Why here he was with
nothing in the world to hold him or to interfere and no one except dear
old Stephen with whom he must talk. Ambition crept very close to him
that night--ambition with its glittering, shining rewards, its music and
colours--close to him as he sat in that bare, naked room.
"I'd rather be with you than any one in the world--we'll have such times,
you and I."
Perhaps Stephen knew more about the world; perhaps during the years that he
had been tumbled and knocked about he had realised that the world was no
easy nut to crack and that loaves and fishes don't come to the hungry for
the asking. But Peter that night was to be appalled by nothing.
They sat up into the early morning, talking. The noises in the house and in
the streets about them rose and fell. Some distant cry would climb into the
silence and draw from it other cries set like notes of music to tumble back
into a common scheme together.
"Steve, tell me about Zanti. Is he really a scoundrel?"
"A scoundrel? No, poor feller. Why, Mr. Peter, you ought to know better
than that. 'E ain't got a spark of malice in him but 'e's always after
adventure. 'E knows all the queer people in Europe--and more'n Europe
too. There's nothin' 'e don't put 'is nose into in a clumsy, childish way
but always, you understand, Mr. Peter, because 'e's after 'is romantic
fancies.
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