“You mean about your going to the Hands?  She knows about the girl.”

“No, I mean about my head.  I don’t care whether or no your mother hears that I go to the Hands.  It’s Ena and outside folks I care for, and them only for Ena’s sake.  She’s so proud!  And when she gets home from France—­”

“Not a word to her, I promise.  Nor to any one outside.  But do you know, I believe mother would be glad to hear that you sometimes go to the store?  She’d think it was like old times.  And she loves the old times.”

“Tell your mother anything you like.  She’s got a still tongue in her head.”  Peter senior gasped out his words with the desperate air of a man at the end of his tether.  “Only go now—­go, and let my head rest.  You and I can discuss all these things later.  That’ll be best for us both.”

Peter junior was silenced, though he thought he knew his father too well to draw great encouragement from an offer of future discussion.  The old man assuredly did feel ill, and it would have been brutal to force him into further argument.  The only thing was to go now and attack him again before the sensitive surface of his feelings had had time thoroughly to harden.

Young Peter and his mother lunched alone together at the stately English hour of two which Ena had decreed for the household.  Old Peter had ordered a cup of hot milk and had sent word that, his indigestion being rather worse than usual, he intended to spend the afternoon lying down.  This had often happened before, and mother, though distressed, was not alarmed.

She would not have admitted it in words to herself, but she was happy in her tete-a-tete with Petro.  He had his place moved near hers.  They dared to dismiss the dignified servants and help themselves to what they wanted.  Or, rather, Petro jumped up and helped her, whether she wanted things or not.  They talked about Miss Child, and Petro related his adventure at the Hands, which he had not, until the luncheon hour, been able to describe in detail.

He told his mother again, several times over, how wonderful Win was, and mother was not bored.  She listened with a rapt smile, especially to the part about the fire in the hospital room and the girl’s quick presence of mind, Win having refused to confess how she had hurt her hands, Petro had used the influence of his name to find out tactfully from another source, all that had happened.  And he made quite a good story out of it for his mother.  The latter promised gladly to go and see Miss Child and to wear the pearl-gray wrap, which she thought very pretty, reflecting marvellous credit on the taste of the chooser.

Petro did not touch upon Miss Child’s indictment of the Hands.  It seemed unnecessary to distress mother just when she was interested and even delighted (not at all shocked or startled) at having father’s secret broken to her.

“It’s more natural,” she said, “that he should take an interest in the Hands.  More like he used to be.  I often wondered—–­”