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
feet. The reins lay loosely, and Electra, who seldom did anything
without a painstaking consciousness, even forgot her driving, and let
her hands relax into an unlawful ease. They might almost tremble, she
was afraid, she felt so undone with some emotion,--disappointment,
anger? She did not know. But she kept her eyes fixed on a spot directly
ahead, and in spite of herself thought turbulently. She could not help
feeling that Peter would be surprised if he knew how he seemed to her
after this return, almost a stranger, and one who awoke in her no desire
for further acquaintance. He was not ministering to her pride in any
way. He was not in the least a person whom she could flaunt at
gatherings of the intellectually worshipful, with any chance of his
doing her credit. She herself had tried to talk art with him, and Peter
grew dumb. She could not guess it was because she did not speak his
language, which had become almost a sign language, touched here and
there with idiom and the rest understood,--a jargon of technicalities,
mostly, it seemed, humorous, he appeared to mean them so lightly. Before
he went abroad, she, who had read exhaustively in art, used to impart
fact and theory to him in a serious fashion, and Peter had humbly
accepted them. But now, when she opened her lips about his darling work
which was so intimate a part of