"You must not do that, Peter," she warned him. "You must not speak of her in that way." "For God's sake, why not, Electra?" "That is not her title. You must not give it to her." He stared at her for a number of seconds, while she met his gaze inflexibly. Then his face broke up, as if a hand had struck it. Light and color came into it, and his mouth trembled. "Electra," he said, "what do you want me to understand?" "You do understand it, Peter," she said quietly. "I can hardly think you will force me to state it explicitly." "You can't mean it! no, you can't. You mustn't imply things, Electra. You imply she was not married to him." Still Electra was looking at him with that high demeanor which, he felt with exasperation, seemed to make great demands upon him of a sort that implied assumptions he must despise. "This is very difficult for me," she was saying, and Peter at once possessed himself of one passive hand. "Of course it is difficult," he cried warmly. "I told her so. I told her everything connected with Tom always was difficult. She knows that as well as we do." "Have you talked him over with her?" The tone was neutral, yet it chilled him. "Good Lord, yes! We've done nothing but talk him over from an outside point of view. When she was deciding whether to come here, whether to write you or just present herself as she has--of course Tom's name came into it. She was Tom's wife, wasn't she? Tom's widow?" "No! no!" said Electra, in a low and vehement denial. "She was not." Peter blazed so that he seemed to tower like a long thin guidepost showing the way to anger. "I said the same thing yesterday." "That was before you saw her. It means more now, infinitely more." "I hope it does." "Think what you're saying, Electra," he said violently, so that she lifted her hand slightly, as if to reprove him. "You refuse to receive her--" "I have received her,--as her father's daughter. I may even do so again." "But not as your sister?" "That would be impossible. You must see it is impossible, feeling as I do." "But how, how? You imply things that dizzy me, and then, when it comes to the pinch, I can't get a sane word out of you." That seemed to him, as to her, an astonishing form of address to an imperial lady, and he added at once, "Forgive me!" But he continued irrepressibly, "Electra, you can't mean you doubt her integrity." She had her counter question:-- "Did you see them married?" "No, no, heavens, no! Why, I didn't come on Tom in Paris until his illness. Tom never had any use for me. You know that. Meantime he'd been there a couple of years, into the mire and out again, and he'd had time to be married to Rose, and she'd had time to leave him." "Ah, she left him! Why?" "Why did you leave him, Electra, before he went over there? Why did you give up living in town, and simply retreat down here? You couldn't stand it. Nobody could. Tom was a bad egg, Electra. I don't need to tell you that."