“It may be a platitude, but I am beginning to discover that what are called platitudes by the young are biting truths to the old,” said Lady Mary.  “I’ve felt it a thousand times.  Words come so easily to my lips when I’m speaking to you, I am so certain you will understand and respond.  But with Peter, I sometimes feel as though I were dumb or stupid.  Perhaps you’ve been too—­too kind; you’ve understood too quickly.  I’ve been too ready to believe that you’ve found me—­”

“Everything I wanted to find you,” interrupted John, tenderly; “and that was something quite out of the common.”

She smiled and shook her head.  “I am ready to believe all the nice things you can say, as fast as you can say them, when I am with you” she said, with a raillery rather mournful than gay.  “But when I am with Peter, I seem to realize dreadfully that I’m only a middle-aged woman of average capacity, and with very little knowledge of the world.  He does his best to teach me.  That’s funny, isn’t it?”

“It’s very like—­a very young man,” said John, gently.

“You mustn’t think I’m mocking at my boy—­like Sarah,” she said vehemently.  “Perhaps I am wrong to tell you.  Perhaps only a mother would really understand.  But it makes me a little sad and bewildered.  My boy—­my little baby, who lay in my arms and learnt everything from me.  And now he looks down and lectures me from such an immense height of superiority, never dreaming that I’m laughing in my heart, because it’s only little Peter, after all.”

“And he doesn’t lecture Sarah?”

“Oh no; he doesn’t lecture Sarah.  She is too young to be lectured with impunity, and too wise.  Besides, I think since he went away, and saw Sarah flattered and spoilt, and queening it among the great people who didn’t know him even by sight, that he has realized that their relative positions have changed a good deal.  You see, little Sarah Hewel, as she used to be, would have been making quite a great match in marrying Peter.  But Lady Tintern’s adopted daughter and heiress—­old Tintern left an immense fortune to his wife, didn’t he?—­is another matter altogether.  And how could she settle down to this humdrum life after all the excitement and gaiety she’s been accustomed to?”

“Women do such things every day.  Besides—­”

“Yes?”

“Is Peter still so much enamoured of a humdrum life?” said John, dryly.

“I have had no opportunity of finding out; but I am sure he will want to settle down quietly when all this is over—­”

“You mean when he’s no longer in love with Sarah?”

“He’s barely one-and-twenty; it can’t last,” said Lady Mary.

“I don’t know.  If she’s so much cleverer than he, I’m inclined to think it may,” said John.

“Oh, of course, if he married her—­it would last,” said Lady Mary.

“And then?” said John, smiling.

“Perhaps then,” said Lady Mary; and she laid her hand softly in the strong hand outstretched to receive it.