Nothing that had happened hitherto in his life had excited him as had the events of this evening. The excitement was, indeed, greater than he could bear. It set his imagination blazing, and there was among Peter's intricate emotional processes no hose of common sense adequate to the task of subduing the flames. He stood, breathless, quivering, at the window, looking out over the dim Square, exulting to the point of nervous exhaustion. He walked the floor. He laughed aloud. Finally, his spirit went on around the emotional circle through a high point of crazy happiness to an equally crazy despondency. More time passed. The despondency deepened. She had made stipulations. He was not to see her again. If it should be necessary to communicate, he was to write. She had been kind about it, but that was what she had said. Yes, she had been kind, but her reaction would come as his had. She would hate him. Necessarily. Hy was to that extent right. He sat on the couch (where she had sat), held the paper in shaking hands and stared wildly into the dying fire. Thoughts, pictures, were now racing through his mind, in a mad tangle, hopelessly confused. One notion he laid hold of as it went by... She had been his guest--here in his rooms. She had trusted herself with him. He had violated the trust. If he permitted a man to do such a thing in one of his plays, it would be for the purpose of exhibiting that man as a cad at least--probably as a villain. The inference was clear. Any audience that Peter was capable of mentally projecting would instantly, automatically, accept him as such. Peter himself knew no other attitude. And now to find himself guilty of this very act brought the final bewilderment. So he, Peter, was a cad at least--perhaps a villain. And then, at the lowest ebb of his reaction, his imagination set to work building up grotesque plans for a new different life. All these plans were out of the conventional stuff of his plays; all were theatrical. They had to do with self-effacement and sacrifice, with expiation, with true nobility. There was a moment when he considered self-destruction. If you think this wholly fantastic, I can only say that it was Peter. Another notion was of turning explorer, becoming a world's rough hand, of meeting hardship and privation. He pictured himself writing Sue manly letters, once a year, say. He would live then in her memory not as a cad or villain, but (perhaps) as a man who had been broken by a great love. Then, in reminiscent moments, as when she saw a log fire burning low, she would think tenderly of him. She might even sigh.... And he tried to think out acceptable devices for leaving his money in her hands. For he must see the Nature Film through. He had just finished deciding this when Hy Lowe came.