"We will go into the summer-house," said the eager voice. "That is where I always think of you. You remember, don't you?" He had kept her hand, and, like two children, they went along the broad walk and into the summer-house, where there was a green flicker of light from the vines. There was one chair, a rustic one, and Peter drew it forward for her. When she had seated herself, he sat down on the bench of the arbor close by, and, lifting her hand, kissed it again. "Do you remember the knock-kneed poem I wrote you, Electra?" he asked her. "I called it 'My Imperial Lady.' I thought of it the minute I saw you standing there. My imperial lady!" The current was too fast for her. She could not manage large, impetuous things like flaming words that hurtled at her and seemed to ask a like exchange--something strong and steady in her to meet them in mid-air and keep them from too swift an impact. His praise had always been like the warriors' shields clanging over poor Tarpeia,--precious, but too crushing. They disconcerted her. If she could not manage to escape after the first blow, she guessed how they might bruise. "When did you come?" she asked. Peter did not answer. He was still looking at her with those wonderful eyes that always seemed to her too compelling for happy intercourse. "Electra," he said, and stopped. She had to answer him. There must be some heavy thing to break to her, which he felt unequal to the task of telling unless she helped him. "Electra," he said again, "I didn't come alone. Some one came with me. I wrote you about Tom." Electra drew her hand away, and sat up straight and chilled. There had been few moments of her grown-up life, it seemed to her, unspoiled by Tom, her recreant brother. In the tumultuous steeple chase of his existence he had brought her nothing but mortification. In his death, he was at least marring this first moment of her lover's advent. "You wrote me everything," she said. The tone should have discouraged him. "You were with him at the last. He knew you. I gather he didn't send any messages to us, or you would have given them." "He did, Electra." "He sent a message?" "I simply couldn't write it, because I knew I should be home so soon. It was about his wife. He begged you to be kind to her." "His wife! Tom was not married." "He was married, Electra, to a very beautiful girl. I have brought her home with me." Electra was upon her feet. Her face had lost its cold sweet pallor. The scarlet of hot blood was upon it, a swift response to what seemed outrage at his hands. "I have never--" she gasped. "It is not true." Peter, too, had risen. He was looking at her rather wistfully. His imperial lady had, in that instant, lost her untouched calm. She was breathing ire. "Ah, don't say that," he pleaded. "You never saw her." "I can't help it. I feel it. She is an adventuress." "Electra!" "What did he say to you? What did Tom say?"