"I'll have to go now," he said quietly, "I guess you'll excuse me."
He went toward the kitchen door ashamed, miserable, all the brightness and vitality gone from him. I am sorry that he did not see Miggy's face when she lifted it. I saw it, and I could have sung as I looked. Not for Peter or for Miggy, but for the sake of something greater than they, something that touched her hand, commanded "Look at me," bade her follow with us all.
Before Peter reached the door she overtook him, stood before him, put her hands together for a moment, and then laid one swiftly on his cheek.
"Peter," she said, "that don't make any difference. That don't make any difference."
No doubt he understood her words, but I think what he understood best was her hand on his cheek. He caught her shoulders and looked and looked....
"Honest—honest, don't it?" he searched her.
You would not have said that her answer to that was wholly direct. She only let fall her hand from his cheek to his shoulder, and,
"Peter," she said, "is it like this?"
"Yes," he said simply, "it's like this."
And then what she said was ever so slightly muffled, as if at last she had dropped her head in that sweet confusion which she had never seemed to know; as if at last she was looking at Peter as if he was Peter.