His soul was, for that great moment, naked and alone before God.
"The whole duty of Art is listening for the voice of God...."
A sound, as though it came to him from another world, broke into the room.
There were voices and steps on the stairs.
"Ah, they are back from their party," Henry Galleon said, trotting happily
to the door. "Come up and have a chat with my wife, Westcott, before going
to bed."
CHAPTER III
THE ENCOUNTER
I
Peter was now the young man of the moment. He took this elevation with
frank delight, was encouraged by it, gave it all rather more, perhaps, than
its actual value, began a new novel, "The Stone House," started weekly
reviewing on _The Interpreter_ and yielded himself up entirely to Clare
Rossiter.
He had been in love with her ever since that first day at Norah Monogue's,
but the way that she gradually now absorbed him was like nothing so much as
the slow covering of the rocks and the sand by the incoming tide. At first,
in those days at Brockett's, she had seemed to him something mysterious,
intangible, holy. But after that meeting in Cheyne Walk he knew her for
a prize that some fortunate man might, one day, win. He did not, for an
instant, suppose that he could ever be that one, but the mere imagined
picture of what some other would one day have, sent the blood rushing
through him.
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