“Never,” said Lady Mary.

“Of course they were snappish at times.  I suppose all old people get like that.  But, on the whole, you managed to jog along pretty comfortably, didn’t you?”

“Oh yes,” said Lady Mary.  “We jogged along pretty comfortably.”

“Then don’t you see how snug we shall be?” said Peter, triumphantly.  “I can tell you a fellow learns to appreciate home when he has been without one, so to speak, for over two years.  And home wouldn’t be home without you, mother dear.”

Lady Mary sank suddenly back among the cushions.  Her feelings were divided between dismay and self-reproach.  Yet she was faintly amused too—­amused at Peter and herself.  Her boy had returned to her with sentiments that were surely all that a mother could desire; and yet—­yet she felt instinctively that Peter was Peter still; that his thoughts were not her thoughts, nor his ways her ways.  Then the self-reproach began to predominate in Lady Mary’s mind.  How could she criticize her boy, her darling, who had proved himself a son to be proud of, and who had come back to her with a heart so full of love and loyalty?

“And you couldn’t live without me, could you?” said Peter, affectionately; and he laughed.  “I suppose you meant to go into that little, damp, tumble-down Dower House, and watch over me from there; now didn’t you, mummy?”

“I—­I thought, when you came of age,” faltered Lady Mary, “that I should give up Barracombe House to you, naturally.  I could come and stay with you sometimes—­whether you were married or not, you know.  And—­and, of course, the Dower House does belong to me.”

“I won’t hear of your going there,” said Peter, stoutly, “whether I’m married or not.  It’s a beastly place.”

“It’s very picturesque,” said Lady Mary, guiltily; “and I—­I wasn’t thinking of living there all the year round.”

“Why, where on earth else could you have gone?” he demanded, regarding her with astonishment through the eyeglass.

“There are several places—­London,” she faltered.

“London!” said Peter; “but my father had a perfect horror of London.  He wouldn’t have liked it at all.”

“He belonged—­to the old school,” said Lady Mary, meekly; “to younger people, perhaps—­an occasional change might be pleasant and profitable.”

“Oh! to younger people,” said Peter, in mollified tones.  “I don’t say I shall never run up to London.  I dare say I shall be obliged, now and then, on business.  Not often though.  I hate absentee landlords, as my father did.”

“Travelling is said to open the mind,” murmured Lady Mary, weakly pursuing her argument, as she supposed it to be.

“I’ve seen enough of the world now to last me a lifetime,” said Peter, in sublime unconsciousness that any fate but his own could be in question.

“I didn’t think you would have changed so much as this, Peter,” she said, rather dismally.  “You used to find this place so dull.”