The man hurried off to obey. A moment latter Pelham was pretending to eat; inwardly he was all on wires. The portrait with its speaking eyes oppressed him, he longed to be in another room.
At last the meal came to an end.
“Serve coffee in the drawing-room,” said Mrs. Pelham to the butler. “Will you come this way, Dick! It is so kind of you to come back informally, just like you used to do in the old days when dear little Piers was alive.”
“I came back because I wanted to ask you a question,” said Pelham.
“What is it?” asked Mrs. Pelham.
“I want to go up to Piers’s nursery.”
“Of course you can, my dear fellow; but what for?”
“Has the room been disarranged since his death?”
“Put in order, Dick—nothing more. I am not going to have that dear room touched, at any rate, not for a long time. By and by when you have a little son of your own, he shall come and stay here and——”
Mrs. Pelham’s tears flowed.