"
"No, I mean about my head. I don't care whether or no your mother
hears that I go to the Hands. It's Ena and outside folks I care for,
and them only for Ena's sake. She's so proud! And when she gets home
from France--"
"Not a word to her, I promise. Nor to any one outside. But do you
know, I believe mother would be glad to hear that you sometimes go to
the store? She'd think it was like old times. And she loves the old
times."
"Tell your mother anything you like. She's got a still tongue in her
head." Peter senior gasped out his words with the desperate air of a
man at the end of his tether. "Only go now--go, and let my head rest.
You and I can discuss all these things later. That'll be best for us
both."
Peter junior was silenced, though he thought he knew his father too
well to draw great encouragement from an offer of future discussion.
The old man assuredly did feel ill, and it would have been brutal to
force him into further argument. The only thing was to go now and
attack him again before the sensitive surface of his feelings had had
time thoroughly to harden.
Young Peter and his mother lunched alone together at the stately
English hour of two which Ena had decreed for the household.
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