'That I hadn't, after all'—the boy took him up—'remained such an idiot? Just because I never dreamed you knew. But I beg your pardon. I only wanted to spare you. And what I don't now understand is how the deuce then for so long you've managed to keep bottled.'
Peter produced his explanation, but only after some delay and with a gravity not void of embarrassment. 'It was for your mother.'
'Oh!' said Lance.
'And that's the great thing now—since the murder is out. I want a promise from you. I mean'—and Peter almost feverishly followed it up—'a vow from you, solemn and such as you owe me here on the spot, that you'll sacrifice anything rather than let her ever guess—'
'That I've guessed?'—Lance took it in. 'I see.' He evidently after a moment had taken in much. 'But what is it you've in mind that I may have a chance to sacrifice?'
'Oh one has always something.'
Lance looked at him hard. 'Do you mean that you've had—?' The look he received back, however, so put the question by that he found soon enough another. 'Are you really sure my mother doesn't know?'
Peter, after renewed reflexion, was really sure. 'If she does she's too wonderful.'
'But aren't we all too wonderful?'
'Yes,' Peter granted—'but in different ways. The thing's so desperately important because your father's little public consists only, as you know then,' Peter developed—'well, of how many?'