"May I come in?" said Jeanie at the door.
Her mother went to admit her. Avery sat up, and pushed her chair back against the window-curtain.
Jeanie entered, a glass of milk in one hand and a plate in the other. "Good morning, dear Avery!" she said, in her gentle, rather tired voice. "I've brought you a hot cake too—straight out of the oven. It smells quite good." She came to Avery's side, and stood within the circle of her arm; but she did not kiss her or look into her piteous, tearstained face. "I hope you like currants," she said. "Baby Phil calls them flies. Have you seen Baby Phil lately? He has just cut another tooth. He likes everybody to look at it."
"I must see it presently," Avery said, with an effort.
She drank the milk, and broke the cake, still holding Jeanie pressed to her side.
Jeanie, gravely practical, held the plate. "I saw Piers ride by a little while ago," she remarked. "He was on Pompey. But he was going so fast he didn't see me. He always rides fast, doesn't he? But I think Pompey likes it, don't you?"
"I don't know." There was an odd frozen note in Avery's voice. "He has to go—whether he likes it or not."
"But he is very fond of Piers," said Jeanie. "And so is Caesar." She gave a little sigh. "Poor Mikey! Do you remember how angry he used to be when Caesar ran by?"
Avery suppressed a shiver. Vivid as a picture flung on a screen, there rose in her brain the memory of that winter evening when Piers and Mike and Caesar had all striven together for the mastery. Again she seemed to hear those savage, pitiless blows. She might have known! She might have known!
Sharply she wrenched herself back to the present. "Jeanie darling," she said, "your mother says that you may come and stay at the Abbey for a little while. Do you—would you—like to come?"