“Of course, if you ask me, that’s enough,” said Rags, looking rather sulky.  He was curious to know what she actually meant, but, of course, could not ask, and somehow the whole affair—­Ena’s deep solemnity and secrecy, her hints which mustn’t be questioned, began to seem silly and even rather repulsive.  He had never liked her less.

Vaguely conscious that she was not “making a hit,” and more than ever angry with the hateful necessity for this excursion, which was to blame for everything, Ena rambled on, “hoping he wouldn’t misunderstand,” and floundering into half explanations which made the situation less comfortable every minute.  At last, when the subject was torn to tatters, and Raygan had begun to betray impatience, she got up to go.

“Petro and Lady Eileen will be waiting for us in the jewellery department now, I expect,” Ena said drearily.  “Let’s hurry and meet them, and then we can get away.  I’m bored to death with the stuffy old place, and you must be, too.  I can’t bear anything commercial.  If there’s a lovely concert or a tango tea somewhere to finish up the afternoon, it will be nice.  Or almost anything!”

There was a tango tea, and it was nice.  Rags, however was far from nice.  He did not seem at all himself.

“I’m afraid the poor old store wasn’t as much fun as you thought it would be,” said Petro, half apologetically, when he began to realize that Rags had a “grouch.”  Petro had liked the plan to visit the Hands, and had liked the visit, too.  The place had seemed a beehive of industry and the bees—­selling bees and buying bees—­had all looked happy and prosperous enough.  On the surface, dad’s methods appeared to be the right methods.  But Peter wondered if it would be a betrayal of his promise if he wandered through the store alone sometimes, when it was less crowded and things more normal.  He had surrendered his conviction that he “ought to help,” and as Peter senior had stipulated for no interference if Peter junior truly trusted him, one must be careful about interpretations.

Petro’s ideas for a “Start in Life Fund” were occupying a great deal of his attention and were crystallizing into concrete form.  He hoped that he might soon cease to be a drone, and end by being of some real use in the world.  But as Peter junior passed out of the shop, his promise to keep “hands off the Hands” seemed one of the things to regret, whether selfishly or otherwise.  He would have liked to know more of the place, so passionately interesting to him, apart from its business side; and he was unable to understand how Raygan, the one whose curiosity had drawn all four to the Hands that day, could have managed to be bored.