Rose MacLeod. Alice Brown

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СКАЧАТЬ clasped her hands upon her knees, looking at them thoughtfully. Her brows were drawn together.

      "Yes," she said, "yes. It was a shock. I see that. Well!" She looked up at him in a challenging directness before which he winced, conscious of the little he had to meet it with. "When am I to see her?"

      "I am not sure when she is to be back."

      "Ah! She won't come to me. Very well. I shall go to her." She laid her hand upon the bag, and rose, as if the interview were ended. Peter carried the bag in at the open door of her room, and after he had set it down, looked vaguely about him, as if arrangements might be bettered in the still, sweet place. She was smiling at him with an irradiating warmth.

      "You're sorry, aren't you?" she said, from a comprehension that seemed a proffer of vague sympathy. "It makes you feel inhospitable. You needn't. You're a dear. Your grandmother is lovely—lovely."

      Her praise seemed to Peter such a precious fruitage that the only thing, in delicacy, was to turn away and take it with him to enjoy. But she was calling him.

      "Peter!"

      He found her flushed and eagerly expectant, it seemed to him, as if his news had been uplifting to her. She looked at him, at the room, and rapidly from the window where the treetops trembled, all in one comprehensive sweep.

      "Peter," she said, with conviction, "it's simply lovely here."

      "It's a nice old place," responded Peter. He loved it from long use, but he was aware of its comfortable plainness.

      "I never saw anything so dear. Those square worn tiles down by the front door, the fireplace, the curtains,—look, Peter, it's dotted muslin." She touched a moving fold, and Peter laughed outright.

      "I like it," he said, "but there's nothing particular about it. If you want style, why, you'll have to look back at what you've left. When it comes to that, what's the matter with a château?"

      "Yes, yes." She put the château aside with one of her light movements of the hands. "But here I feel as if I'd come home to something. You see it's so safe here, Peter. It's so darling, too, so intimate. I can't tell what I mean. If Electra would only like me—O Peter, I could be almost happy, as happy as the day is long!" As she said the old phrase, it seemed to her to fit into the scene. She looked not merely as if happiness awaited her, but as if she could almost put her eager finger on it. And there was Electra, not so many rods away, drawbridge up and portcullis down, inquiring, "Is she a grisette?" Afterwards it seemed to Peter as if his sympathy for the distressed lady went to his head a little, for he lifted her hand and kissed it. But he did not speak, save to himself, going down the stairs:—

      "It's a damned shame!"

      When he went out on the veranda, grannie made a smiling comment:—

      "What a pretty child! Tom Fulton did well. He was a bad boy, wasn't he, Peter?"

      "Yes, grannie," said Peter, from the veranda rail where he sat picking rose leaves, "Tom was about the limit."

      "Well! well! poor girl. Maybe it's as well he went while she knew only the best of him."

      Peter was not sure she did know only the best, but he inquired,—

      "Shall I have time to run down and see Osmond before dinner?"

      "You'd better. He was here waiting when the carriage came. When he saw her, he slipped away."

      "Rose?"

      "Rose? Is that her name? Now isn't that pretty! Maybe you'll find him before you get to the plantation. I shouldn't wonder if he'd think it over and come back."

      Peter did meet him in the lane lined with locusts on each side, walking doggedly back to the house. Some things the younger brother had forgotten about him, the beauty of the dark face that looked as if it had been cut out of rock, the extraordinary signs of strength, in spite of that which might have appealed to pity. Osmond had grown rugged with every year. His long arms, ending in the brown, supple hands, looked as if they were compact of sinewy potencies. And on his shoulders, heavier than Christian's burden, was that pack he must carry to the end of life. He saw his brother coming, and stopped, and Peter, as if to save him the sense of being looked at from afar, even by his own kin, ran to meet him. They did not take hands, but the older brother gave him a slap on the shoulder.

      "Well, boy!" said he.

      There were tears in Peter's eyes.

      "Look-a-here," he cried, "I'm sniveling. Coming up to the house?"

      "No. I've been there once this morning. You come back with me."

      They turned about, and walked on through the lane. It led to the plantation; this was the nursery, here were the forcing beds, and all the beneficent growing things that had saved Osmond's life while he tended them, and also earned his bread for him, and Peter's bread and paints.

      "Well, boy," said Osmond, "you've brought a girl with you. That was why I cut. Who is she?"

      "Tom Fulton's wife—his widow."

      Osmond knew Electra very well. Some phases of her were apparent to him in his secluded life that her lover, under the charm of an epistolary devotion, had never seen.

      "Does Electra know it?" he asked.

      "I told her." Peter's tone added further, "Shut up, now!" and Osmond tacitly agreed.

      "Coming down to dinner?" he asked safely.

      "No, I must be back. I feel responsible for her—Rose. I brought her over. In fact, I rather urged her coming. Grannie has asked her to stay with us until Electra is—at home."

      "Is her name Rose?"

      "Yes—one of those creamy yellow ones. You must see her. She's a dear. She's a beauty, too."

      "Oh, I've seen her,—one ear and a section of cheek and some yellow hair. Then I ran."

      "For heaven's sake, man! what for?"

      "She's one of those invincible Parisians. I've read about them."

      Peter burst out laughing. Osmond's tone betrayed a terrified admiration.

      "Do you eat down here with the men?" Peter was asking.

      "Sometimes. I go up and eat with grannie once a day while she's alone. I shan't now."

      "Why not?"

      "You'll be here to keep her company, you and your Parisian. I've got to go on being a wild man, Pete. I shan't save my soul alive if I don't do that."

      Peter put out a hand and laid it, for an instant, on his brother's arm.

      "I don't know anything about your soul, old man," he said, with a moving roughness. "But if you like this kind of a life, you're going to have it, that's all. Who cooks the dinner?"

      "Pierre. He came just after you went to France. There's a pot-au-feu to-day. I smelled it when I went by the kitchen. It's a good life, Pete,—if you don't want to play the game." His eyes grew СКАЧАТЬ