Rose MacLeod

								

But Peter wasn't listening. He was simply pleasing his own creative
self.
"You shouldn't," he offered generously. "You should



    'Sit on a cushion and sew a fine seam,

    And live on ripe strawberries, sugar, and cream.'"
Electra pulled the horse up, and though this was the narrowest bit of
road for a mile, turned, with a masterly hand.
"How under the sun do you do that?" Peter was asking pleasantly. She
interrogated him with a glance, and saw him hunched together in more
general abandon. The happier Peter was in his own thoughts and the
warmer the sun shone on him, the looser his joints became. To Electra he
looked like a vagabond, but she was conscious that if for a moment he
would act the part of a great painter, she would bid him sit up, try to
get him into a proper cravat, and marry him to-morrow. Careless Peter
was quite oblivious to the effect he was creating. He had forgotten
Electra, save as some one possessed of two ears to listen.
"Turn," he pursued. "How can you turn? I never could. I remember I took
you to drive once, ages ago, and I had to keep on in a thunder-shower,
round the five-mile curve, because I didn't dare to let you know I
couldn't cramp the wheel."
Electra remembered the day. Peter was timidly worshipful of her then,
and she had found that quite appropriate in him. She remembered the
lightning, and how satisfied she had been to go round the five-mile
curve, if only to show that she was not timid in a storm. Then it seemed
as if Peter had been unable to forego the delight of having her with
him; but now it appeared that he could absently sit there hugging his
knees and guying the occasion.
"I believe I can cramp the wheel," he was saying sunnily, out of an
absolute content in his limitations. "Only I never can remember which
rein does it. Can you turn either way, Electra, right or left, one just
as well as the other?"
Electra could not answer in that vein.
"Don't!" she said involuntarily.
In some moods Peter had a habit of not waiting for answers.
"It's beyond me how they do those things," he was saying, "drive, ride,
swim. Shouldn't you like to be a fish? I should be mighty proud."
"Shall I leave you here?" asked Electra, drawing up at his gate.
Peter came out of his childish muse. He saw Rose in the garden, and knew
it was better that Electra should find her alone.
"Yes, let me out," he said. "I'll run back and see if Osmond is where I
left him."
Electra also had seen Rose, lying in the long chair under the grape
arbor, and left her carriage at the gate. Rose was in white. A book lay
in her lap, unopened. The idle hands had clasped, and her eyes were
closed. Electra, coming upon her, felt a pang, an inexplicable one, at
her loveliness. It seemed half lassitude, not alone to challenge pity,
but a renewed and poignant interest when she should awake. At Electra's
step her eyes came open slowly, as if there were nothing in that garden
ground to move her. Then with a rush of color to the face, her eyes grew