Peter gripped her hand hard. “I was delighted to be of the smallest service,” he assured her.
The footman shut the door; Peter handed him the umbrella and he mounted with it to the box. The carriage, which had already turned, drove up in the direction of the white house on the hill.
Peter stood looking after it till it was out of sight, then went back into the cottage. He divested himself of his extremely wet coat and hung [Pg 182]it on the back of a chair by the fire. Not the armchair; that he gazed at almost reverently, for had not She sat in it! Then he went to the table and took up the socks. Arrested suddenly by something he saw, he examined them both carefully.
“I am sure,” said Peter aloud, “that I only mended one sock, and now both—” He looked at a darn carefully. “Oh, oh!” said Peter, a light of illumination in his eyes. It was, however, almost incredible; he could hardly believe his senses. He lifted the sock nearer his face. A faint hint of lavender came to him. “Oh!” said he again; “the darling, the adorable darling!”
Peter crossed to his cupboard; he placed the sock carefully inside a sheet of clean manuscript paper and put it on a shelf.
Then he sat down in the armchair by the fire, filled and lit his pipe, and fell into an abstracted reverie, which lasted fully half an hour.
CHAPTER XVIII
THE EVERLASTING WHY
And here it is necessary to introduce another character to the reader, one of whom there has already been a momentary glimpse, but who now comes forward to play his speaking part. He is indeed a small character, a young character, and might, at first appearance, seem insignificant, yet the part he has to play in Peter’s drama is fraught with much consequence. A very small pebble dropped into a pool can send out wide circles, so this small figure dropped into Peter’s life was to play a far-reaching and important part.