you?" said Peter very bitterly, huddled, elbows on knees, over the chilly
fire, while Thomas slumbered in a shawl on the rug.

Bitterness was so strange in Peter, so odd and new, that Thomas was
disturbed by it, and woke and wailed, as if his world was tumbling about
his ears.

Peter too felt it strange and new, and laughed a little at it and himself
as he comforted Thomas. But his very laughter was new and very dreary. He
picked Thomas up in his arms and held him close, a warm little whimpering
bundle. Then it was as if the touch of the small live thing that was his
own and had no one in the world but him to fend for it woke in him a new
instinct. There sprang up in him swiftly, new-born out of the travail of
great bitterness, a sharp anger against life, against fate, against the
whole universe of nature and man. To lose and lose and lose--how that
goes on and on through a lifetime! But at last it seems that the limit is
reached, something snaps and breaks, and the loser rises up, philosopher
no more, to take and grasp and seize. The lust to possess, to wring
something for Thomas and himself out of life that had torn from them so
much--it sprang upon him like a wild beast, and fastened deep fangs into
his soul and will.

Outside, a small April wind stirred the air of the encompassing city, a
faint breath from a better world, seeming to speak of life and hope and
new beginnings.

Peter, laying Thomas gently on a chair, went to the open window and leant
out, looking into the veil of the unhappy streets that hid an exquisite
world. Exquisiteness was surely there, as always. Mightn't he too, he and
Thomas, snatch some of it for themselves? The old inborn lust for things