“It’s growing,” said Peter—­and they laughed together.

“Why didn’t you come to lunch?” she said.

“Lunch!  I didn’t know that any one ever went to lunch in New York—­in this part of it, at least—­with less than three weeks’ notice.  And by the way, if I am interfering with any engagement—­”

“My book is not so full as all that.  Of course you’ll come and stay with us, Peter.”

He shook his head regretfully.

“My train leaves at six, from Forty-Second Street,” he replied.

“Oh, you are niggardly,” she cried.  “To think how little I see of you, Peter.  And sometimes I long for you.  It’s strange, but I still miss you terribly—­after five years.  It seems longer than that,” she added, as she poured the boiling water into the tea-pot.  But she did not look at him.

He got up and walked as far as a water-colour on the wall.

“You have some beautiful things here, Honora,” he said.  “I am glad I have had a glimpse of you surrounded by them to carry back to your aunt and uncle.”

She glanced about the room as he spoke, and then at him.  He seemed the only reality in it, but she did not say so.

“You’ll see them soon,” was what she said.  And considered the miracle of him staying there where Providence had placed him, and bringing the world to him.  Whereas she, who had gone forth to seek it—­“The day after to-morrow will be Sunday,” he reminded her.

Nothing had changed there.  She closed her eyes and saw the little dining room in all the dignity of Sunday dinner, the big silver soup tureen catching the sun, the flowered china with the gilt edges, and even a glimpse of lace paper when the closet door opened; Aunt Mary and Uncle Tom, with Peter between them.  And these, strangely, were the only tangible things and immutable.

“You’ll give them—­a good account of me?” she said.  “I know that you do not care for New York,” she added with a smile.  “But it is possible to be happy here.”

“I am glad you are happy, Honora, and that you have got what you wanted in life.  Although I may be unreasonable and provincial and—­and Western,” he confessed with a twinkle—­for he had the characteristic national trait of shading off his most serious remarks—­“I have never gone so far as to declare that happiness was a question of locality.”

She laughed.

“Nor fame.”  Her mind returned to the loadstar.

“Oh, fame!” he exclaimed, with a touch of impatience, and he used the word that had possessed her all day.  “There is no reality in that.  Men are not loved for it.”

She set down her cup quickly.  He was looking at the water-colour.

“Have you been to the Metropolitan Museum lately?” he asked.

“The Metropolitan Museum?” she repeated in bewilderment.

“That would be one of the temptations of New York for me,” he said.  “I was there for half an hour this afternoon before I presented myself at your door as a suspicious character.  There is a picture there, by Coffin, called ‘The Rain,’ I believe.  I am very fond of it.  And looking at it on such a winter’s day as this brings back the summer.  The squall coming, and the sound of it in the trees, and the very smell of the wet meadow-grass in the wind.  Do you know it?”