“Denise, Denise!” cried poor Peter, straining her to him.

“Tell her I had blue eyes, and a fair face, and bright, bright hair, Godfather.  She will like to know.  Say, ’Her whole wisdom lay in loving me with all her heart—­that poor Denise!’ Then tell her that she cannot love you more, my Pierre,—­but that in my grave I shall despise her if she dares to love you less.”

“I—­Oh, my God!” strangled Peter, and he felt as if his heart were being wrenched out of his breast.  He was in his twenties, and the girl in his arms was all he knew of love.

Some six weeks later Denise died as quietly as she had lived, her small cold hands clinging to Peter Champneys’s, her blue eyes with their untroubled, loving gaze fixed upon his face.  When that beloved face faded from her the world itself had faded from Denise.

He hadn’t dreamed one could suffer as he was called upon to suffer then.  The going of little Denise seemed to have torn away a living and quivering part of his spirit.  She had loved him absolutely, and Peter couldn’t forget that.  His gratitude was an anguish.  It is not the duration but the depths of an experience which makes its ineffaceable impression upon the heart.

Mrs. Hemingway saw his changed looks with concern.  If she and her husband suspected anything, they did not torment him with questions; they didn’t even appear to notice that he was silent and abstracted.

“What on earth is the matter with the boy?” worried Mrs. Hemingway.  “John, do you think it’s a—­”

“Petticoat?  What else should it be?”

“I can’t bear to think of Peter getting himself into some sort of scrape with possibly some miserable woman—­who will prey upon him,” murmured Mrs. Hemingway.

“Peter’s not the sort that falls for adventuresses.  He might fall in love with some girl, and be cut up if she didn’t reciprocate.  That’s what’s the matter with him now, if I’m not mistaken.”

Hemingway took Peter fishing with him.  It is a pleasant place, the Seine near Poissy.  Hemingway let Peter sit in a boat all day, and didn’t seem to observe that the line wasn’t once drawn in.  The river was rippling, the sky bright blue, the wind sweet.  All around them were other boats, full of people who appeared to be happy.  And Hemingway’s silent companionship was strong and kind and serene.  Insensibly Peter reacted to his surroundings, to the influence of the shining day.  When they were returning to Paris that evening, he looked at his big compatriot gratefully.  Then he told him.  Hemingway listened in silence.  Then: 

“I’m damned glad she had you,” said he, and polished his eyeglasses, and put his hand on Peter’s shoulder with a consoling and sympathetic touch.  Hemingway understood.  He was that sort.

Youth departs, love perishes, faith faints; but that we may never be left hopeless, work remains and saves us.  Peter’s work came to his succor.  Just at this crucial time his Eminence the Austrian Cardinal appeared, and Peter hadn’t time to mope.