Was it merely the poise of added years?
Was it that he had ceased to care what women thought of him?
Or was it that his discovery that a girl was lovable had made the sex less terrible to him?
Such were the questions he asked himself as he walked, and he had not answered them when he rang the bell of the old-fashioned, double house on Second Avenue.
He was shown into a large drawing-room, the fittings of which were still shrouded in summer coverings, preventing Peter from inferring much, even if he had had time to do so.

But the butler had scarcely left him when, with a well-bred promptness from which Peter might have drawn an inference, the rustle of a woman's draperies was heard.

Rising, Peter found himself facing a tall, rather slender woman of between thirty-five and forty.

It did not need a second glance from even Peter's untrained eye, to realize the suggestion of breeding in the whole atmosphere about her.

The gown was of the simplest summer material, but its very simplicity, and a certain lack of "latest fashion" rather than "old-fashionedness" gave it a quality of respectability.