Three weeks earlier Peter
would not have understood, but now he understood quite well and he went
very white and broke from the room, leaving the plates where they were--and
Cheeseman became Ferris' fag--
This was all very puzzling and perplexing to Peter.
But after that first evening when he had hidden his head in the greatcoat
and cried, he had shown no sign of fear and he soon found that, on that
side of Life, things became easy. He was speedily left alone, and indeed he
must have been, in spite of his small size, something of a figure even
then.
His head was so very firm on his shoulders, his grey eyes were so very
straight, and his lip curled in a disagreeable way when he was displeased;
he was something of the bulldog, and even at this early period the First
and Second forms showed signs of meek surrender to his leadership. But he
was, of course, not happy--he was entirely miserable. He would be happier
later on when he had been able to arrange all these puzzling certainties so
different from those dazzling imaginations that he had painted. How strange
of him to have been so glad to leave Stephen and the others--even old
Curtis! What could he have thought was coming!
He remembered as though it had been another life that Christmas Eve, the
fight, the beating, the carols....
And yet, with it all, with the dreariness and greyness and fierceness and
dirtiness of it all, he would not change it for those earlier things--this
was growing, this was growing up!
He was certainly happier after his meeting with Cardillac--"Cards" as he
was always called.
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