Page:Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens (1912, Hodder & Stoughton).djvu/313

 ‘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