Rose MacLeod Part 32

XIV

As the two had walked away, Peter turned to Electra, stammering forth,--

"Isn't he a great old boy?"

He was tremendous, she owned, in language better chosen; and this new community of feeling was restful to her.

"Come out into the garden," he said, and as they went along the path to the grape arbor he took her hand and she left it to him. They seemed restored to close relations, as if MacLeod had wrought some spell upon them. By the time they reached the liquid greenness of the arbor light, Peter was sure he loved her. He could turn to her quite pa.s.sionately.

"Electra," he said, holding both her hands now, "I've missed you all these days."

She smiled a little and that, with her glowing color, made her splendid.

"You have been here every day," she said, conceding him the grace of having done his utmost.

"Yes, but it hasn't been right. There's been something between us--something unexplained."

She knew, so she reflected, what that was. Rose had been between them.

But she listened with an attentive gravity.

"We must go back to Paris," Peter was urging. "I shall work there. We will live simply and turn in everything to the Brotherhood. We must be married--dear." He looked direct and manly, not boyish, now, and she felt a sudden pride in him. "Electra, you'll go with me?"

She withdrew from him and sat down, indicating the other chair.

"Something very queer has happened," she said. "I must tell you about it." It had just come to her again as it had been doing at moments through the absorbing hour at luncheon, that she was in a difficult place with grandmother, and that here was the one creature whom she had the right to count upon. Rapidly she told him the facts of the case, ending with her conclusion,--

"The house belongs to grandmother."

Peter was frowning comically. In his effort to think, he looked as if the sun were in his eyes.

"I don't believe I understand," he said, and again she told him.

"You don't mean you are building all this on a casual sentence in a book?" He frowned the harder.

Electra was breathing pleasure at the beauty of the case.

"It is not a casual sentence," she insisted. "It's an extract from a letter."

Peter had no intimate acquaintance with the business of the world, but he knew its elements. He regarded her with tenderness, as a woman attractively ignorant of harsh details.

"But Electra, dear, that isn't legal. It doesn't have the slightest bearing on what you should give or what she could exact from you--if she were that kind."

"No," she said, "it isn't legal. But it is--ethical." She used the large word with a sense of safety, loving the sound of it and conscious that Peter would not choke her off.

"But it isn't that. You don't know how your grandfather wrote that letter. He may have done it in a fit of temper, or malice, or carelessness, or a dozen things, and forgotten it next day. A letter's the idlest thing on earth. There's no reason for your considering it a minute."

"I am bound to consider it," said Electra. "There it is, in black and white. I shall make over the place to grandmother."

"Well!" Peter felt like whistling, and then unpursed his lips because, according to Electra, whistling was not polite. He had no restrictions relative to her giving away her property; but he felt very seriously that she must not be allowed to indulge herself in any form of insanity, however picturesque. A detail occurred to him, and he said quickly, with a look at her,--

"But Electra, you and Tom inherited this place together."

She knew what was coming and her color deepened. Again Rose had stepped between them, and Electra felt herself back in their old atmosphere of constraint.

"I have inherited it from Tom," she rejoined.

"You ignore his wife?"

Electra was silent for a long time. It was a hard struggle. But she spoke at last and in a tone which made the difficulty of speech apparent.

"Since Mr. MacLeod has been here--"

"Well?"

"I must recognize her as his daughter."

"Didn't you believe that, Electra? Not even that?"

"I am forced to believe it now. When he comes back, I shall ask him to corroborate her story. If he does--I shall be obliged to--give her what is just."

"Not otherwise, Electra? You believe him."

"I believe him implicitly." Her tone rang out in an astonis.h.i.+ng a.s.surance. She might have been pledging fealty to some adored intimate.

"You believe him. You would not believe me?"

She hedged a little here. "You gave me no proof--only the woman's word."

"Would you believe him without proof?"

She was silent, yet she knew she must.

"But," she said, with the haste of finis.h.i.+ng an unwelcome subject, "I shall settle the matter as soon as possible after he comes back. If he tells me his daughter was married to my brother, she shall be paid every cent she is ent.i.tled to. But she shall not share this house--not an inch of it."

"Why not?"

Electra seemed to be carried on by a wave. Hurt pride found its voice,--all the revulsion she had felt in these days of Peter's divided allegiance.

"The house is ours. It belongs to the family. I shall make it over to grandmother, but not to that girl. She shall never own a timber in it."

Peter spoke involuntarily, with an unpremeditated wonder:--

"What makes you hate her so?"