ke the gracious lady called to some dignified dismissal.

"I find," she said, "I must have intended to say this for days. We must
give up--what we meant to do."

"You must give me up, Electra?"

"I give you up."

"I came to-day,"--Peter's voice sounded very honest in his endeavor to
show how well he had meant,--"I came to ask you to go back to France. We
would live on a little. We would serve the Brotherhood--the chief says
you have joined already--" Electra bowed her head slightly, still in a
designed remoteness.

"I shall go to France," she said, "later. But I shall never marry you.
That is over. As you said of something else, it is over and done with."

She glanced toward the door, but he kept his place. Peter was conscious
that of all the things he ought to feel, he could not summon one. It did
not seem exactly the woman he had loved who was dismissing him. This was
a handsome and unfriendly stranger, and in the bottom of his heart
surged a sweet new feeling that was like hope and pain.

"Let us not talk any more," she was saying, with that air of extreme
courtesy which still invited him to go.

Peter walked slowly to the door.

"I am wondering"--he hesitated. "Why do you say that, Electra? Why do
you tell me I am in love with her?"

He looked as shy as a girl. It struck her full in the mind that even in
this interview she had no part. She had refused a lover, and he was
going away with his thoughts stirred by another woman.

"I said so," she repeated clearly, "because it is true. You are in love
with her. Good-by."

Peter turned to her with one of his quick movements and held out his
hand. She did not take it.

"Won't you shake hands, Electra?" he asked. "I should think we might be
friends." Honest sorrow moved his voice. Now, at least, he was thinking
of her only.

Electra meant to show no resentment, no pain. But she had to be true.

"I can't," she said, in a low tone. "Good-by."

And Peter, seeing the aversion in her face, not for him, perhaps, but
for the moment, got himself hastily out of the room and into the summer
road. And there, before he had walked three paces, Peter began to sing.
He sang softly, not at all because melody was unfitted to the day, but
as if what inspired it were too intimate a thing to be revealed. He
looked above him, straight ahead, and on every side.

The world was beautiful to him at this moment, and he had a desire to
drink it up, to be as young and as rich as A