"And so," he wrote, "I have come to the part of the story that was not in the picture, that I never knew. The dragon is slain and the knight has just begun to understand that the Princess for whom it was done is still a Princess; and though you have fought and bled for them, princesses must be approached humbly. And he did not know in the least how to go about it for in all his life the knight could never have spoken to one before. You have to think of that when you think of him at all, and of how he must stand even with his heart at her feet, hardly daring to so much as call her attention to it. For though he knows very well that it is quite enough to hope for and more than he deserves, to be able to spend his whole life serving her, love, great love such as one may have for princesses, aches, aches, my dear, and needs a comforting touch sometimes and a word of recognition to make it beat more steadily and more serviceably for every day."
He went out that night to post his letter when it was done, for though there was not time for an answer to it, he was going down to her on Saturday, he liked to think of it running before him as a torch to light the way which, even while he slept, he was so happily traversing. He was quite trembling with the journey he had come, when on Saturday she met him, floating in summer draperies and holding out a slim ringed hand, and a cool cheek to glance past his lips like a swallow.
"You had my letter, dear?"
"Such a lovely letter, Peter, I couldn't think of trying to answer it."
"Oh, it wasn't to be answered—at least not by another——" He released her lest she should be troubled by his trembling.
"I should think not!" She was more than gracious to him. "It's a wonder to me, Peter, you never thought of writing. You have such a beautiful vocabulary." But even that did not daunt him, for he knew as soon as he had looked on her again, that loving Eunice Goodward was enough of an occupation.
V
The senior partner of Weatheral, Lessing & Co., was exactly the sort of man, when his physicians ordered him abroad for two years, with the intimation that there might even worse happen to him, to make so little fuss about it that he got four inches of type in a leading paper the morning of his departure and very little more. Lessing would certainly have been at the steamer to see him off, except for being so much taken up with adjustments of the business made necessary by Peter's going out of it; and his sister Ellen never went out in foggy weather, seldom so far from the house in any case. Besides, she declared that if she once saw Peter disappearing down the widening water she should never be able to rid herself of the notion of his being quite overwhelmed by it, whereas if he sent on his trunks the day before, and walked quietly out in the morning with his suitcase, she could persuade herself that he had merely run down to Bloombury for a few days and would be back on Monday. And having managed his leave-taking as he did most personal matters, to please Ellen, who though she had never been credited with an imagination, seemed likely to develop one in the exigencies of getting along without Peter, he had no sense of having done anything other than to please himself. He found a man to carry his suitcase as soon as he was out of the house, and walked the whole way to the steamer; for if one has been ordered out of all activity there is still a certain satisfaction in going out on your own feet.
It was an extremely ill-considered day, wet fog drawn up to the high shouldering roofs and shrugged off, like a nervous woman's shawl. But whether it sulked over his departure or smiled on him for remembrance, would not have made any difference to Peter, who, whatever the papers said of the reason for his going abroad, knew that there would be neither shade nor shine for him, nor principalities nor powers until he had found again the House of the Shining Walls. As soon as he had bestowed his belongings in his stateroom, he went out on the side of the deck farthest from the groups of leave-taking, and stood staring down, as if he considered whether the straightest route might not lie in that direction, into the greasy, shallow hollows of the harbour water, at the very moment when the Burton Hendersons, over their very late coffee, had discovered the item of his departure.