Peter: A Novel of Which He is Not the Hero

by Francis Hopkinson Smith

Jack sprang to his feet and stood looking down upon her. The cruelty of her injustice smote his heart. Had a man's glove been dashed in his face he could not have been more incensed. For a brief moment there surged through him all he had suffered for her sake; the sleepless nights, the days of doubts and misunderstandings! And it had come to this! Again he was treated with contempt—again his heart and all it held was trampled on. A wild protest rose in his throat and trembled on his lips.

At that instant she raised her eyes and looked into his. A look so pleading—so patient—so weary of the struggle—so ready to receive the blow—that the hot words recoiled in his throat. He bent his head to search her eyes the better. Down in their depths, as one sees the bottom of a clear pool he read the truth, and with it came a reaction that sent the hot blood rushing through his veins.

“Sorry for you, my darling!” he burst out joyously—“I who love you like my own soul! Oh, Ruth!—Ruth!—my beloved!”

He had her in his arms now, her cheek to his, her yielding body held close.

Then their lips met.

The Scribe lays down his pen. This be holy ground on which we tread. All she has she has given him: all the fantasies of her childhood, all the dreams of her girlhood, all her trust, her loyalty—her reverence—all to the very last pulsation of her being.

And this girl he holds in his arms! So pliant, so yielding, so pure and undefiled! And the silken sheen and intoxicating perfume of her hair, and the trembling lashes shading the eager, longing, soul-hungry eyes; and the way the little pink ears nestle; and the fair, white, dovelike throat, with its ripple of lace. And then the dear arms about his neck and the soft clinging fingers that are intertwined with his own! And more wonderful still, the perfect unison, the oneness, the sameness; no jar, no discordant note; mind, soul, desire—a harmony.

The wise men say there are no parallels in nature; that no one thing in the wide universe exactly mates and matches any other one thing; that each cloud has differed from every other cloud-form in every hour of the day and night, to-day, yesterday and so on back through the forgotten centuries; that no two leaves in form, color, or texture, lift the same faces to the sun on any of the million trees; that no wave on any beach curves and falls as any wave has curved and fallen before—not since the planet cooled. And so it is with the drift of wandering winds; with the whirl and crystals of driving snow, with the slant and splash of rain. And so, too, with the flight of birds; the dash and tumble of restless brooks; the roar of lawless thunder and the songs of birds.

The one exception is when we hold in our arms the woman we love, and for the first time drink in her willing soul through her lips. Then, and only then, does the note of perfect harmony ring true through the spheres.

For a long time they sat perfectly still. Not many words had passed, and these were only repetitions of those they had used before. “Such dear hands,” Jack would say, and kiss them both up and down the fingers, and then press the warm, pink shell palm to his lips and kiss it again, shutting his eyes, with the reverence of a devotee at the feet of the Madonna.