"Perhaps," replied Peter, who remained thoughtful. "You have a way of putting things, Madame Ribot," he added, with another smile. "You build in the joy of building; and with you, I should think that it was the joy of giving, too. It was easy to see when he was at Mervaux how devoted Phil was to you. He was always speaking of you." "Was he?" Peter inquired eagerly. "Was he?" he repeated, with a touch of surprise in his tone. "But it was admiration for you as a man, while it was clear that he meant to make his own way. How fond I became of him! How chivalrous he was to Henriette! How brave he had been! And now they say he will quite recover. I hope so, for his sake." "He will!" replied Peter. Tap-tap on the hassock! Soft, inaudible tap-tap! "It's like some fairy tale, his story, isn't it?" she murmured; "his and yours. I can understand your happiness in seeing him make good, as you say in America, where you are giving the sturdy English language something of French piquancy, and your happiness in having him for your heir. It was as if you had found a son." "He has not been told yet," Peter said quickly. The shoe pressed down nervously on the hassock in the interval before Peter, as he looked around at her again, added, almost sharply: "I am going to tell him myself when the time comes." "And without his expecting it--that all is going to him?" she asked, quite casually. "Yes. I've given my word," Peter replied. "All to be his to do with as he pleases when I'm gone--all except,--you see," again he looked around and Madame Ribot's lashes flickered, so steady was his glance, "you see, I believe in men or I don't. I back them or I don't, and I'm backing Phil, his character, his judgment--all except----" he paused, still looking at her. It was not caressing time for the hassock. "All except some bequests of a few hundred thousand. And I guess," drily, "that Phil won't mind. He might waste it himself keeping up that farm if I don't waste it for him first." He chuckled as he thought of the farm. Tap-tap went the shoe on the hassock in a riot of reassurance. "How I should like to see your farm!" she murmured. "Perhaps you will. I'd like to show you around," said Peter. "Delightful! Henriette feels that she already knows it and Longfield." Longfield was near Lenox and there were delightful people at Lenox. In case that she and Henriette went to the Berkshires they might not find it altogether a bore. "The American in Henriette's blood is coming out," remarked Peter. "She resembles you very much; only," Peter smiled a little embarrassedly, "you seem too young to be her mother." "Do I? I----" Madame Ribot flushed and looked down. Possibly it is not the male sex alone that likes it thick. "Yes. I could hardly believe it at first," he added, with simple candour.