grown to care
whether Peter found his cousin Lucy a kindred spirit or not. She could
work herself up into a fit of petulant jealousy about it at times; but
it didn't touch her inmost being; it was a very surface grievance.

So she looked at Lucy dispassionately, and let herself, without a
struggle, be caught and held by that ingenuous charm, a charm as of a
small woodland flower set dancing by the winds of spring. She noticed
that when the kitten that was now nearly a cat sprang on to Lucy's lap,
she stroked its fur backwards with her flat hand and spread fingers
precisely as Peter always did.

Then Peter came in, and he and Lucy laughed the same laugh at one
another, and then they had tea. After all, Rhoda didn't see now that they
were so like. Peter talked much more; he said twenty words to Lucy's
one; Lucy wasn't a great talker at all. Peter was a chatterbox; there was
no denying that. And their features and eyes and all weren't so like,
either. But when one had said all this, there was something... something
inner, essential, indefinable, of the spirit, that was not of like
substance but the same. So it is sometimes with twins. Rhoda, her
intuitive faculties oddly sharpened, took in this. Peter might care
most for Denis Urquhart; he might love Rhoda as a wife; but Lucy, less
consciously loved than either, was intimately one with himself.

Peter asked "How is Denis?" and Lucy answered "Very well, of course. And
very busy playing at being a real member. Isn't it fun? Oh, he sent you
his love. And you're to come and see us soon."

That last wasn't a message from Denis; Peter knew that. He knew that
there would be no more such messages from Denis; the Margerisons had gone
a little too far in their latest enterprise; they had strained the cord
to breaking-point, and it had broken. In future Denis might be kind and
friendly to Peter when they met, but he wouldn't bring about meetings;
they would embarrass him. But Lucy knew nothing of that. Denis hadn't
mentioned to her what had happened at Astleys last November; he never
dwelt on unpleasant subjects or made a talk about them. So Lucy said to
Peter and Rhoda, "You must come and see us soon," and Peter said, "You're
so far away, you know," evading her, and she gave him a sudden wide clear
look, taking in all he didn't say, which was the way they had with one
another, so that no deceits could ever stand between them.

"Don't be _silly_, Peter," she told him; then, "'_Co