"Did you?" cried Peggy excitedly. "Did you really? Oh, Noel, then that's how it was, isn't it?"
"Quite so," said Noel.
He sat on the sofa in Daisy's little drawing-room with his small playfellow on his knee. They had not seen each other for six weeks. And in those weeks Noel had been transformed from a blind man to a man who saw, albeit through thick blue spectacles that emphasized the pallor of illness to such an alarming degree that Daisy had almost wept over him at sight.
Peggy, more practical in her sympathy, had gathered him straightway to her small but ardent bosom, and refused to let him go.
So they sat in the drawing-room tightly locked and related to each other all the doings of their separation.
"I wonder you're not afraid of me in these hideous goggles," Noel said once.
To which Peggy replied with indignation. "I'm not a baby!"
"And Olga has gone to Brethaven, has she?" he asked presently.
"Yes," said Peggy wisely. "Dr. Jim said she must have some sea air to make her fat again. So Captain Nick came yesterday and took her away. And d'you know," said Peggy, "I'm goin' there too very soon?"
"What ho!" said Noel. "Are they going to let you stay there all by yourself?"