Grace giggled. She had evidently felt the pressure of a burly arm. “Not so frisky, cop. You 'old too 'ard. I ain't a drunk and disorderly.” Then, taking up the thread of the conversation, “A fine policeman you are! 'Ow could a little boy h'eat Cookie's cushion?” Mr. Somp growled. Peter could imagine how he threw out his hands as he said with all the weight of the noncommittal law, “Ah, there yer are!” “Come h'orf it, dearie. Yer don't know nothing.” Grace tittered. “H'if that's so, h'I'd best be goin'.” Cookie laughed. “Ain't 'e the boy for losin' 'is 'air? And me cookin' 'im a h'om'let? Yer'll 'ave a 'andful ter manage, Grice, when yer marry. 'Is temper's nawsty.” Mr. Somp must have changed his mind at the mention of the omelet, for he postponed his departure. In the dining-room Peter found Glory alone. “Where's Aunt Jehane?” “Mother's got a headache. She's gone to lie down.” Peter took his place on the hearth-rug, his legs apart, his back to the fire, in unconscious imitation of his father. Glory bowed her head, hiding her face, and went on with her darning. Peter watched her. How slight she was! How lonely she looked in the great arm-chair. Then it struck him that she was always working, and that Aunt Jehane very frequently had headaches. “Don't you ever want to play, Glory?” “Oh, yes, I want.” “Why d'you say it like that? Just _I want_.” “Where's the good of wanting?” The head bowed lower. The firelight shone in her hair. Her face was more than ever hidden from him. “But you're such a little girl--a whole year younger than I am. When I want to play I do it.” “Do you?” It was always like that when Peter took notice of Glory--short questions and short answers which led no further. Peter leant over her and stayed her hands. “I don't like to see you work so hard.” “It's sweet to hear you say so, Peter.” He felt something splash and run down his fingers. “I love to hear you say that. But you see, there's no one to care for us now. I've got to do it. I always shall have to do it, more and more.” “Not when I'm a man.” “When you're a man, Peter? What then?” “When I'm a man no one shall be sorry. I'll make people ashamed of prisons and of letting other people be poor. No one shall go hungry. No one shall go unhappy. I'll build happy houses everywhere. And, oh Glory, I'll take all the little children with no shoes on their feet out into the country to where the grass is soft.” She looked up at him with her grave gray eyes--eyes so much older than her years. “When you're a man, Peter, you'll be splendid.” “But I didn't say it to make you say that. I said it because I wanted you to know that there's a day coming when--when instead of making you cry, dear Glory, I'll make you laugh.” “Just me, Peter, all by myself?” She tilted back her head, gazing up at him, so that her hair rippled back across her shoulders and her throat stretched white and long, like a mermaid's looking up through water, Peter thought.