Mrs. Hemingway watched him with the eyes of the woman who has a young man upon her hands.  His reactions to his contacts interested her immensely.  His worldly education was progressing with entire satisfaction to her.

“I want him to marry an English wife,” she confided to her husband.  They were to leave for Paris that night, and she was summing up the results of his stay in London, the balance being altogether in his favor.  “A well-bred, normal English girl with good connections, a girl entirely untroubled by temperament, who will love him tenderly, look out for his physical well-being, and fill his house with healthy children, is exactly what Peter Champneys needs.  And the sooner it happens to him the better.  Peter has a lonely soul.  It shouldn’t be allowed to become chronic.”

Hemingway looked at her apprehensively.  “Sounds to me as if you were trying to make Peter pick a peck of pickled peppers,” he commented.  And Peter coming in at this opportune moment, he grinned at the boy cheerfully.

“Peter,” he smiled, “the sweet chime of merry wedding-bells in the distance falls softly on mine ear; my wife thinks you should be altar-broke.  Charming domestic interior, happy fireside clime, flag of our union fluttering from the patent clothes-line!  Futurist painting of Young Artist Pushing a Pram!  Don’t look at me with such an agonized expression of the ears, Peter!”

But Peter had no answering smile.  His face had changed, and there was that in his eyes which gave Hemingway pause.

“Why, old chap, I was merely joking!” he began, with real concern.

“Peter!” said the woman, softly.  “You have had—­a disappointment?  But, my dear boy, you are so very young.  Don’t take it too much to heart, Peter.  At your age nothing is final, really.”  And she smiled at him.

A flush suffused the young man’s forehead.  He felt shamed and miserable.  He couldn’t flaunt his price-tag before these unbuyable souls whose beautiful and true marriage was based upon love, and sympathy, and mutual ideals!  He couldn’t rattle his chains, or explain Anne Champneys.  He couldn’t, indeed, force himself to speak of her at all.  The thing was bad enough, but to talk about it—­No!  He lifted troubled eyes.

“I am afraid—­in my case—­it is final,” he said, in a low voice.  And after a pause, in a louder tone:  “Yes—­please understand—­it is final.”

“Oh, Peter dear, I’m sorry!  But—­”

“You’re talking nonsense.  Why, you’re barely twenty-one!” protested Hemingway.  “Much water must flow under the bridge, Peter, before you can say of anything:  it is final.  You’ve got a long life ahead of you to—­”

“Work in,” finished Peter.  “Yes, I know that.  I have my chance to work.  That is enough.”  At that his head went up.

Mrs. Hemingway puckered her brows.  She leaned toward him, her eyes lighting up.

“Peter!” said she, mischievously, her cheek dimpling.  “Peter, aren’t you rather leaving the Red Admiral out of your calculations?”