Peter looked at it with wistful love. His fingers lingered about its exquisiteness.
"It will break," he said. "My things do break. Break and get lost, and go with the dust. Or thieves will break in and steal it. I shan't be able to keep it, I know; I'm such a bad hand at keeping things."
"Well, well, have a try," said Leslie. So Peter took it and was glad. It was his one link with the world of exquisiteness and new-burnished joys out of which he was being thrust; he would keep it if he could.
Leslie also said that he could get him a place in a business, if he really wanted one.
"I shall be extremely little use," said Peter.
"Extremely little," Leslie agreed. "You'd much better not try. But if you must you must."
"I'm afraid I must," said Peter.
So Leslie wrote letters about him, and secured him a humble post in a warehouse. Leslie was not going to return to England at present. He was going a tour round the world. Since Peter refused to accompany him, he went alone.
"There's no one else I can fancy hanging round me day and night," he said. "I wanted you, Margery"—the nickname fell from him with a clumsy pathos—"but if you won't you won't. I shall acquire an abominable collection of objects without you to guide me; but that can't be helped."
The other thing that happened was that Mrs. Johnson fell suddenly ill and died. Before she died, she talked to Peter about Rhoda.