He got slowly out of bed, put on his slippers and walked up and down for a few minutes with a heavy frown on his face. The emotion of the night before had left its marks. He stopped in front of a chair on the back of which his evening clothes were hanging neatly. He remembered that he had thrown them off. He noticed—at first with irritation—that the things on his dressing-table had been re-arranged—tampered with. It didn't look as he liked it to look. Something had been taken away. It dawned on him that all his razors had been removed. "Removed,"—the word sent a sort of electric shock through his brain as it passed through. He went over to the window and looked out into the street. The sun glorified everything with its wonderful touch. Good God! To think that he might be standing at that very moment on the other side of the great veil.
"I don't know—I don't know what to say to you for all this, Peter," he said.
Peter sat down, thrust his hands into his pockets and his long legs out in front of him. Reaction had set in. He felt depressed and wretched. "One of these days," he said, "I may ask you to do the same thing for me."
Something in his tone made Graham turn round sharply. "What's wrong?"
"Everything's wrong," said Peter. "But I'll tell you some other time. Your affair has got to be settled first."
"No; tell me now," said Graham. He dreaded to feel that he was the cause somehow or other of bringing trouble upon his brother. Never before in all his life had he seen Peter looking like that.
"Mr. Townsend happened to be passing Papowsky's last night and saw me coming out. I'd had a scrap up in the studio with a bunch of men who were half drunk. I must have looked like it. He told me that he wouldn't have me marry Betty, and he repeated it this morning. I've just come away from his place. That's what's the matter with me."
"Oh, curse me!" cried Graham. "Curse me for a fool!"
Peter sprang to his feet. "Don't start worrying about me. And look here; don't let's waste time in trying to scrape up spilt milk. I'm going to marry Betty, that's a dead certainty, and sooner or later Mr. Townsend will withdraw the brutal things he said to me. And you're going to wipe your slate clean, right away. So buck up and get busy, old man. Have your bath and get dressed as soon as you can. I'm going to help you to fix your affair as soon as you're ready."
"How?" asked Graham.