“Will you look up at me?”

“What for?” said Leonore, promptly looking up.

“I want to see your eyes,” said Peter.

“Why?” asked Leonore, promptly looking down again.

“Well,” said Peter, “I’ve been dreaming all my life about some eyes, and I want to see what my dream is like in reality.”

“That’s a very funny request,” said Leonore perversely.  “You ought to have found out about them long ago.  The idea of any one falling in love, without knowing about the eyes!”

“But you show your eyes so little,” said Peter.  “I’ve never had a thoroughly satisfying look at them.”

“You look at them every time I look at you,” said Leonore.  “Sometimes it was very embarrassing.  Just supposing that I showed them to you now, and that you find they aren’t what you like?”

“I never waste time discussing impossibilities,” said Peter.  “Are you going to let me see them?”

“How long will it take?”

“I can tell better after I’ve seen them,” said Peter, astutely.

“I don’t think I have time this evening,” said Leonore, still perversely, though smiling a look of contentment down into the fire.

Peter said nothing for a moment, wishing to give Leonore’s conscience a chance to begin to prick.  Then be ended the silence by saying:  “If I had anything that would give you pleasure, I wouldn’t make you ask for it twice.”

“That’s—­different,” said Leonore.  “Still, I’ll—­well, look at them,” and Leonore lifted her eyes to Peter’s half laughingly and half timidly.

Peter studied those eyes in silence—­studied them till Leonore, who did not find that steady look altogether easy to bear, and yet was not willing to confess herself stared out of countenance, asked:  “Do you like them?”

“Yes,” said Peter.

“Is that all you can say?  Other people have said very complimentary things!” said Leonore, pretending to be grieved over the monosyllable, yet in reality delighting in its expressiveness as Peter said it.

“I think,” said Peter, “that before I can tell you what I think of your eyes, we shall have to invent some new words.”

Leonore looked down again into the fire, smiling a satisfied smile.  Peter looked down at that down-turned head, also with a satisfied smile.  Then there was another long silence.  Incidentally it is to be noted that Peter still held the hand given him some time before.  To use a poker term, Peter was standing “pat,” and wished no change.  Once or twice the little hand had hinted that it had been held long enough, but Peter did not think so, and the hand had concluded that it was safest to let well alone.  If it was too cruel It might rouse the sleeping lion which the owner of that hand knew to exist behind that firm, quiet face.

Presently Peter put his unoccupied hand in his breast-pocket, and produced a small sachet.  “I did something twice,” he said, “that I have felt very meanly about at times.  Perhaps you’ll forgive me now?” He took from the sachet, a glove, and a small pocket-handkerchief, and without a word showed them to Leonore.