Page:Walpole - Fortitude.djvu/383

 wants me to be different and we can't make a compromise.”

Then Miss Monogue said: “Have any outside people interfered at all?”

Peter coloured. “Well, of course, Mrs. Rossiter stands up for Clare. She came and talked to me this morning and I think the things that she said were quite true. I suppose I am morose and morbid sometimes—more than I realise—and then,” he added slowly, “there's Cards—”

“Cards?”

“Cardillac—a man I was at school with. I'm very fond of him. He's the best friend I've got, and he's been all over the place and done everything and, of course, knows ever so much more about the world than I do. The fact is he thinks really that my novels are dreadful nonsense, only he's much too kind to say so—and, of course, Clare looks up to him a lot. Although he's only my own age he seems so much older than both Clare and myself. I don't believe she'd have lost interest in my work so quickly if he hadn't influenced her—and he's influenced me too—” Peter added sighing.

“Well—and is there anything else?”

“Yes. There's Stephen. I can't begin to tell you how I love that kid. There haven't been many people in my life that I've cared about and I've never realised anything so intensely before. Besides,” he went on laughing proudly, “he's such a splendid kid! I wish you could see him, Norah. He'll do something one day—”

“Well, what's the trouble about Stephen?”

“Clare's so odd about him. There are times when I don't believe she cares for him the least little bit. Then there are other times when she resents fiercely my interfering about him. Sometimes she seems to love him more than anything in the world, but it's always in an odd defiant way—just as though she were afraid that something would hurt her if she showed that she cared too much.”

There was silence between them for a minute and then Peter summed it all up with:—“The fact is, Norah, that every sort of thing's getting in between me and my work and worries me. It's as though I were tossing more balls in the air than I could possibly manage. At one moment I think it's Clare that I've got especially to hang on to—