I shut my eyes for a moment.
Then I opened them again, quickly. No, it was not a
dream. He was there, a slender, graceful, hateful
figure, with the inevitable cigarette in his unsteady
fingers--the expensive-looking, gold-tipped cigarette of
the old days. Peter was Peter. Ten years had made
little difference. There were queer little hollow places
in his cheeks, and under the jaw-bone, and at the base of
the head, and a flabby, parchment-like appearance about
the skin. That was all that made him different from the
Peter of the old days.
The thing had adjusted itself, as Norah had said it
would. The situation that had filled me with loathing
and terror the night of Peter's return had been
transformed into quite a matter-of-fact and commonplace
affair under Norah's deft management. And now I was back
in harness again, and Peter was turning out brilliant
political stuff at spasmodic intervals. He was not
capable of any sustained effort. He never would be
again; that was plain. He was growing restless and
dissatisfied. He spoke of New York as though it were
Valhalla. He said that he hadn't seen a pretty girl
since he left Forty-second street. He laughed at
Milwaukee's quaint German atmosphere.
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