her so?"

Tears came slowly into Electra's eyes. They surprised her as much as
they did him. She was not used to crying, and she held them from
falling, with a proud restraint. Electra felt very lonely at that moment
in a world which would not understand. She was upholding truth and
justice, and she was accused of mean personal motives. She had proposed
a picturesque sacrifice for the sake of abstract right, and she could
not be unconscious that the act ought to look rather beautiful. Yet
Peter saw no beauty in it, and grandmother had called her a fool. Peter,
seeing the tears, was enormously embarrassed by them. He could only kiss
her hand in great humility. He, on his part, put justice cheerfully
aside.

"How could I?" he murmured, with the contrition of the male who has
learned that tears are to be stanched without delay. "How could I?" But
Electra, on her feet, had drawn her hand away from him. She felt only
haste, haste to conclude her abnegation, perhaps even to forestall any
question of the house by getting the matter out of her hands before
MacLeod came back and she had to reckon with his testimony.

"I am not crying," she said proudly. "I must go and talk to grandmother.
Promise me this. Don't tell her"--she hesitated.

"Rose?"

"Don't tell her I have spoken of this."

She had gone, and Peter helplessly watched her walking up the path. Then
he took his own way home. "My stars!" he muttered from time to time. His
chief desire at the moment was to escape from anything so strenuous as
Electra's moral life. It made a general and warm-hearted obliquity the
only possible condition of conduct in a pretty world. Peter looked round
at it admiringly then, as the shadow of Electra's earnestness withdrew
into the distance. It was such a darling world, there were such dear
shadows and beguiling lights and all things adorable to paint. He cast
off the mood that teased him, and walking faster, began to whistle. It
seemed to him that there were so many agreeable deeds to do, and so much
time to do them in, that he must simply bestir himself to use half the
richness of things. But when he got into the garden, the honeysuckle
smelled so sweet that he sat down at its foot and breathed it until he
went to sleep.

Electra walked into the library, where Madam Fulton sat at her tatting
and Billy Stark read aloud to her from an idle book. Electra felt that
she could not possibly delay. All her affairs must be settled at once