Peter saw that he was sore, and hated himself for it. Fallows personally was ready for death; therefore he had the right to counsel martyrdoms for others if he wished. Death to Peter, however, was not strictly a conversational subject. If a man were ready to die for another, it was not good taste to say so. Still he forced himself to be just, by thinking of Fallows' life.
Fallows somehow had turned a corner that he, Peter Mowbray, had not come to so far. Self-hypnotized, or not, the exile had given up everything in life to make the world better as he saw it. He had written and traveled and talked and plotted, even vowed himself to poverty, all for the good of the under-dog.
“It isn't fanaticism, when you come to look at it,” Peter mused. “He sees it clearly, and makes one see it for the moment of listening. He isn't afraid. He would die every day for it, if he could.... And I take things as I find them, and grin. I wouldn't even have thought otherwise, except for Berthe. I have a suspicion that I'm half-baked.”
Peter's mind was engaging itself thus feverishly, to avoid the main issue that the woman had flung him from her, and run to cover, stuffing her ears, so to speak, and asking him not to follow. He braced himself now and faced it. “If it happened to another pair, I should say it was the finish,” he thought. “I should say that no man and woman could pass a rock like that.... I can't get to her point of view by thinking myself there. I'm cold--that's the word. And she's superb. I'd rather be her friend than lord of any other woman. That won't change. And she has spoiled everything I thought I knew. Altogether--it's a game, bright little story--and deep.”
Lonegan came in and flung himself down wearily.
“I've been busy. Boylan is leaving in thirty-six hours. You're going with him?”
“It drains a man to spend an evening in that company. A fellow has to have a heavy lid--not to waste fire.”
Lonegan was worried. “You don't mean to say you're getting fevers and emotions.”
“Mowbray--you're lying. I don't believe you'd let anybody see your fires--not even how well you bank 'em. It isn't in you.”
For a long time after Lonegan left he plunged into his work, but there was no sleep for him afterward. He lay very still, breathing easily, as the fag-end of the night crawled by. At dawn he arose, dressed noiselessly, and went out into the city.