“Peter, Peter—come to-morrow! Don't come in with me to-night!”
Peter went to his rooms at once. He was struck hard, but merely showed a bit weary. He found himself objecting to characteristics of Fallows' mind, the same which he had admired and delighted in from Berthe. She had always talked easily of death, and he had been without criticism; now he disliked the casual mention of death in Fallows' talk.
Peter saw that he was sore, and hated himself for it. Fallows personally was ready for death; therefore he had the right to counsel martyrdoms for others if he wished. Death to Peter, however, was not strictly a conversational subject. If a man were ready to die for another, it was not good taste to say so. Still he forced himself to be just, by thinking of Fallows' life.
Fallows somehow had turned a corner that he, Peter Mowbray, had not come to so far. Self-hypnotized, or not, the exile had given up everything in life to make the world better as he saw it. He had written and traveled and talked and plotted, even vowed himself to poverty, all for the good of the under-dog.
“It isn't fanaticism, when you come to look at it,” Peter mused. “He sees it clearly, and makes one see it for the moment of listening. He isn't afraid. He would die every day for it, if he could.... And I take things as I find them, and grin. I wouldn't even have thought otherwise, except for Berthe. I have a suspicion that I'm half-baked.”
Peter's mind was engaging itself thus feverishly, to avoid the main issue that the woman had flung him from her, and run to cover, stuffing her ears, so to speak, and asking him not to follow. He braced himself now and faced it. “If it happened to another pair, I should say it was the finish,” he thought. “I should say that no man and woman could pass a rock like that.... I can't get to her point of view by thinking myself there. I'm cold—that's the word. And she's superb. I'd rather be her friend than lord of any other woman. That won't change. And she has spoiled everything I thought I knew. Altogether—it's a game, bright little story—and deep.”
Lonegan came in and flung himself down wearily.
“I've been busy. Boylan is leaving in thirty-six hours. You're going with him?”
“I'm ready,” said Peter.
“Did you have a big time?”