Page:Walpole - Fortitude.djvu/327

 and excitement that surged about him, he seemed to Peter the one man possible in the whole gathering.

“Look here, Maradick, let's get somewhere out of this crush and have a cigarette.”

People were all pouring into supper now and Peter saw his wife in the distance, on Bobby Galleon's arm. They found a little conservatory deserted now and strangely quiet after the din of the other rooms: here they sat down.

Maradick was capable of sitting, quite happily for hours, without saying anything at all. For some time they were both silent.

At last Peter said: “By jove, Maradick, yours is a fortunate sort of life—just going into the city every day, coming back to your wife in the evening—no stupid troubles that come from imagining things that aren't there—”

“How do you know I don't?” answered Maradick quietly. “Imagination hasn't anything to do with one's profession. I expect there's as much imagination amongst the Stock Exchange men as there is with you literary people—only it's expressed differently.”

“What do you do,” said Peter, “if it ever gets too much for you?”

“Do? How do you mean?”

“Well suppose you're feeling all the time that one little thing more, one little word or some one coming in or a window breaking—anything will upset the equilibrium of everything? Supposing you're out with all your might to keep things sane and to prevent your life from swinging back into all the storm and uncertainty that it was in once before, and supposing you feel that there are a whole lot of things trying to get you to swing back, what's the best thing to do?”

“Why, hold on, hold on—”

“How do you mean?”

“Fortitude—Courage. Clinging on with your nails, setting your teeth.”

Peter was surprised at the man's earnestness. The two of them sitting there in that lonely deserted little conservatory were instantly aware of some common experience.

Maradick put his hand on Peter's knee.

“Westcott, you're young, but I know the kind of thing