ected him
to change. Even the glow of his newly acquired fame was not discernible
behind his well-remembered head. He seemed no older--and no younger. And
he was standing with his hands behind his back gazing in simple, silent
appreciation at the big tapestry nearest the windows.

"Peter," she said, in a low voice.

He turned quickly, and then she saw the glow. But it was the old glow,
not the new--the light m which her early years had been spent.

"What a coincidence!" she exclaimed, as he took her hand.

"Coincidence?"

"It was only this morning that I was reading in the newspaper all sorts
of nice things about you. It made me feel like going out and telling
everybody you were an old friend of mine." Still holding his fingers,
she pushed him away from her at arm's length, and looked at him. "What
does it feel like to be famous, and have editorials about one's self in
the New York newspapers?"

He laughed, and released his hands somewhat abruptly.

"It seems as strange to me, Honora, as it does to you."

"How unkind of you, Peter!" she exclaimed.

She felt his eyes upon her, and their searching, yet kindly and humorous
rays seemed to illuminate chambers within her which she would have kept
in darkness: which she herself did not wish to examine.

"I'm so glad to see you," she said a little breathlessly, flinging her
muff and boa on a chair. "Sit there, where I can look at you, and tell
me why you didn't let me know you were coming to New York."

He glanced a little comically at the gilt and silk arm-chair which she
designated, and then at her; and she smiled and coloured, divining the
humour in his unspoken phrase.

"For a great man," she declared, "you are absurd."

He sat down. In spite of his black clothes and the lounging attitude
he habitually assumed, with his knees crossed--he did not appear
incongruous in a seat that would have harmonized with the flowing
robes of the renowned French Cardinal himself. Honora wondered why. He
impressed her to-day as force--tremendous force in repose, and yet he
was the same Peter. Why was it? Had the clipping that even then lay in
her bosom effected this magic change? He had intimated as much, but she
denied it fiercely.

She rang for tea.

"You haven't told me why you came to New York," she said.

"I was telegraphed for, from Washington, by a Mr. Wing," he explained.

"A Mr. Wing," she repeated. "You don't mean by any chance James Wing?"

"The Mr. Wing," sa