 looked down at the
white-faced man in the Morris chair and knew that he was even less
likely to mention the fact to Peter. He thought--“Why, we're not
friends! That's what it means!”

Peter's hollow eyes were on him.

“You, Worm!” he said huskily, and tried to smile. “I'm rather ill, I
think. It's shock. You know a shock can do it.”

“What shocked you?” asked Henry Bates rather shortly, turning to the
window.

“Hy. He's crazy, I think. It's the only possible explanation. He said I
was a”--Peter's expressive voice dropped, more huskily still, into the
tragic mood--“a murderer. It was a frightful experience. The boy
has gone batty. It's his fear of losing his job, of course. But the
experience has had a curious effect on me. My heart is palpitating.”
 His right hand was feeling for the pulse in his left wrist. “And I have
some, difficulty in breathing.” Now he pressed both hands to his chest.

The Worm stared out the window. Peter would act until his dying day;
even then. One pose would follow another, prompted by the unstable
emotions of genius, guided only by an egotism so strong that it would
almost certainly weather every storm of brain or soul. In a very
indirect way Pete had murdered the old boy. No getting around that. An
odd sort of murder--sending Sumner Smith to ask that question. Peter
himself, away down under his egotism, knew it. Hence the play for
sympathy.

Peter was still talking. “It really came out of a clear sky. Until very
lately I should have said that Hy and I were friends. As you know, we
had many points of contact. Last fall, when--”

The Worm turned. “Passing lightly over the next eight months,” he
remarked, “what do you propose to do now?”

Peter shrank back a little. The Worm's manner was hardly ingratiating.
“Why--” he said, “why, I suppose I'll stay on here. You and I have
always got on, Henry. We've been comfortable here. And to tell the
truth, I've been getting tired of listening to the history in detail of
Hy's amours. He wants to look o