"I don't know," she faltered.
Peter looked so thin! It was evident he had been long ill. She did not like to see him so. The shade over his eyes horrified her. Beatrice came nearer.
"If you could encourage him a little," she whispered. "He has wanted so much to see you."
It was as if she in some way were being held responsible.
"You're not stopping here?" gasped Marjory.
"At the Hôtel des Roses," nodded Beatrice. "And you?"
Peter with his haggard, earnest face, and Beatrice with her clear honest eyes, filled her with sudden shame. It would be impossible to make them understand. They were so American—so direct and uncompromising about such affairs as these.
Beatrice had the features of a Puritan maid, and dressed the part, from her severe little toque, her prim white dress reaching to her ankles, to her sturdy boots. Her blue eyes were already growing big at Marjory's hesitancy at answering so simple a question. She had been here once with Aunt Kitty—they had stopped at the Hôtel d'Angleterre. Marjory mumbled that name now.
"Then I may come over to-night to see you for a moment, may I not?" said Beatrice. "It is time Peter went in now."
"I—I may see you in the morning?" asked Peter.