He felt indeed as though the success of the book placed for a moment all
that other life in the background--really away from him. For the first time
since he left Brockett's he was free from a strange feeling of
apprehension.... Scaw House was hidden.
He gave himself up to glorious life. He plunged into it....
II
He stepped, at first timidly, into literary London. It was, at first sight,
alarming enough because it seemed to consist, so largely and so stridently,
of the opposite sex. Bobby would have had Peter avoid it altogether.
"There are some young idiots," he said, "who go about to these literary
tea-parties. They've just written a line or two somewhere or other, and
they go curving and bending all over the place. Young Tony Gale and young
Robin Trojan and my young ass of a brother ... don't want you to join that
lot, Peter, my boy. The women like to have 'em of course, they're useful
for handing the cake about but that's all there is to it ... keep out of
it."
But Peter had not had so many friends during the early part of his life
that he could afford to do without possible ones now. He wanted indeed
just as many as he could grasp. The comfort and happiness of his life with
Bobby, the success of the book, the opening of a career in front of him,
these things had made of him another creature. He had grown ten years
younger; his cheeks were bright, his eye clear, his step buoyant.
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