Hemingway, to whom this confidence was given, chuckled. It amused him to watch his wife's wild goose putting on native swan feathers. Yet it pleased him, for he knew the boy appealed to her romantic as well as to her maternal instinct. She handled him skilfully, and it was she who passed upon his invitations. She wished him to meet clever and brilliant men and women; and at times she left him in the hands of young girls, pink-and-white visions who troubled as well as interested him. He felt that he was really meeting them under false pretenses. Their youth called to his, but he might not answer. Between him and youth stood that unloved and unlovely girl in America. Mrs. Hemingway watched him with the eyes of the woman who has a young man upon her hands. His reactions to his contacts interested her immensely. His worldly education was progressing with entire satisfaction to her. "I want him to marry an English wife," she confided to her husband. They were to leave for Paris that night, and she was summing up the results of his stay in London, the balance being altogether in his favor. "A well-bred, normal English girl with good connections, a girl entirely untroubled by temperament, who will love him tenderly, look out for his physical well-being, and fill his house with healthy children, is exactly what Peter Champneys needs. And the sooner it happens to him the better. Peter has a lonely soul. It shouldn't be allowed to become chronic." Hemingway looked at her apprehensively. "Sounds to me as if you were trying to make Peter pick a peck of pickled peppers," he commented. And Peter coming in at this opportune moment, he grinned at the boy cheerfully. "Peter," he smiled, "the sweet chime of merry wedding-bells in the distance falls softly on mine ear; my wife thinks you should be altar-broke. Charming domestic interior, happy fireside clime, flag of our union fluttering from the patent clothes-line! Futurist painting of Young Artist Pushing a Pram! Don't look at me with such an agonized expression of the ears, Peter!" But Peter had no answering smile. His face had changed, and there was that in his eyes which gave Hemingway pause. "Why, old chap, I was merely joking!" he began, with real concern. "Peter!" said the woman, softly. "You have had--a disappointment? But, my dear boy, you are so _very_ young. Don't take it too much to heart, Peter. At your age nothing is final, really." And she smiled at him. A flush suffused the young man's forehead. He felt shamed and miserable. He _couldn't_ flaunt his price-tag before these unbuyable souls whose beautiful and true marriage was based upon love, and sympathy, and mutual ideals! He _couldn't_ rattle his chains, or explain Anne Champneys. He couldn't, indeed, force himself to speak of her at all. The thing was bad enough, but to talk about it--No! He lifted troubled eyes.