“I was looking for Peggy,” he added, and went out.  He had forgotten, apparently, that Peggy had told them an hour ago that she was going shopping and would be out all the afternoon.

Peter sat quite still in his chair and bit his pen.  From his expression, Mrs. Johnson might have inferred that he had been in the Cathedral again, smelling at the choky incense, and had got “funny feelin’s” within.  They were like the nauseating reminiscence of an old sickness.  He tried to ignore them.  He said to himself, “I’m an ass.  I’m a suspicious, low-minded ass.”

But he was somehow revolted by the thought of going on with the work for “The Gem” just then.  He was glad when Leslie called to fetch him out.

Leslie said, “What’s the matter, my son?”

Leslie had, with all his inapprehensiveness of things, an extraordinary amount of discernment of people; he could discern feelings that had no existence.  Or, if they had any existence in this case, they must have been called into it by Vyvian’s sugary periods.  Peter conceded that to that extent he ailed.

“A surfeit of Vyvian.  Let’s come out and take the air and look for little stone lions.”

Leslie was restful and refreshing, with his direct purposes and solid immobility.  You could be of use to Leslie, because he had a single eye; he knew what he wanted, and requested you to obtain it for him.  That was simple; he didn’t make your task impossible by suddenly deciding that after all he didn’t really want what you were getting for him.  He was a stable man, and perhaps it is only the stable who are really susceptible of help, thought Peter vaguely.

At seven o’clock Peter and Leslie went to the Ca’ delle Gemme.  They found Cheriton there.  Cheriton was talking when they arrived, in his efficient, decisive, composed business tones.  Lord Evelyn was pacing up and down the room, his fine, ringed hands clasped behind his back.  He looked extraordinarily agitated; his delicate face was flushed crimson.  Denis was lying back in a low chair, characteristically at ease.

When Leslie and Peter came in, Cheriton stopped speaking, and Lord Evelyn stopped pacing, and absolute silence momentarily fell.

Then Denis gave his pleasant, casual “Hullo.”

Cheriton’s silence continued.  But Lord Evelyn’s did not.  Lord Evelyn, very tall and thin, and swaying to and fro on his heels, looked at Peter, turning redder than before; and Peter turned red too, and gave a little apprehensive, unhappy sigh, because he knew that the fat was at last in the fire.

There ensued an uncomfortable scene, such as may readily be imagined.