Page:Walpole - Fortitude.djvu/248

 as though he were telling a story and had only a little time in which to tell it.

“But that isn't all—it's worse than that. I've been feeling these last weeks as though my father were sitting there in that beastly house with that filthy woman—and willing me—absolutely with all his might—to go under—”

“But what is it,” said Stephen going, as always, to the simplest aspect of the case, “that you exactly want to do?”

“Oh, I don't know just to let loose the whole thing—I did break out once at Brockett's—I've never told anybody, but I got badly drunk one night and then went back with some woman. Oh! it was all filthy—but I was mad, wild, for hours insane—and that night, in the middle of it all, sitting there as plainly as you please, there in Scaw House, I saw my father—as plainly as I see you—”

“All young men,” said Stephen, “'ave got to go through a bit of filth. You aren't the sort of fellow, Peter, that stays there. Your wanting not to shows that you'll come out of it all right.”

Here was a case where Stephen's simplicities were obviously of little avail.

“Ah, but don't you see,” said Peter impatiently, “it's not the thing itself that I feel matters so much, although that's rotten enough, but it's the beastly devil—real, personal—I tell you I saw him catch my grandfather as tight as though he'd been there in the room and my father, too. I tell you, this last week or two I've been almost mad wanting to chuck it all, this fighting and the rest and just go down and grovel ”

“I expect it's regular work you're wanting,” said Stephen, “keeping your mind busy. It's bad to 'ave your sort of brain wandering round with nothing to feed on. It'll be all right, boy, in a day or two when you've got some work.”

Peter's head dropped forward on to his hands. “I don't know—it's like going round in a circle. You see, Stephen, what makes it all so difficult is—well, I don't know why I haven't told you before  but the fact is—I'm in love—”

“I knew it a while back,” said Stephen quietly, “