staring right across the room and that they were looking, in the way that
they had, past walls and windows and streets--somewhere for something....

Peter knew a little about Stephen's trouble. He did not understand it
altogether, but he had seen the change in Stephen, and he knew that he was
often very sad, and that moods came upon him when he could do nothing but
think and watch and wait--and then his face grew very grey and his eyes
very hard, and his hands were clenched. Peter knew that Stephen had an
enemy, and that one day he would meet him.

Some of the men and girls were dancing now in the middle of the room. The
floor and the walls shook a little with the noise that the heavy boots of
the fishermen made and the smoky lamp swung from side to side. The heat was
great and some one opened the window and the snow came swirling, in little
waves and eddies, in and out, blown by the breeze--dark and heavy outside
against the clouded sky, white and delicate and swiftly vanishing in the
room. Dicky the Fool came across the floor and talked to Stephen in his
smiling, rambling way. People pitied Dicky and shook their heads when his
name was mentioned, but Peter never could understand this because the Fool
seemed always to be happy and cheerful, and he saw so many things that
other people never saw at all. It was only when he was drunk that he was
unhappy, and he was pleased with such very little things, and he told such
_wonderful_ stories.

Stephen was always kind to the Fool, and the Fool worshipped him, but
to-night Peter saw that he was paying no heed to the Fool's talk. The Fool
had a story about three stars that he had seen rolling down the Grey Hill,
and behold, when they got to the bottom--"little bright nickety things,
like new saxpennies--it was suddenly so dark that Dicky had to light his
lantern and grope his way home with that, and all the frogs began croaking