Peter caught at Bobby's words. “Do you really think she cares about me?”
“She's interested. Clare spends her days in successive enthusiasms. She's always being enthusiastic—dreadful disillusions in between the heights. Mind you, there's another side of Clare—a splendid side, but it wants very careful management and I don't know, Peter, that you're exactly the sort of person—”
“Thanks very much,” said Peter grimly.
“No, but you're not—you don't, in the least, see her as she is, and she doesn't see you as you are—hence these misguided attempts on my part to show you one another.”
But Peter had not been listening.
“Do you really think,” he muttered, “that she cares about me?”
Bobby looked at him, laughed and shrugged his shoulders in despair.
“Ah! I see—it's no use,” he said, “poor dear Peter—well, I wish you luck!”
And that was the end as far as Alice and Bobby were concerned. They never alluded to it again and indeed now seemed to favour meetings between Clare and Peter.
And now, through these wonderful Spring weeks, these two were continually together. The Galleons had, at first, been inclined to consider Clare's obvious preference for Peter as the simplest desire to be part of a general rather heady enthusiasm. “Clare loves little movements....” And Peter, throughout this Spring was a little movement. The weeks went on, and Clare was not herself—silent, absorbed, almost morose. One day she asked Alice Galleon a number of questions about Peter, and, after that, resolutely avoided speaking of him. “Of course,” Alice said to Bobby—“Dr. Rossiter will let her marry any one she likes. She'll have plenty of money and Peter's going to have a great career. After all it may be the best thing.”