Peter, home after his first important absence, found that his former
life had shrunk. He had seen things on a generous scale. Only for four
days had he been away, but it was an epoch.
He went immediately to find Miranda, trembling with impatience. But he
was struck shy when they met. Peter had imagined this meeting as a
perfect renewal of their last moments together. He had seen himself
thrilling into a passionate welcome, taking up his life with Miranda
where it had abruptly ceased with the arrival of Uncle Henry four days
ago. But at sight of her the current of his eagerness was checked. It
was that curious moment of lovers who have lived through so many
meetings in imagination that the actual moment cannot be fulfilled.
"You're back," she said awkwardly, hardly able to look at him.
"I've just this moment come." Peter thought it was the staring daylight
that put this constraint upon them. Then he saw in his fancy the welcome
he had expected--very different from this--and, as though he were acting
something many times rehearsed, he kissed Miranda with an intended joy.
Miranda's constraint was now broken.
"I have missed you dreadfully," she whispered.
She held him tight, urged by the piteous memory of four empty days; and
Peter, rising at her passion, strained her truthfully towards him. The
disillusion of meeting fell away from them both.
Soon he was talking to her of Oxford, and the great life he had shared.
He did not realise that a strain of arrogant enthusiasm came into his
tale--a suggestion that in these last four days he had flapped the wings
of his ambition in high air and dazzling sunshine. Miranda was chilled,
feeling she had been in the cold, divining that Peter had a little grown
away from her in the things he recounted with such unnecessary joy. At
last she interrupted him.
"You haven't missed me, Peter."
"But I have," answered Peter, passing in a breath to tell of his
encounter with the dons of Gamaliel. Miranda put her hand into his, but
Peter, graphically intent upon his tale, insensibly removed it for a
necessary gesture.
"I don't want to hear," said Miranda suddenly.
She slipped from where they sat, and, killing him with her eyes, walked
abruptly away.
Peter was struck into dismay. Remorse for his selfish intentness upon
glories Miranda had not shared shot him through. But he stayed where she
had left him, sullenly resentful. She need not have been so violent. How
ugly was her voice when she told him she did not want to hear. Peter
noticed in her swinging dress a patched rent, and her dusty shoes down
at the heel. Spitefully he called into his mind, for contrast and to
support him in his resentment, the quiet and ordered beauty of the life
he had just seen. He retired with dignity to the house, and made
miserable efforts to forget that Miranda was estranged.
Mrs. Paragon wanted to hear all that Peter had seen and done. Peter told
again his tale without enthusiasm. Then his father also must hear. Peter
talked of Oxford, wondering, as he talked, where Miranda had gone, and
whether she would forgive him even if he admitted he was to blame. His
experiences now had lost all their charm. He had taken a vain pleasure
in glorifying them to Miranda, but the glory now was spoiled.
Mr. Paragon was delighted to hear Peter describing his first serious
introduction to polite company without seeming violently pleased.
Clearly Oxford was not going to corrupt him. Peter spoke almost with
distaste of his fine friends.
"Well, my boy," said Mr. Paragon, "you don't seem to think much of this
high living."
"It's all right, father," answered Peter, absently dwelling on Miranda.
"What did you talk about? Mostly trash, I suppose?"
"Yes, father." Peter was now at Miranda's feet, asking her to forgive
him.
A little later Mr. Smith came in, and the time passed heavily away. Mr.
Smith was trying to dissuade Mr. Paragon from taking part in an angry
demonstration of railway men who had struck work in the previous week.
Already there had been rioting. To-night Mr. Paragon was to address a
meeting in the open air, and his talk was loud and bitter. Peter heard
all this rhetoric with faint disgust. He was at that time in all things
his father's disciple. But to-night his brain was dancing between a
proud girl, with eyes that hurt, swinging away from him in her patched
frock and dusty shoes, and a long, low-lit table elegant with silver and
glass. He could not listen to these foolish men; and when Mr. Smith had
reached the summit of his theme in a call to "shoot them down," and when
his father was clearly making ready utterly to destroy his enemy, Peter
went impatiently from the room.
Mrs. Paragon made ready her husband for the meeting without regarding
Mr. Smith's gloomy fears of disorder and riot. It had always been Mr.
Paragon's amusement to speak in public, and she had decided that
politics could have no serious results. For a few minutes she watched
him diminish up the long street, and then returned to the kitchen where
Mr. Smith, balancing on his toes, talked still of the dark necessities
of blood and iron.
Two hours later Peter's father was brought home dead, with a bullet in
his brain.