"I'll go back, now you've come, Peter. We were taking our walks abroad. So we met. Good-night! good-night!" It seemed a separate and a different farewell to each of them, and he walked away. Peter stood staring after him, but Rose involuntarily glanced up to heaven to see if the moon, out of her cloud now, would give again the radiant assurance of that other moment. She longed passionately for an instant's meeting even so with the man who had gone. Then an exalted calm possessed her. She and Peter were walking rather fast along the path; he had been talking and she was conscious that she had not heard. Now a name arrested her. "Had you met him before?" he was asking,--"Osmond?" Her old habit of elusive courtesy came back to her. She laughed a little. "We haven't really met now, have we?" she responded pleasantly. "He said he was afraid of you." Peter put it bluntly, out of his curiosity and something else that was not altogether satisfaction. He was not jealous of Osmond. He could not be, more than of a splendid tree; but there was a something in the air he did not understand. He felt himself pushing angrily against it, as if it were a tangible obstruction. "He was afraid of you," he continued blunderingly, "because you are a Parisian." Rose laughed again, with that beguiling gentleness. "But he spoke first, I believe," she explained carelessly. "I was walking along and he asked me where I was going." "What were you talking about?" Peter's voice amazed him, as it did her. It was rough, remonstrating, he realized immediately, like the mood that engendered it. He was shocked at himself and glad she did not answer. Instead, she gave him her hand that he might help her over the low wall. "See," she said, "your grandmother has a light in her room. She is lying in bed reading good books." "Does she read them to you?" "A little word sometimes when I go in to say good-night." "Grannie's a saint." "Yes, and better. She's a beautiful grannie." When they stepped into the hall, Peter, under the stress of his inexplicable feeling, turned to look at her. Instantly the eyes of the man and of the artist agreed in an amazed affirmation. The artist in Peter got the better, and gave him authority. "Wait a minute," he bade her. "Stand there."