‘Come and be one, then, dear Maimie,’ he implored her, and they set off for the boat, for it was now very near Open-Gate time. ‘And you are not a bit like a nest,’ he whispered to please her.

‘But I think it is rather nice to be like one,’ she said in a woman’s contradictory way. ‘And, Peter, dear, though I can’t give them my fur, I wouldn’t mind their building in it. Fancy a nest in my neck with little spotty eggs in it! O Peter, how perfectly lovely!’

But as they drew near the Serpentine, she shivered a little, and said, ‘Of course I shall go and see mother often, quite often. It is not as if I was saying good-bye for ever to mother, it is not in the least like that.’

‘Oh no,’ answered Peter, but in his heart he knew it was very like that, and he would have told her so had he not been in a quaking fear of losing her. He was so fond of her, he felt he could not live without her. ‘She will forget her mother in time, and be happy with me,’ he kept saying to himself, and he hurried her on, giving her thimbles by the way.

But even when she had seen the boat and exclaimed ecstatically over its loveliness, she still talked tremblingly about her mother. ‘You know quite well, Peter, don’t you,’ she said, ‘that I wouldn’t come unless I knew for certain I could go back to mother whenever I want to? Peter, say it.’

He said it, but he could no longer look her in the face.

‘If you are sure your mother will always want you,’ he added rather sourly.

‘The idea of mother’s not always wanting me!’ Maimie cried, and her face glistened.

‘If she doesn’t bar you out,’ said Peter huskily.

‘The door,’ replied Maimie, ‘will always, always be open, and mother will always be waiting at it for me.’

‘Then,’ said Peter, not without grimness, ‘step in, if you feel so sure of her,’ and he helped Maimie into the Thrush’s Nest.

‘But why don’t you look at me?’ she asked, taking him by the arm.

Peter tried hard not to look, he tried to push off, then he gave a great gulp and jumped ashore and sat down miserably in the snow.

She went to him. ‘What is it, dear, dear Peter?’ she said, wondering.

‘O Maimie,’ he cried, ‘it isn’t fair to take you with me if you think you can go back! Your mother’—he gulped again—‘you don’t know them as well as I do.’

And then he told her the woeful story of how he had been barred out, and she gasped all the time. ‘But my mother,’ she said, ‘my mother——’

‘Yes, she would,’ said Peter, ‘they are all the same. I dare say she is looking for another one already.’

Maimie said aghast, ‘I can’t believe it. You see, when you went away your mother had none, but my mother has Tony, and surely they are satisfied when they have one.’

Peter replied bitterly, ‘You should see the letters Solomon gets from ladies who have six.’

Just then they heard a grating creak, followed by creak, creak, all round the Gardens. It was the Opening of the Gates, and Peter jumped nervously into his boat. He knew Maimie would not come with him now, and he was trying bravely not to cry. But Maimie was sobbing painfully.

‘If I should be too late,’ she said in agony, ‘O Peter, if she has got another one already!’