"Nothing yet!" said Peter. "We wait."
There was a glint of passing sharpness in his shrewd eye. She smiled in the face of it as one will who asks not to be misunderstood; then joined him and Helen in their pacing.
"You have been so wonderful to Cousin Phil," she said to Peter.
"Bricktop will do it!" remarked Peter, closing his fist and giving it a little shake. "Wonderful, did you say? Me?"
"Yes," she smiled up at him. "I did not know that there could be such men as you in the world."
"Lots of them in America!" replied Peter. "Growing them is one of our national industries! Competition is hard and they knock one another about so much some of 'em get calloused, I suppose."
"How worthy Phil is of all your generosity we found at Mervaux," Henriette continued.
"Yes. He's in there!" Peter concluded, nodding toward the operating-room.
"Yes!" she murmured. "It's too awful!"
She, too, was silent, taking her cue from his evident desire. As she paced beside him she had an atmospheric feeling of the power of the man as something absolute and indomitable, centred on fighting with his will for a decision in favour of Phil. He made talk of any kind seem petty.