So John went to the Hall, and in a burst of confidence after the performance confessed to Peggy his wickedness of the morning, for which he expressed still an unrepentant spirit. Peggy carried him for punishment to the mistletoe and kissed him, struggling and resisting, beneath the bough, to Mr Musgrave's open amusement. He wriggled away from her, and pointing a chubby finger at his uncle commanded her to punish Uncle John too. "But Uncle John doesn't merit punishment," she said, with a bright blush and laughter in her eyes. "That form of punishment is another special privilege, John," Mr Musgrave remarked, with his gaze on Peggy's rosy face. "It is a special privilege which is any man's due," broke in Charlie Sommers, coming up and catching Peggy round the waist and kissing her soundly, "when a girl stands deliberately under the mistletoe." Mr Musgrave, who had witnessed this attack with amazement, turned away with a sense of annoyance at his brother-in-law's bucolic humour. To kiss a woman beneath the mistletoe appeared to him as vulgar as kissing her without that flimsy excuse. He was surprised that Peggy did not show greater resentment at this treatment. Charlie Sommers and Peggy looked at Mr Musgrave's retreating back, and then at one another, and smiled. "You have disgusted Mr Musgrave," she said. "I rather suspect him of jealousy," he replied. "He hadn't spunk enough or he'd have done the same himself." She flushed quickly. "John would never be guilty of impertinence," she returned. "His sins are those of omission," he retorted. "I think John's an ass." "I think he is an eminently discreet and comfortable person," she replied. "I should never feel afraid of mistletoe in his presence." "It appears to me," he observed, eyeing the mistletoe above her head, "that you do not show particular trepidation in regard to the plant in anyone's presence." Peggy received this remark in scornful silence. It is not always the case that a woman enjoys the last word. But later in the afternoon, when John Musgrave was departing and she was wishing him good-bye, standing beneath the identical branch of mistletoe in the big dim hall, she saw his eyes travel to the bough and then to her lips, and she stood looking at him, smiling and ironical. John Musgrave might be an eminently discreet and comfortable person, but he was not without certain human weaknesses. "The druids regarded it as a sacred plant," he remarked, feeling constrained to say something on observing her gaze follow his. "Did they? They were rather musty old people, weren't they?" "I think," he returned, "that perhaps I am a little musty too."