Rose MacLeod

								

while? You have been traveling so far. We have noon dinner, you know.
That will seem funny to you. Mary is getting it, but Peter will show you
a room."
Peter found her bag in the wide hall, darkened from the sun, and went
with her up the stairs. At the head she paused and beckoned him to the
window-seat over the front door.
"Set it down there," she said rapidly, touching the bag with a finger.
"Tell me--how did she receive it?"
"What?"
"You know. The news of me."
"She was surprised."
"Naturally. But what else? She was shocked!"
"It was a shock, of course. In its suddenness, you know. You'd expect
that."
She sank down in the window-seat and clasped her hands upon her knees,
looking at them thoughtfully. Her brows were drawn together.
"Yes," she said, "yes. It was a shock. I see that. Well!" She looked up
at him in a challenging directness before which he winced, conscious of
the little he had to meet it with. "When am I to see her?"
"I am not sure when she is to be back."
"Ah! She won't come to me. Very well. I shall go to her." She laid her
hand upon the bag, and rose, as if the interview were ended. Peter
carried the bag in at the open door of her room, and after he had set it
down, looked vaguely about him, as if arrangements might be bettered in
the still, sweet place. She was smiling at him with an irradiating
warmth.
"You're sorry, aren't you?" she said, from a comprehension that seemed a
proffer of vague sympathy. "It makes you feel inhospitable. You needn't.
You're a dear. Your grandmother is lovely--lovely."
Her praise seemed to Peter such a precious fruitage that the only thing,
in delicacy, was to turn away and take it with him to enjoy. But she was
calling him.
"Peter!"
He found her flushed and eagerly expectant, it seemed to him, as if his
news had been uplifting to her. She looked at him, at the room, and
rapidly from the window where the treetops trembled, all in one
comprehensive sweep.
"Peter," she said, with conviction, "it's simply lovely here."
"It's a nice old place," responded Peter. He loved it from long use, but
he was aware of its comfortable plainness.
"I never saw anything so dear. Those square worn tiles down by the front
door, the fireplace, the curtains,--look, Peter, it's dotted muslin."
She touched a moving fold, and Peter laughed outright.
"I like it," he said, "but there's nothing particular about it. If you
want style, why, you'll have to look back at what you've left. When it
comes to that, what's the matter with a château?"
"Yes, yes." She put the château aside with one of her light movements of
the hands. "But here I feel as if I'd come home to something. You see
it's so safe here, Peter. It's so darling, too, so intimate. I can't
tell what I mean. If Electra would only like me--O Peter, I could be
almost happy, as happy as the day is long!" As she said the old phrase,
it seemed to her to fit into the scene. She looked not merely as if