“This silver gray is one of 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.

“Why, what have you got to say about the Hands?” Defiance underlay tone and look.

“It was in this very room I promised you I’d keep my hands off the Hands,” Peter quoted.  “But I want you to let me take the promise back.”

“I’ll do nothing of the sort!” shrilled Peter senior.  “What do you mean?”