fA Knight Out II
absurd and ridiculous joke—that these two eyes
belonged to a girl’s face.
Across the moaning body of the blackmaier, I was
looking at the face of a girl that I had never seen before.
And I said to myself, “‘ Well, that’s all right, I’ve
known you all my life.” And when I said to myself
“my life,” I didn’t in the least mean my life as Peter
Pendragon, I didn’t even mean a life extending through
the centuries, I meant a different kind of life—some-
thing with which centuries have nothing whatever to
do.
And then Peter Pendragon came wholly back to
himself with a start, and wondered whether he had
not perhaps looked a little rudely at what his common
sense assured him was quite an ordinary and not a
particularly attractive girl.
My mind was immediately troubled. I went hastily
back to my table. And then it seemed to me as if it
were hours while the waiters were persuading the
earl to his feet.
I sipped my drink automatically. When I looked
up the girl had disappeared.
It is a trivial observation enough which I am going
to make. I hope at least it will help to clear any one’s
mind of any idea that I may be an abnormal man.
As a matter of fact, every man is ultimately abnormal,
because he is unique. But we can class man in a few
series without bothering ourselves much about what
_ each one of them is in himself.
I hope, then, that it will be clearly understood that
I am very much like a hundred thousand other young
men of my age. I also make the remark, because the
essential bearing of it is practically the whole story of
this book. And the remark is this, after that great
flourish of trumpets : although I was personally entirely
uninterested in what I had witnessed, the depression
had vanished from my mind. As the French say,
“Un clou chasse l'autre.”