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Peter Margerison, he sneered a little and wished them both joy, and said good-night rather markedly early. "He won't come back," said Rhoda in Peter's ear when he had gone. "He's gone for good." She sat very still, realising it, and shivered a little. Then, casting off that old chain of the past, she turned on Peter eyes full of tears and affection.
"I rather wanted to sift this business, Margerison, as I had suspected for a good while more than I could prove. So to-day I sent a man to your brother, commissioning him to pretend to be an art-dealer and offer a sum of money for the insertion in 'The Gem' of an appreciative notice of some spurious objects.
Lucy, as usual, laughed at the Urquhart family and the Margerison family and the world at large. When she laughed, she opened her grey eyes wide, while they twinkled with dancing light. Then she said, "Oh, I want to go on the flip-flap. Peter mustn't come, because it always makes him sick; so will you?" Urquhart said he would, so they did, and Peter watched them, hoping Urquhart didn't mind much.
Peter Margerison in?" frostily, giving her no sign of recognition. "He is not, Lord Evelyn," said Peggy, hastily. "That is, he is busy with the baby upstairs. Will I take him a message?" "I shall be glad if you will tell him I have called to see him." "I will, Lord Evelyn. Will you come up to the drawing-room while I get him?"
Urquhart knew, then; he had known from the first. He had known when he said, "I say, you, Margerison, just cut down to the field ..." Not for a moment did it seem at all strange to Peter that Urquhart should have had this knowledge and given no sign till now.
Peter cut along quick, and found the velvet tasselled thing and brought it and hung it up with the care due to a thing so precious as a fifteen cap. The school bell had clanged while he was down on the field, and he was late and had lines. That didn't matter. The thing that had emerged was, Urquhart knew he was Margerison.
"She's dead, you know," broke in Peter hastily, lest Urquhart should make a mistake embarrassing to himself. "A long time ago," he added, again anxious to save embarrassment. "Yes oh yes." Urquhart, from his manner, might or might not have known. "I live with my uncle," Peter further told him, thus delicately and unobstrusively supplying the information that Mr. Margerison too was dead.
"How are you, Peter Margerison? Sit down and talk to me." Peter sat down in the chair beside him. Lord Evelyn said, "I'm quite alone this morning. Denis and Lucy have motored to Genoa. I join them there this afternoon.... You didn't know last night that I saw you." "No," said Peter. "I believed that none of you had seen me. I didn't want you to; so I came away." Lord Evelyn nodded.
And all the time the vivid stare of Jim Cheriton was turned like a search-light on Peter's face, and his odd smile grew and grew. Cheriton was watching, observing, taking in something new, trying to solve some problem. At the end of half an hour Lord Evelyn said, "Peter Margerison, you've lost some of the religious fervour of your youth.
There's nothing else you could have done, all this time." Peter glanced at him quickly, to see what he knew, and saw. Lord Evelyn saw the questioning glance. "Oh, yes, yes, boy. Of course, I knew about you and Lucy. I'm not such a blind fool as I've sometimes been thought in the past eh, Peter Margerison? I always knew you cared for Lucy; and I knew she cared for you.
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