t ten," said Peter, who was quite satisfied with
the _status quo_.

Then silence came again. After this had held for a few moments, the pose
said: "Do say something!"

"Something," said Peter. "Anything else I can do for you?"

"Unless you can be more entertaining, we might as well be sitting in the
Purdies' dressing-rooms, as standing here. Suppose we go to the library
and sit with mamma and papa?" Clearly the pose felt nervous.

Peter did not like this idea. So he said: "I'll try to amuse you. Let me
tell you something very interesting to me. It's my birthday to-morrow."

"Oh!" said Leonore. "Why didn't you tell me sooner? Then I would have
had a gift for you."

"That's what I was afraid of."

"Don't you want me to give you something?"

"Yes." Then Peter's hands trembled, and he seemed to have hard work in
adding, "I want you to give me--a kiss."

"Peter!" said Leonore, drawing back grieved and indignant. "I didn't
think you would speak to me so. Of all men!"

"You mustn't think," said Peter, "that I meant to pain you."

"You have," said Leonore, almost ready to cry.

"Because," said Peter, "that isn't what I meant." Peter obviously
struggled to find words to say what he did mean as he had never
struggled over the knottiest of legal points, or the hardest of
wrestling matches. "If I thought you were a girl who would kiss a man
for the asking, I should not care for a kiss from you." Peter strayed
away from the fire uneasily. "But I know you are not." Peter gazed
wildly round, as if the furnishings, of the hall might suggest the words
for which he was blindly groping. But they didn't, and after one or two
half-begun sentences, he continued: "I haven't watched you, and dreamed
about you, and loved you, for all this time, without learning what you
are." Peter roamed about the great hall restlessly. "I know that your
lips will never give what your heart doesn't." Then his face took a
despairing look, and he continued quite rapidly: "I ask without much
hope. You are so lovely, while I--well I'm not a man women care for.
I've tried to please you. Tried to please you so hard, that I may have
deceived you. I probably am what women say of me. But if I've been
otherwise with you it is because you are different from any other woman
in the world." Here the sudden flow of words ended, and Peter paced up
and down, trying to find what to say. If any one had seen Peter as he
paced, without his present environment, he wou