Roddy stood there for a moment—the door held back with his foot—watching his visitor walk away, his coat clipped in to his figure, his boots new, and the latest hat.
"What a rotter the fellow is! I'm rather sorry for that young woman—but what does she see in him?" He turned it over in his mind.
"Silly fools, girls," he said. He spoke the verdict out aloud, with the conscious superiority of a man in the making.
"Why, Roddy—you've grown a cynic!"
He turned with a sudden cry of joy.
"Peter!"
McTaggart's smiling face, bronzed and handsome, met his eyes.
"May I come in?—I just called round to ask how Mrs. Uniacke was."
"Rather! My hat!—it's jolly fine to see you back," he danced on the steps. "I say—we'll have to go quiet——" (the boy remembered)—"Mother's asleep."
They stole through the dingy hall and into the dining-room beyond. McTaggart glanced round with a smile at the bare, familiar place.