wrapped still in the new spell of the pleasant voice, the
strangely appealing and yet masterful personality.

The dinner straggled as all Peter's dinners did; Alix mixed a
salad-dressing; Peter himself flashed in and out of the tiny, hot
kitchen a hundred times. Kow, in immaculate linen, came back and
forth in leisurely table-setting. Suddenly everything was ready;
the crisp, smoking-hot French loaf, the big, brown jar of bubbling
and odorous chicken, the lettuce curled in its bowl, the long-
necked bottles in their straw cases, and cheeses and crackers and
olives and figs and tiny fish in oil and marrons in fluted paper
that were a part of all Peter's dinners.

After dinner they watched the moon rise, until Alix drifted in to
the piano and Peter followed her, and the others came in, too, to
sit beside the fire. As usual it was midnight before any one
thought of ending one of Peter's evenings.

And all through the pleasant, quiet hours, and when he bundled
them up in his own big loose coats to drive them home, Cherry was
thinking of him in this new light; Peter loving a woman, and
denied. The knowledge seemed to fling a strange glamour about him;
she saw new charm in him, or perhaps, as she told herself, she saw
for the first time how charming he really was. His speech seemed
actually the pleasanter for the stammer at which they had all
laughed years ago; the slight limp lent its own touch of
individuality, and the man's blunt criticisms of books and music,
politics and people, were softened by his humour, his genuine
humility, and his eager hospitality.