When he had asked, “Do you recognize me?” Peter had revealed his anxiety about the effect his changed appearance would have on her. That was precisely the moment that Catherine had unknowingly failed him. Had she managed to give him a compassionate smile and a word of affection, it might have ensured some kind of amicable future. The smile was not given; the word not spoken. The frightened young man saw his trusted playmate shuddering at the sight of him; he knew that he was, in her word, “hideous.”
