After that I was so anxious to prove I trusted you all right, that I
hurried to promise before I'd stopped to think. Since then I've been
made to think--furiously to think--and---"
"I was brought up to believe there was _no_ excuse for breaking a
promise," Peter senior cut him short severely. There was Petro's
chance to score, and--right or wrong--he took it.
"Then things have changed since the days when you were being brought
up," he said, with one of those straight, clear looks old Peter had
always disliked as between son and father. "Because, you know you
promised Ena you would give up going to the store except for important
business meetings once or twice a year. And you haven't given it up.
You go there nearly every night."
Peter senior physically quailed. His great secret was found out! No
use to bluster. Somehow young Peter had got hold of the long-hidden
truth. He was, in a way, at the fellow's mercy. If Petro chose to tell
Ena this thing she would fancy that every one except the family knew
how old Peter's grubbing habits had never been shaken off; that with
him once a shopkeeper, always a shopkeeper, and that behind her back
people must be laughing at the difference between her aristocratic
airs and her father's commonness.
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