Читать книгу The Peacock Feather. A Romance онлайн

15 страница из 53

Peter looked away across the valley. “I wonder,” he said. “Perhaps it only appears so. Formerly I walked the earth in company, and when I got near enough to a fellow-creature to believe that I had the right to call him comrade, I suddenly realized that I was looking into the face of a complete stranger. Somehow the loneliness struck deeper home at those moments. Now—well, one just expects nothing.”

Neil glanced down at the book he was still holding in his hand.

Peter smiled.

“Love hath my name y-strike out of his sclat,

And he is strike out of my bokes clene

For ever-mo ...

Sin I am free I counte him not a bene,”

he quoted. “There’s a freedom about that, a kind of clean-washedness which is very wholesome; the fresh rain upon one’s face in high places after a room full of hot-house flowers.” He stopped. “Heaven knows why I am talking to you like this,” he said whimsically.

“I don’t fancy,” said Neil calmly, “that you’ve ever been really in love.”

“No?” smiled Peter.

“Of course, you think you have,” went on Neil.