Page:Walpole - Fortitude.djvu/268

 gulf that is fixed between Imagination and Reality—and had known its meaning.

But for Peter, all he asked now was that he might be allowed to rest in the midst of this glorious comfort. His evil dreams were very far away from him to-night. The food, the colour—the fruit piled high in the silver dishes, the glittering of the great silver candelabra that stood on the middle of the table, the deep red of the roses in the bowl at his side, the deeper red of the Port that shone in front of Bobby and then, beneath all this, as though the table were a coloured ship sailing on a solemn sea, the dark, deep shining floor that faded into shadow—all this excited him so that his hands trembled.

He spoke to Mrs. Galleon:

“I wonder if you will do me a favour,” he said very earnestly.

“Anything in reason,” she answered, laughing back at his gravity.

“Well, don't call me Mr. Westcott any more. Because I'm going to live here and because I'm too old a friend of Bobby's and because, finally, I hate being called Mr. Westcott by anybody, might it be Peter?”

“Joseph calls him Peter as it is,” said Bobby quite earnestly looking at his wife.

They were both so grave about it that Alice Galleon couldn't be anything but grave too. She knew that it was really a definite appeal on behalf of both of them that she should here and now, solemnly put her sign of approval on Peter. It was almost in the way that they waited for her to answer, a ceremony. She was even, as she looked at them, surprised into a sudden burst of tenderness towards them both. Bobby so solemn, such a dear, really quite an age and yet as young as any infant in arms. Peter with forces and impulses that might lead to anything or wreck him altogether, and yet, through it all younger even than Bobby. Oh! what an age she, Alice Galleon, seemed to muster at the sight of their innocent trust! Did every woman feel as old, as protecting, as tenderly indulgent, towards every man?

“Why, of course,” she answered quietly, “Peter it shall be—”