He did not imagine yet that they could murder the likes of Peter by the hundred thousand, without a tremor.
He loved the fine lines of the boy’s profile, he marked his delicate healthy complexion. Peter was like some wonderful new instrument in perfect condition. And all these other youngsters, too, had something of the same clean fire in them....
Was it all to be spent upon love-making and pleasure-seeking and play? Was this exquisite hope and desire presently to be thrown aside, rusted by base uses, corroded by self-indulgence, bent or broken? “The generations running to waste—like rapids....”
He still thought in that phrase. The Niagara of Death so near to them all now to which these rapids were heading, he still did not hear, did not suspect its nearness....
And Joan——. From Peter his thoughts drifted to Joan. Joan apparently could find nothing better to do in life than dance....
Suddenly Peter took a deep breath, sat back, and began to clap. The whole house broke out into a pelting storm of approval.
“Ripping!” said Peter. “Oh! ripping.”
He turned his bright face to Oswald. “They do it so well,” he said, smiling. “I had forgotten it was in Russian. I seemed to understand every word.”
Oswald turned his eye again to Hamlet in Gordon Craig’s fantastic setting—which Moscow in her artistic profusion could produce when London was too poor to do so.