" she thought, never
dreaming that Peter's cleverness, like so many other people's nowadays,
consisted in a pertinent use of quotations. Parrot cleverness, we might
term it. Leonore listened to the air which the musicians were beginning,
and finding it the Lancers, or dreariest of dances, she made Peter happy
by assenting.

"Suppose we go out on the veranda," said Peter, still quoting.

"Now of what are you going to talk?" said Leonore, when they were
ensconced on a big wicker divan, in the soft half light of the Chinese
lanterns.

"I want to tell you of something that seems to me about a hundred years
ago," said Peter. "But it concerns myself, and I don't want to bore
you."

"Try, and if I don't like it I'll stop you," said Leonore, opening up a
line of retreat worthy of a German army.

"I don't know what you'll think about it," said Peter, faltering a
little. "I suppose I can hardly make you understand it, as it is to me.
But I want you to know, because--well--it's only fair."

Leonore looked at Peter with a very tender look in her eyes. He could
not see it, because Leonore sat so that her face was in shadow. But she
could see his expression, and when he hesitated, with that drawn look on
his face, Leonore said softly:

"You mean--about--mamma?"

Peter started. "Yes! You know?"

"Yes," said Leonore gently. "And that was why I trusted you, without
ever having met you, and why I wanted to be friends."

Peter sighed a sigh of relief. "I've been so afraid of it," he said.
"She told you?"

"Yes. That is, Miss De Voe told me first of your having been
disappointed, so I asked mamma if she knew the girl, and then mamma told
me. I'm glad you spoke of it, for I've wanted to ask you something."

"What?"

"If that was why you wouldn't call at first on us?"

"No."

"Then why did mamma say you wouldn't call?" When Peter made no reply,
Leonore continued, "I knew--that is I felt, there was something wrong.
What was it?"

"I can't tell you."

"Yes," said Leonore, very positively.

Peter hesitated. "She thought badly of me about something, till I
apologized to her."

"And now?"

"Now she invites me to Grey-Court."

"Then it wasn't anything?"

"She had misjudged me."

"Now, tell me what it was."

"Miss D'Alloi, I know you do not mean it," said Peter, "but you are
paining me greatly. There is nothing in my whole life so bitter to me as
what you ask me to tell."

"Oh, Peter," said Leonore, "I beg your