“Is that the child?” asked Peter.
“Yes,” said Celestine.
“Does he know?”
“Nothing. I do not tell him even that I am his mother.”
“Then you are not prepared to give him a mother’s care and tenderness?”
“Never. I love him not. He is too like his father. And I cannot have it known that I am the mother of a child of twelve. It would not be believed, even.” Celestine took a look at herself in the tall mirror.
“Then I suppose you would like some arrangement about him?”
“Yes.”
Peter stayed for nearly an hour with the woman. He stayed so long, that for one of the few times in his life he was late at a dinner engagement. But when he had left Celestine, every detail had been settled. Peter did not have an expression of pleasure on his face as he rode down-town, nor was he very good company at the dinner which he attended that evening.
The next day did not find him in any better mood. He went down-town, and called on an insurance company and talked for a while with the president. Then he called at a steamship office. After that he spent twenty minutes with the head of one of the large schools for boys in the city. Then he returned to his office.