Page:Walpole - Fortitude.djvu/426

 and down taking that same delight that he had always taken in his distinction, his good looks, his ease. “He ought to have been born king of somewhere,” Peter used to think, “he ought really—no wonder people spoil him.”

“There's another thing,” Peter said, “you're forgetting Clare's birthday next week. She'll be dreadfully disappointed at your not being here for it.”

“I'll have to remember it from Paris,” Cards said.

“Well—it's an awful pity that you're going for a whole month. I don't know what we shall do without you. And you cheer Clare up—she's rather depressed just now. Thinks of the kid a bit, I expect.”

“Well, I'll write,” said Cards, and was gone.

Peter received at this time a letter that showed him that he had, at any rate, one friend, in the world who believed in him. It was from James Maradick and it was strangely encouraging—now at this period of yawning pits from whose blackness he so resolutely turned away.

It asked him to go with Maradick as his guest to some Club dinner. Then it went on “You know, Westcott, we don't meet as often as we should. Like ships in the night, we signal every now and again and then pass. But I am quite sure that we have plenty to say to one another. Once or twice—you remember that party when I gassed about Cornwall?—we have nearly said it, but something has always prevented. I remember that you divided the world once in a fit of youthful confidence, into Explorers and Stay-at-homes. Well, those words will do as well as any others to describe the great dividing line. At any rate, you're an Explorer and you're trying to get on terms with the Stay-at-homes, and I'm a Stay-at-home and I'm trying to get on terms with the Explorers and that's why we're both so uncomfortable. The only happy people, take my word for it, are those who know the kind of thing they are—Explorers or Stay-at-homes, and just stick at that and shut their eyes tight to the other kind of people—il n'existe pas, that other world. Those are the happy people, and, after all most people are like that. But