"It seems as strange to me, Honora, as it does to you."
"How unkind of you, Peter!" she exclaimed.
She felt his eyes upon her, and their searching, yet kindly and humorous rays seemed to illuminate chambers within her which she would have kept in darkness: which she herself did not wish to examine.
"I'm so glad to see you," she said a little breathlessly, flinging her muff and boa on a chair. "Sit there, where I can look at you, and tell me why you didn't let me know you were coming to New York."
He glanced a little comically at the gilt and silk arm-chair which she designated, and then at her; and she smiled and coloured, divining the humour in his unspoken phrase.
"For a great man," she declared, "you are absurd."
He sat down. In spite of his black clothes and the lounging attitude he habitually assumed, with his knees crossed—he did not appear incongruous in a seat that would have harmonized with the flowing robes of the renowned French Cardinal himself. Honora wondered why. He impressed her to-day as force—tremendous force in repose, and yet he was the same Peter. Why was it? Had the clipping that even then lay in her bosom effected this magic change? He had intimated as much, but she denied it fiercely.
She rang for tea.
"You haven't told me why you came to New York," she said.
"I was telegraphed for, from Washington, by a Mr. Wing," he explained.