no need. 
 . . . We " 
 
 She was clinging to him now. 
 
 "I have something to tell you," she said. 
 
 "You needn't," said he quickly. "I know it." 
 
 "You can't," said Silvia. 
 
 "But I do : your baby you mean, bless you." 
 
 Suddenly her mouth began to quiver. 
 
 "Oh, my God, why did you come here?" she said. 
 "You were safe." 
 
 Outside beyond the baize door there was a crash 
 of something falling, and she shrank into him. 
 
 "Why did you come?" she repeated. 
 
 "Because I couldn't help myself. It wasn't my 
 fault. You don't understand " 
 
 "You had to, do you mean?" she asked. 
 
 He made no reply to this: his presence answered 
 for him. 
 
 "Oh, go back," she cried. "You can go back still. 
 If you love me " 
 
 He took her close into one great enfoldment.
 
 PETER 327 
 
 The roaring of the burning house, the glare of its 
 great beacon, grew momentarily more vivid. Then 
 from outside came a yell of voices, and they went to 
 the window. 
 
 'They've come," said Peter, quietly. 
 
 A grinding of tlie gravel below, shouted orders, a 
 raising of a ladder. . . . 
 
 THE END
 
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