," he said, "but there's nothing particular about it. If you
want style, why, you'll have to look back at what you've left. When it
comes to that, what's the matter with a chateau?"

"Yes, yes." She put the chateau aside with one of her light movements of
the hands. "But here I feel as if I'd come home to something. You see
it's so safe here, Peter. It's so darling, too, so intimate. I can't
tell what I mean. If Electra would only like me--O Peter, I could be
almost happy, as happy as the day is long!" As she said the old phrase,
it seemed to her to fit into the scene. She looked not merely as if
happiness awaited her, but as if she could almost put her eager finger
on it. And there was Electra, not so many rods away, drawbridge up and
portcullis down, inquiring, "Is she a grisette?" Afterwards it seemed to
Peter as if his sympathy for the distressed lady went to his head a
little, for he lifted her hand and kissed it. But he did not speak, save
to himself, going down the stairs:--

"It's a damned shame!"

When he went out on the veranda, grannie made a smiling comment:--

"What a pretty child! Tom Fulton did well. He was a bad boy, wasn't he,
Peter?"

"Yes, grannie," said Peter, from the veranda rail where he sat picking
rose leaves, "Tom was about the limit."

"Well! well! poor girl. Maybe it's as well he went while she knew only
the best of him."

Peter was not sure she did know only the best, but he inquired,--

"Shall I have time to run down and see Osmond before dinner?"

"You'd better. He was here waiting when the carriage came. When he saw
her, he slipped away."

"Rose?"

"Rose? Is that her name? Now isn't that pretty! Maybe you'll find him
before you get to the plantation. I shouldn't wonder if he'd think it
over and come back."

Peter did meet him in the lane lined with locusts on each side, walking
doggedly back to the house. Some things the younger brother had
forgotten about him, the beauty of the dark face that looked as if it
had been cut out of rock, the extraordinary signs of strength, in spite
of that which might have appealed to pity. Osmond had grown rugged with
every year. His long arms, ending in the brown, supple hands, looked as
if they were compact of sinewy potencies. And on his shoulders, heavier
than Christian's burden, was that pack he must carry to the end of life.
He saw his brother coming, and stopped, and Peter, as if to save him the
sense of being looked at from afar, eve