Rose MacLeod

								

"No, I must be back. I feel responsible for her--Rose. I brought her
over. In fact, I rather urged her coming. Grannie has asked her to stay
with us until Electra is--at home."
"Is her name Rose?"
"Yes--one of those creamy yellow ones. You must see her. She's a dear.
She's a beauty, too."
"Oh, I've seen her,--one ear and a section of cheek and some yellow
hair. Then I ran."
"For heaven's sake, man! what for?"
"She's one of those invincible Parisians. I've read about them."
Peter burst out laughing. Osmond's tone betrayed a terrified admiration.
"Do you eat down here with the men?" Peter was asking.
"Sometimes. I go up and eat with grannie once a day while she's alone. I
shan't now."
"Why not?"
"You'll be here to keep her company, you and your Parisian. I've got to
go on being a wild man, Pete. I shan't save my soul alive if I don't do
that."
Peter put out a hand and laid it, for an instant, on his brother's arm.
"I don't know anything about your soul, old man," he said, with a moving
roughness. "But if you like this kind of a life, you're going to have
it, that's all. Who cooks the dinner?"
"Pierre. He came just after you went to France. There's a pot-au-feu
to-day. I smelled it when I went by the kitchen. It's a good life,
Pete,--if you don't want to play the game." His eyes grew wistful,
something like the eyes of the dog that longs for man.
"If you don't play the game, I don't know who does."
"Well!" Osmond smiled a little, whimsically. "Maybe I do; but I play
with counters."
Peter was not especially ready, save with a brush in his hand. He wanted
to say something to the effect that Osmond was playing the biggest of
all games, with the visible universe against him; but he hardly knew how
to put it. It seemed, though, as if he might some time paint it into a
picture. But Osmond was recognizing the danger of soft implication, and
bluffly turned the talk.
"Well, Pete, you've done it, haven't you?"
There was no possibility of affecting to misunderstand. Peter knew what
he had gone to Paris for, five years ago, and why Osmond had been
sending him the steady proceeds of the garden farm. He was to prove
himself, take his talent in his hand and mould it and turn it about with
a constant will, and shape a cup to hold the drink that makes the gods
jealous and men delirious with adulation. Peter was to live at his ease
in Paris, sparing nothing that would keep him well and strong of heart,
so that he could paint the best portraits in the world. Peter knew he
had begun to paint the best portraits in the world, because he had done
many good ones and one actual marvel, and suddenly, as it sometimes is
in art after we have been patient and discouraged, the whole task seemed
to him a light and easy one. In his extraordinary youth he had the
freshness of his brain, his quick eye and obedient hand, and he felt,
lightly and gayly, that he was rich,--but rich in a world where there