“Hulloa! I’m still in bed. Who is it?”
The bedroom door flew open. Harry stood panting on the threshold, holding a London paper in his hand. For all his haste, he didn’t say a word. He simply stared—stared rather weakly and stupidly, as though he’d forgotten what he’d come about. His lips quivered. The twitching of his fingers made the paper crackle.
Peter raised himself on his elbow. “Got back all right, old man. Why—.” He saw Harry’s face clearly; it was drawn and ghastly. “Don’t look like that. What is it? For God’s sake, tell me.”
“Dead.”
“Dead?”
He threw back the clothes, leapt out and snatched the paper. Standing in the sunlight he caught the head-line, TO SAVE OTHERS. His eyes skipped the matter below it, gathering the sense: “At the crowded hour—in Hyde Park yesterday afternoon—lost control of his horse, Satan—bolted to where children were playing—swerved aside—rode purposely into an iron fence—thrown and broke his neck.”
The paper fell from his hand. He picked it up and reread it. Some mistake! He wouldn’t believe it. The Faun Man dead! He’d been so brimming with life. Never again to hear his mandolin strumming! Never again to hear his gallant laughter! To walk through the roses at Tree-Tops—and he would not be there!
Peter sat down on the edge of the bed, clenching his forehead in his hands. The voice, the gestures, everything—everything that had been so essentially the Faun Man he wanted to recall before he could forget.
“If yer gal ain’t all yer thought ‘er
And for everyfing yer’ve bought ‘er