at the Palazzo, when you spoke to me and smiled.
Only I couldn't think of anyone but Guy then. But lately I've been
thinking, 'Peter's worth a hundred Guys, and if only I could care for
him, I should feel safe.' And I do care, ever so much; and if it's a
different sort of caring from what I've felt for Guy, it's a better sort.
That's a bad, black sort, that hurts; I never want any more of that.
Caring for you will keep me from that, Peter."

"It's dear of you to care for me at all," said Peter. "And we won't let
Guy come near us, now or ever."

"You hate him, don't you?" said Rhoda. "I know you do."

"Oh, well, I don't know that it's as bad as all that. He's more funny
than anything else, it seems to me. He might have walked straight out of
a novel; he does all the things they do in books, you know, and that one
never thinks people really do outside them. He sneers insolently. I watch
him sometimes, to see how it's done. He curls his upper lip, too, when
he's feeling contemptuous; that's another nice trick that I should like
to acquire. Oh, he's quite an interesting study really. You've taken him
wrong, you know. You've taken him seriously. He's not meant for that."

"Oh," said Rhoda, vaguely uncomprehending. "You _are_ a funny boy, Peter.
You do talk so.... I never know if you mean half you say."

"About two-thirds, I think," said Peter. "The rest is lies. We all lie
in my family, and not well either, because we're rather weak in the
intellect.... Now do you feel like supper, because I do? Let's come home
and have it, shall we?"

They went home through the fog, Rhoda clinging to Peter's arm as to an
anchor in a sweeping sea. A great peace and security possessed her; she
no longer started at the tall figures that loomed by.

They let themselves into 51 Brook Street, and blinked at one another
in the lamp-lit, linoleumed little hall. Rhoda looked at herself in
the glass, and said, "What a fright I am!" seeing her tear-stained
countenance and straggling fog-wet locks. The dinner-bell rang, and she
ran upstairs to tidy herself. Peter and she came into the dining-room
together, during the soup.

"Let's tell them at once, Peter," whispered Rhoda; so Peter obediently
said, as he sat down by Peggy, "Rhoda and I have just settled to marry."

"_Marry_?" Hilary queried, from the end of the table. "Marry whom?" And
Rhoda, blushing, laughed for the first time for some days.

Peggy said, "Don't be silly, Hilary. Each other