re than a few words, since the
entertainment had fallen through. Here Electra interrupted her
delicately and challenged the use of that term for so serious an issue.
It could hardly be called an entertainment; they had simply been unable
to consider the topic fixed upon, and it was necessary to find a
substitute.

"Let me do something," said Rose, with her appealing grace. "I'll sing
for them."

That accounted for her again, Electra thought, the unconsidered ease,
perhaps the boldness. She belonged to public life; yet as such she might
well be taken into account.

"What do you sing?" she asked.

Rose forgot all about her picture and sat up, looking quite in earnest.
Peter held his brush reproachfully poised.

"I tell you what I can do," she said, after a moment's thinking. "I can
give a little talk on contemporary music--what they are doing in France,
in Germany. I can give some personal data about living musicians--things
they wouldn't mind. And I really sing very well. Peter, boy, tell the
lady I sing well."

"She sings adorably," said Peter. "She has a nightingale in her
throat:--

"'Two larks and a thrush,
All the birds in the bush.'

"You never heard anything more sympathetic. I never did."

The "Peter, boy," had spoiled it. Electra grew colder. She wished she
were able to be as easy as she liked; but she never could be, with other
people perpetually doing and saying things in such bad taste.

"The club is composed of ladies who know the best music," she heard
herself saying, and realized that it sounded like a child's copy-book.

Rose was still sitting upright, Peter patiently looking at her,
evidently wishing she would return to her pose, and yet quite as
evidently enriching his attention with this new aspect of her. She had
turned into a vivid and yet humble creature, intent on offering
something and having it accepted. The thought that she had something
Electra wanted seemed for the moment the next best thing to knowing that
Electra tendered her kinship and recognition.

"Please like me," her look begged for her. "Please tolerate me, at
least, and take what I have to give."

The end of it was that Electra did accept it, and that Peter's painting
was quite forgotten while Rose ran eagerly over the ground she could
cover. One moment of malice she did have. While Electra was hesitating,
she looked up at her with a curious little smile.

"You can introduce me," she said, "as you always ha