"Really!" Rebecca Mary liked his words so much that she wanted to hear them again.
"Really."
And then Rebecca Mary killed her engine and couldn't remember how to start it again. Peter put his hand on the button at the same moment she did, and his five fingers closed over Rebecca Mary's five fingers. Rebecca Mary quivered to her toes, but she tried to be very matter of fact.
"Granny said I might have to drive for her," she said quickly. "Karl is going to leave, and she hasn't found a new chauffeur yet."
That evening she actually did drive Richard through the traffic which surged around the pavilion where the weekly band concert was given. If Peter had been there he would have had to shout "Pirate" several times for Rebecca Mary did scowl yellow brownly, but that was because she was so anxious to drive well.
"Aren't you shaking in your shoes?" she asked when they were held up at a very busy crossing. "No one can question your bravery now. You've certainly earned a medal."
Richard looked at her sparkling eyes, and his staid invulnerable heart gave a flop which startled him, and a flash appeared in his dark eyes.
"I'm a man who always collects what he earns," he told her in a way which made her heart thump a bit, too, although she would not let him know that, not for worlds. "There isn't a better collector in all Waloo than I am."
"My goodness gracious AND my gracious goodness!" Rebecca Mary seemed much impressed by Richard, the bill collector. "But you must not read the future by the past," she cautioned gravely. "I seem to remember that at college I was told that even Napoleon had his Waterloo."
"We are not discussing Napoleon Bonaparte but one Richard Deane Cabot," Richard reminded her severely.