He let his hands drop from her shoulders, turned and looked out through the black, dripping window toward the lake. He could hear the waves rushing up on the shore and breaking, the wind soughing through the elms and maples. He thought of Sarah lying pale and weak on her bed, and he thought of the robust girl standing in the lamp light behind him.
Very deliberately he left the kitchen and climbed the narrow, dark stairs to his bed.
BOOK THREE
CHAPTER VIII
1
In the early autumn of 1913 a French flyer looped the loop to the amazement of an incredulous world. More troops were ordered to the Mexican border. In Chicago the Bon Ton girls were the last word in burlesque. Smart horses wore bobbed tails and well-cropped manes. Forty-four thousand eight hundred tons of dynamite tore away the barrier at the Pacific end of the Panama Canal while Shriners cheered. Prime favorites on the piano rolls were "Good-bye Boys," "The Trail of the Lonesome Pine" and "You're a Great Big Blue-Eyed Baby." Wheat sold at around ninety cents in Chicago with hogs close to nine dollars. Aunt Martha of the Needle Notes column found that one could cut whalebone to any desired length by warming it first before the fire. German and American yachts raced off Marblehead, and Lieutenant Governor Thomas Morris of Wisconsin told an attentive audience that never again would his fair state become a coaling station for Wall Street, nor a water tank for the Rockefeller and Morgan interests.
But to Peter Brailsford, impatient with his youth; torn with fear of God, of hell, and of sex; romantic, inexperienced, wistful; anxious to get ahead in the world, yet essentially unworldly; intolerant, rebellious, headstrong; filled with hatreds, jealousies, and a morbid interest in death; saddled with concepts of duty, patriotism, and courage which were fatal to millions of his generation; big, clumsy, lovable; obsessed with the idea that he was only a country boy; almost as supersensitive as Sarah and nearly as lusty as Stud; fine, intelligent, mechanically minded, and above all a considerate and good hearted young fellow....