“It's all right?... you don't think—?”
The man turned and looked at him with eyes so kind that Peter trembled.
“Look here, we've got to fight it, Westcott. I ought to have been called hours ago. But keep your head and we'll pull the child through.... Better go down and have something to eat. You'll need it.”
Outside the door Peter faced a trembling Mrs. Kant.
“Look here, you lied just now. You never took the boy's temperature.”
“Well, sir—”
“Did you or not?”
“Well, sir, Mrs. Westcott said there was no need. I'm sure I thought—”
“You leave the house now—at once. Go up and pack your things and clear out. If I see you here in an hour's time the police shall turn you out.”
The woman began to cry. Peter went downstairs. To his own surprise he found that he could eat and drink. Of so fundamental an importance was young Stephen in his life that the idea that he could ever lose him was of an absurd and monstrous incredibility. No, of that there was no question—but he was conscious nevertheless of the supreme urgency of the occasion. That young Stephen had ever been delicate or in any way a weakling was a monstrous suggestion. Always when one thought of him it was a baby laughing, tumbling—or thoughtfully, with his hand rolled tightly inside his father's, taking in the world.