He started straightway across the field, and met Electra, returning. As he was standing in the roadway, hat off, smiling most confidently at her, Electra had no resource but to draw up. Before she fairly knew how it had come about, he was beside her, and they were in a proximity for the most intimate converse. Electra felt irritably as if she could not escape. VIII Peter made up his mind to display, at last, all the guile he had; he would say nothing about Rose. If Electra had attempted to call on her, she might impart the fact to him or not, as she determined. But Electra did not wait to be asked. She turned to him with a serious air, inquiring,-- "When is Miss MacLeod likely to be back?" "Rose?" Peter countered obstinately. "At dinnertime, surely." "I shall try to find her then." Peter felt such an access of gratitude that, as he looked down at the charmingly gloved hands, holding the reins in the right way, he thought of conveying his emotion by placing his own hand over them. But their masterful ease had a message of its own. It seemed almost as if they might resist. He cast about for something to please her. "Electra," he began, "I'm going to pitch into work with Osmond." Electra looked at him over a chin superbly lifted. This was evidently surprise, but whether disdainful of him or not he could not tell. At any rate, he felt whimsically miserable under it. "Osmond works on the farm," she said merely. Peter inferred some belittling of Osmond, and immediately he was at one with him and market-gardening. "I belong to the Brotherhood," he said stiffly. "I don't propose to live like a bondholder while other fellows are hoeing. I'm going to work."