Here was a treacherous, sensitive, murderous Italian, offering me hospitality.

I had been taught to believe that if I offended him he would strike at me with a knife precisely as a horse kicked out when one got too close to its heels and worried it.

Then, too, this Italian, Peter, had those terrible black eyes I had heard my mother talk about.

They were eyes different from the eyes I knew, from the blues and greys and hazels of my own family, from the pale and genial blues of the Irish.

Perhaps Peter had had a few drinks.