Peter gave one long look at Martin and Cherry, who stood laughing,
but a little confused and self-conscious, too, in the grassy path.
With a shock like death in his heart, he realized that it was all
over. Their protection of her, their suspicions, had come too
late. Blind child that she was, she was committed to this
fascinating and mysterious adventure.

His face grew dark with a sudden rush of blood. "Peter hates to
have any one else know a thing before he does!" Alix explained
this later. But he went to them quickly, and shook hands with
Martin, and was presently reproaching Cherry for her secretiveness
in his old, or almost his old, way.

"Of course nobody's to know--Dad insisted on that!" said Cherry's
soft, proud little voice.

"Did you suspect yesterday, Peter?" Alix asked, tasting the sauce,
and bunching her fingers immediately afterward to send a rapturous
kiss into the air as an indication of its deliciousness.
"Yesterday when they went off after the tree, I mean?"

"I had my own suspicions!" he returned, and Cherry--his little,
gay, lovely Cherry!--laughed happily. He arranged that they were
to play the tennis here on his own courts, and later dine with
him, but under his hospitality and under the golden beauty of the
day it was all pain--pain--pain. It was agony to see her with him,
beginning to taste the rapture of love given and returned; it was
agony to have the conversation return always to Martin and Cherry,
to the first love affair. When they wandered away to the brook,
and stood talking, the girl's head dropped, her cheek flushed, but