“But I cannot read by moonlight, Charmian.”

“Then—­don’t read, Peter.”  Here she nibbled her thread with white teeth, and held up what she had been sewing to view the effect of a bow of riband, with her head very much on one side.  And I inwardly wondered that she should spend so much care upon such frippery—­all senseless bows and laces.

“To hum is a very disturbing habit!” said I.

“To smoke an evil-smelling pipe is worse—­much worse, Peter!”

“I beg your pardon!” said I, and laid the offending object back upon the mantel.

“Are you angry, Peter?”

“Not in the least; I am only sorry that my smoking annoyed you —­had I known before—­”

“It didn’t annoy me in the least!”

“But from what you said I understood—­”

“No, Peter, you did not understand; you never understand, and I don’t think you ever will understand anything but your Helens and Phrynes—­and your Latin and Greek philosophies, and that is what makes you so very annoying, and so—­so quaintly original!”

“But you certainly found fault with my pipe.”

“Naturally!—­didn’t you find fault with my humming?”

“Really,” said I, “really, I fail to see—­”

“Of course you do!” sighed Charmian.  Whereupon there fell a silence between us, during which she sewed industriously, and I went forth with brave Hector to face the mighty Achilles.  But my eye had traversed barely twenty lines when: 

“Peter?”

“Yes?”

“Do you remember my giving you a locket?”

“Yes.”

“Where is it?”

“Oh!  I have it still—­somewhere.”

“Somewhere, sir?” she repeated, glancing at me with raised brows.

“Somewhere safe,” said I, fixing my eyes upon my book.

“It had a riband attached, hadn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“A pink riband, if I remember—­yes, pink.”

“No—­it was blue!” said I unguardedly.

“Are you sure, Peter?” And here, glancing up, I save that she was watching me beneath her lashes.

“Yes,” I answered; “that is—­I think so.”

“Then you are not sure?”

“Yes, I am,” said I; “it was a blue riband,” and I turned over a page very ostentatiously.

“Oh!” said Charmian, and there was another pause, during which I construed probably fifty lines or so.

“Peter?”

“Well?”

“Where did you say it was now—­my locket?”

“I didn’t say it was anywhere.”

“No, you said it was ’somewhere’—­in a rather vague sort of way,
Peter.”

“Well, perhaps I did,” said I, frowning at my book.

“It is not very valuable, but I prized it for association’s sake, Peter.”

“Ah!—­yes, to be sure,” said I, feigning to be wholly absorbed.

“I was wondering if you ever—­wear it, Peter?”

“Wear it!” I exclaimed, and glancing furtively down at myself, I was relieved to see that there were no signs of a betraying blue riband; “wear it!” said I again, “why should I wear it?”