"Good-by again," he called to Rose, with a weaker transcript of his usual manner. "I'm to be down in a few days, you know. Good-by." This time he walked into the car, and she saw him take his seat and lie back against the window-casing. But he recovered himself and smiled, when his eyes met hers. If anything was the matter, she was evidently not to know. XIV As the two had walked away, Peter turned to Electra, stammering forth,-- "Isn't he a great old boy?" He was tremendous, she owned, in language better chosen; and this new community of feeling was restful to her. "Come out into the garden," he said, and as they went along the path to the grape arbor he took her hand and she left it to him. They seemed restored to close relations, as if MacLeod had wrought some spell upon them. By the time they reached the liquid greenness of the arbor light, Peter was sure he loved her. He could turn to her quite passionately. "Electra," he said, holding both her hands now, "I've missed you all these days." She smiled a little and that, with her glowing color, made her splendid. "You have been here every day," she said, conceding him the grace of having done his utmost. "Yes, but it hasn't been right. There's been something between us--something unexplained." She knew, so she reflected, what that was. Rose had been between them. But she listened with an attentive gravity. "We must go back to Paris," Peter was urging. "I shall work there. We will live simply and turn in everything to the Brotherhood. We must be married--dear." He looked direct and manly, not boyish, now, and she felt a sudden pride in him. "Electra, you'll go with me?" She withdrew from him and sat down, indicating the other chair. "Something very queer has happened," she said. "I must tell you about it." It had just come to her again as it had been doing at moments through the absorbing hour at luncheon, that she was in a difficult place with grandmother, and that here was the one creature whom she had the right to count upon. Rapidly she told him the facts of the case, ending with her conclusion,-- "The house belongs to grandmother." Peter was frowning comically. In his effort to think, he looked as if the sun were in his eyes. "I don't believe I understand," he said, and again she told him. "You don't mean you are building all this on a casual sentence in a book?" He frowned the harder. Electra was breathing pleasure at the beauty of the case. "It is not a casual sentence," she insisted. "It's an extract from a letter." Peter had no intimate acquaintance with the business of the world, but he knew its elements. He regarded her with tenderness, as a woman attractively ignorant of harsh details. "But Electra, dear, that isn't legal. It doesn't have the slightest bearing on what you should give or what she could exact from you--if she were that kind."