Rose MacLeod

								

other. Osmond spoke. His voice trembled, it seemed with emotion that was
not anger but a fervor for great things.
"I cannot get it through my head. You can do the thing, and it's I that
value it. You can paint pictures and you'd prostitute the thing for
money,--for reputation. If I had it, if I had that gift"--he paused, and
shook his head as if he shook a mane. Peter was looking at him
curiously. This was passion such as he had never seen in any man.
"What would you do, old chap?" he asked.
Osmond was ashamed of his display, but he had to answer.
"I would guard it," he said, "as a man would guard--a woman."
They stood silent, their eyes not meeting now, hardly knowing how to get
away from each other. As if she had been evolved by his mention of
precious womanhood, Electra, in her phaeton, drove swiftly by. They took
off their hats, glad of the break in the moment's tension; but she did
not turn that way.
"Could she be going to see her?" Peter asked in haste.
"To see her?"
"Rose. She mustn't go now. Rose has gone to the orchard with her book."
He started straightway across the field, and met Electra, returning. As
he was standing in the roadway, hat off, smiling most confidently at
her, Electra had no resource but to draw up. Before she fairly knew how
it had come about, he was beside her, and they were in a proximity for
the most intimate converse. Electra felt irritably as if she could not
escape.

VIII

Peter made up his mind to display, at last, all the guile he had; he
would say nothing about Rose. If Electra had attempted to call on her,
she might impart the fact to him or not, as she determined. But Electra
did not wait to be asked. She turned to him with a serious air,
inquiring,--
"When is Miss MacLeod likely to be back?"
"Rose?" Peter countered obstinately. "At dinnertime, surely."
"I shall try to find her then."
Peter felt such an access of gratitude that, as he looked down at the
charmingly gloved hands, holding the reins in the right way, he thought
of conveying his emotion by placing his own hand over them. But their
masterful ease had a message of its own. It seemed almost as if they
might resist. He cast about for something to please her.
"Electra," he began, "I'm going to pitch into work with Osmond."
Electra looked at him over a chin superbly lifted. This was evidently
surprise, but whether disdainful of him or not he could not tell. At any
rate, he felt whimsically miserable under it.
"Osmond works on the farm," she said merely.
Peter inferred some belittling of Osmond, and immediately he was at one
with him and market-gardening.
"I belong to the Brotherhood," he said stiffly. "I don't propose to live
like a bondholder while other fellows are hoeing. I'm going to work."
Still Electra said nothing. She had meant to stop at her own gate and
let Peter leave her, if he would, but she had driven by, and now they
were in a pretty reach of pines, with the needles under the horse's