comfort,
was pottering on in his kindly optimism, throwing himself into the
breach, and dribbling words like rain. He talked of Paris and
continental life in general. Rose had been everywhere. She spoke of
traveling with her father on his missions from court to court. When
MacLeod's name recurred upon her lips, Electra, who presided, still and
pale, roused momentarily into some show of interest. But Rose would not
be led along that road. For some reason she refused to speak freely of
her father. At a question, her lovely lips would fix themselves in a
straight line. Back in the library again, she seated herself
persistently by Madam Fulton, like a dog who has at last discovered the
person friendliest to him.

"Run away, Billy, if you like," said the old lady indulgently. "You want
your cigar on the veranda. I know you."

Billy was going, in humorous deprecation, when there was a running step
along the veranda, and Peter came in with a bound. And what a Peter! He
looked like a runner--not a spent one, either--with the news of victory.
It was in his face, his flushed cheeks and flaming eyes, but chiefly in
the air he brought with him--all tension and immoderate joy. Electra
held her hands tight together and looked at him. Rose got half out of
her chair. In those days when she thought continually of her own
affairs, it seemed to her that nothing could be so important unless it
had to do with her. Billy Stark by the door waited, and it was Madam
Fulton who spoke, irritated at the vague excitement.

"For heaven's sake, Peter, what's the matter?"

He addressed himself at once to Rose.

"I have heard from him. I have had a letter."

"From him!" She was out of her chair and facing him. For the moment,
with that hidden communion with Osmond hot in her heart and sharp in her
ears, she had almost cried, "Osmond!" But he went on,--

"I have heard from your father."

Instantly the blood was out of her face. Billy Stark wondered at the
aging grayness, and reflected curiously that youth is not only a
question of flesh and blood but of the merry soul. Peter could not
contain his pleasure. He cried out irrepressibly, like the herald beside
himself with news,--

"He is coming here!"

"Here!" Rose made one step to lay her hand upon a little cabinet, and
stood supporting herself. Electra, who caught the movement, looked at
her curiously. Her own enormous interest in Peter's news seemed to merge
itself in watchful comment on th