"Oh, Alix is quite right!" he answered, lightly. "I ought to have
said--I ought to explain--that I had told her, only a few days
previously, that I had always loved somebody else!"

"Oh-h-h!" Cherry was enlightened. She visualized an affair in the
last years of the old century for Peter.

"Oh, and--and she didn't love you?" Cherry asked.

"The lady? She was unfortunately married before I had a chance to
ask her," said Peter.

"Oh-h-h!" Cherry said again, impressed, "and you'll never get over
it?" she asked, timidly. "Peter, I never knew that!" she added as
he was silent. "Does--does Dad know?"

"Nobody knows but Alix, and she only knows the bare facts," he
assured her.

"Oh!" Cherry could think of nothing to add to the sympathetic
little monosyllable. Twilight was reaching even the hilltop, the
canyons were rilling with violet shadows; the sweet, pungent odour
of the first dew, falling on warm dust, crept across the garden.

"Finished with the shower!" shrieked Alix from the warm darkness
inside the doorway. "Hurry up, Peter, something smells utterly
grand!"

"That's the chicken thing!" Peter shouted back, springing up to
disappear in the direction of the bathroom. Cherry sat on, silent,