And yet, although he felt that that episode had been definitely closed—shut off as it were by wide doors that held back at a distance, every sound, the noise, the confusion, the terror, was nevertheless there, but for the moment, the doors were closed. Only in his dreams they rolled back and, night after night he awoke, screaming, bathed in sweat, trembling from head to foot. Sometimes he thought that he saw an army of rats advancing across the floor of their Bucket Lane room and Stephen and he beat them off, but ever they returned....
Once he thought that their room was invaded by a number of old toothless hags who came in at the door and the window, and these creatures, with taloned fingers fought, screeching and rolling their eyes....
Twice he dreamt that he saw on a hill, high uplifted against a stormy sky, the statue of the Man on the Lion, gigantic. He struggled to see the Rider's face and it seemed to him that multitudes of other persons—men and women—were pleading, with hands uplifted, that they too might see the face. But always it was denied them, and Peter woke with a strange oppression of crushing disappointment. Sometimes he dreamt of Scaw House and it was always the same dream. He saw the old room with the marble clock and the cactus plant, but about it all now there was dust and neglect. In the arm-chair, by the fire, facing the window, his father, old now and bent, was sitting, listening and waiting. The wind howled about the place, old boards creaked, casements rattled and his father never moved but leaning forward in his chair, watched, waited, eagerly, passionately, for some news....
III
They were having dinner now—Bobby, Mrs. Galleon and Peter—in the studio of the Cheyne Walk House. Outside, a sheet of stars, a dark river and the pale lamps of the street. The curtains of the studio were still undrawn and the glow from the night beyond fell softly along the gleaming black boards of the floor that stretched into shadow by the farther wall, over the round mahogany table—without a cloth and shining with its own colour—deep and liquid brown,—and out to the pictures that hung in their dull gold frames along the wall.
About Peter was a sense of ease and rest, of space that was as new to him as America was to Columbus. He was not even now completely recovered from his Bucket Lane experiences and there was still about him that uncertainty of life—when one sees it as though through gauze curtains—that gives reality to the quality of dreams. Life was behind him, Life was ahead of him, but meantime let him rest in this uncertain and beautiful country until it was time for him to go forward again. This intangibility—walking as it were in a fog round and round the Nelson monument, knowing it was there but never seeing it—remained with him even when practical matters were discussed. For instance, “Reuben Hallard” was to be published in a week's time and Peter was to receive fifty pounds in advance on the day of publication (unusually good terms for a first novel Bobby assured him); also Bobby, through his father, thought that he could secure Peter regular reviewing. The intention then was that Peter should remain with the Galleons as a kind of paying guest, and so his pride would not be hurt and they could have an eye upon him during this launching of him into London. It was fortunate, perhaps, that Alice Galleon had liked him down there at the sea, because she was a lady who had her own way at No. 72, and she by no means liked every one. But perhaps the Galleon baby had had more to do with everything than any one knew, and Mrs. Galleon assured her friends that the baby's heart would most certainly be broken if “the wild young guest” as she called Peter, were carried off.
And wild he was—of that seeing him now at dinner there in the studio there could be no doubt. He was wearing Bobby's clothes and there was still a look of suffering in his eyes and around his mouth, but the difference—his difference from the things about him—went deeper than that. The large high windows of the studio with the expanse of wild and burning stars between their black frames answered Peter's eyes as he faced them. Mrs. Galleon, as she watched him, was reminded of other things, of other persons, of other events, that had marked his earlier life. She glanced from Peter's eyes to Bobby's. She smiled, for on an earlier day, she had seen that same antithesis—the gulf that is fixed between Imagination and Reality—and had known its meaning.
But for Peter, all he asked now was that he might be allowed to rest in the midst of this glorious comfort. His evil dreams were very far away from him to-night. The food, the colour—the fruit piled high in the silver dishes, the glittering of the great silver candelabra that stood on the middle of the table, the deep red of the roses in the bowl at his side, the deeper red of the Port that shone in front of Bobby and then, beneath all this, as though the table were a coloured ship sailing on a solemn sea, the dark, deep shining floor that faded into shadow—all this excited him so that his hands trembled.
He spoke to Mrs. Galleon:
“I wonder if you will do me a favour,” he said very earnestly.