wn. The only fun I'd
ever got out of life was from knocking round the world with just enough
money to put bread in my mouth and clothes on my back. My father never
saw you, and never wanted to see you. He had reason to dislike
socialists. I never saw you, and wanted to still less. I thought you
would be a bore. But I respected what I heard of you. People told me you
were sincere. They said your aim in life was to benefit your fellowman.
You were a hard worker. You seemed to have every virtue. I thought you'd
do more good with my father's money than I ever should, if I shouldered
the responsibility. I was always a socialist at heart--but I was
selfish. I'd hated the conventional life my father wanted me to live,
and I'd kicked against the pricks. I came back to consciousness after
that adventure on the _Lusitania_, and found that no one knew who I was.
I'd babbled Russian when I was delirious! The next thing I learned, was
that Pietro Stanislaws was drowned. I couldn't resist the big temptation
to let him sleep under the sea. I'd happened to know something about a
chap named Peter Sturm or Storm in the third class of the _Lusitania_.
He hadn't turned up afterward, so I thought--as I'd done him a small
kindness--he wouldn't grudge me his name. I felt at home with the name
of Peter. So that's how it came about. And no matter what my own
feelings might have been--no matter how much I might for any reason have
wanted to change my mind--I wouldn't have gone back on my resolution if
it hadn't been for your own conduct."

"I don't know what you mean!" Caspian choked. "I don't believe----"

"I think you do believe," Peter caught him up (I can't remember his
precise words of course; but I give you the sense of them). "And if
you'll reflect you must pretty well understand my meaning. What kind of
a steward have you been of the great enterests intrusted to you? Have
you done one person except yourself any good? No! The moment your
circumstances changed, your nature changed to fit them; or, rather, you
let your real nature have its way when you'd nothing more to gain by
posing. You've not only thrown away my father's money--_my_ money--on
every sort of extravagance: you've been actually vicious. My lawyer
James Strickland was the only person on earth, except Marcel Moncourt
Senior, who knew that I hadn't gone down with the _Lusitania_. Marcel
didn't know till I came back to New York, recalled by Strickland's
accounts of your behavi