"Perhaps," he suggested, still thinking of Cherry, "that's the
trouble!"

She gave him a quick, almost frightened look.

"The--the trouble?" she stammered. And with a little ashamed laugh
she added, "What trouble?"

For a long time he looked at her in silence, at first puzzled,
gradually fitting meaning and interpretation to his words and her
own. Presently their eyes met, and with her little gruff boyish
laugh she came over to the low seat at his knee.

"You see that there is something just a little wrong, then?" she
asked.

"Between you and me, Alix?" he questioned in return, his fine hand
tight upon hers, and his affectionate, brotherly look searching
her face.

"Well, don't you, Peter?" she countered.

"I hadn't noticed anything, my dear, except that you are making a
lonely, solitary man a very happy one," he answered, with his
grave smile.

"But that--" she contended, with scarlet cheeks, but bravely "--
that isn't marriage!"