the prettiest of the new wraps," she
glibly advertised her wares.

"Very well, if you like it, I'll marry--I mean, I'll take it. Tell me
how you hurt your hands."

"There's nothing to tell," she put him off again, visibly freezing--an
intellectual feat in such weather. "And--really, as I said before, I
don't care to talk about myself."

Her look, even more than her words, shut Peter up. The cloak saved the
situation during a few frigid seconds. But as a situation it had
become strained. The only hope for the future was to go now. And Peter
went. He went straight back to Sea Gull Manor and to his father.

CHAPTER XXVI

WHEN THE SECRET CAME OUT

Father was in the library when Peter got home. One did not open the
door and walk straight into this sacred room. One knocked, and if
father happened to be engaged in any pursuit which he did not wish the
family eye to see, he had time to smuggle it away and take up a
newspaper, or even a book, before calling out "Come in."

To-day, not being well, he was allowing himself the luxury of a
jig-saw puzzle, but as he considered the amusement frivolous for a man
of his position, at the sound of his son's voice he hustled the board
containing the half-finished picture into a drawer of his roll-top
desk. In order to be doing something, he caught up a paper. It was
_Town Tales_, and his eye, searching instinctively for the name of
Rolls, saw that of the Marchese di Rivoli coupled with it and a
slighting allusion. A wave of physical weakness surged over the
withered man as he asked himself if he had done wrong in sanctioning
his daughter's engagement to the Italian.

"What do you want?" he greeted Petro testily.

He was invariably testy when indigestion had him in its claw, and his
tone gave warning that this was a bad moment Still Petro was bursting
with his subject. He could not bear to postpone the fight. Instead of
putting it off, he resolved to be exceedingly careful in his tactics.

"I want to talk with you, Father, if you don't mind," he began
pleasantly. "I hope I'm not interrupting anything important?"

"I am supposed to be left to myself in the mornings," said Peter
senior, martyrized. "Though I don't go to the store, I must read
Croft's reports and keep in touch with things."

"It's about the store I'd like to talk." Peter was thankful for this
opening. He perched hesitatingly on the arm of an adipose easy chair,
not having been specifically invited to sit