"Partly. Partly because he is an insolent animal. He is kind because he is well-fed. Yet I think it was chiefly because he has ill-used you."
"Yes," she owned sadly. "I betrayed him to you."
But Osmond had escaped from recollection of the day into a mood half meditative, half excited fancy.
"I have been thinking back, since he left me," he said, "ever so many years. I see I haven't had any life at all."
"Ah!" It was a quick breath of something sweeter than pity. It could not hurt.
"I have been turning away from things all my life, because they were not for me. But now I think—what if I didn't turn away? What if I met them face to face?"
"What, playmate? You puzzle me."
"Grannie indulged Peter. Even in his eating, she couldn't refuse him anything."
"But she loved you best!"
"No doubt of it. But he was well. He could have anything, even hunks of cake. Grannie hates to deny pleasures to any living thing. 'I guess it won't hurt you!' I've heard her say it to him over and over. But to me—"