“I want to tell you of something that seems to me about a hundred years ago,” said Peter. “But it concerns myself, and I don’t want to bore you.”
“Try, and if I don’t like it I’ll stop you,” said Leonore, opening up a line of retreat worthy of a German army.
“I don’t know what you’ll think about it,” said Peter, faltering a little. “I suppose I can hardly make you understand it, as it is to me. But I want you to know, because—well—it’s only fair.”
Leonore looked at Peter with a very tender look in her eyes. He could not see it, because Leonore sat so that her face was in shadow. But she could see his expression, and when he hesitated, with that drawn look on his face, Leonore said softly:
“You mean—about—mamma?”
Peter started. “Yes! You know?”
“Yes,” said Leonore gently. “And that was why I trusted you, without ever having met you, and why I wanted to be friends.”
Peter sighed a sigh of relief. “I’ve been so afraid of it,” he said. “She told you?”
“Yes. That is, Miss De Voe told me first of your having been disappointed, so I asked mamma if she knew the girl, and then mamma told me. I’m glad you spoke of it, for I’ve wanted to ask you something.”
“What?”