venings and sat in the sitting-room and drank coffee (the only thing
that was well cooked in Peggy's household), and talked to Hilary, and
looked at Rhoda. Rhoda, embroidering apple-boughs on a green dress-front,
shivered and trembled under his eyes.

"Now I know," thought Peter, seeing Vyvian look, "what villains in books
are really like. Vyvian is just like one; specially about the eyes." He
was sitting near Rhoda, playing that sort of patience called calcul,
distinguished from other patiences by the fact that it comes out; that
was why Peter liked it. He had refused to-night to join in the game the
others were playing, which was animal grab, though usually he enjoyed
it very much. Peter liked games, though he seldom won them. But this
evening he played patience by himself and sat by Rhoda and consulted her
at crucial moments, and babbled of many things and knew whenever Vyvian
looked and Rhoda shook. At half-past nine Vyvian stopped talking to
Hilary and crossed the room and took the arm-chair on Rhoda's other side.

"Enthralling evenings you spend here," he remarked, including in his
glance Rhoda's embroidery, Peter's patience, and the animal grab table,
from which cheerfully matter-of-fact farmyard and jungle cries proceeded
with spirit.

Rhoda said nothing. Her head was bent over her work. The next moment she
pricked her finger violently, and started. Before she could get her
handkerchief out, Vyvian had his, and was enveloping her small hand in
it.

"Too bad," he said, in a voice so low that the farmyard cries drowned it
as far as Peter was concerned. "Poor little finger." He held it and the
handkerchief closely in his two hands.

Rhoda, her colour flooding and ebbing over her thin face and thin neck
down to the insertion yoke of her evening blouse, trembled like a
captured bird. Her eyes fell from his look; a bold, bad look Peter
thought, finding literary terminology appropriate.

The next moment the little table on which Peter was playing toppled over
onto the floor with a small crash, and all his cards were scattered on
the carpet.

Rhoda started and looked round, pulling her hand away as if a spell was
broken.

"Dear me," said Peter regretfully, "it was just on coming out, too. I
shan't try again to-night; it's not my night, obviously." He was picking
up the cards. Rhoda watched him silently.

"Do you know calcul, Mr. Vyvian?" Peter enquired, collecting scattered
portions of the pack from under the