“Why?” said Dickie again, gazing at him. And then Peter replied.
“You had better ask Lady Anne,” he responded, basely shifting the responsibility. Yet though he half acknowledged the baseness, he knew confidently that she must be better able to deal with the question than he, for surely she, enshrined where she was in his thoughts, would have some knowledge, some answer to give, something to which he might listen with as great confidence as the child beside him would listen.
And then suddenly down the lane came a shrill voice, causing Dickie to start and Peter to look up quickly.
“Master Dickie, Master Dickie!” The tones were unquestionably somewhat strident.
“That’s nurse,” whispered Dickie.
“So I concluded,” said Peter dryly. “What’s to be done?”
“S’pose I must go,” announced Dickie ruefully.
“Master Dickie!” The voice was close now, and the next moment a heated woman in nurse’s garb and wheeling a perambulator came into view.
Peter got up and went down to the gate, holding Dickie’s small brown hand close in his big one.
“I believe,” said Peter courteously, “that you are looking for Master Dickie; here he is.”