it your
impression she would expect you to--inherit?"

"I wouldn't have it." Her face quivered all over. "I never thought of
that for a moment. Can't you see why I came? I was beside myself in
Paris. There were you, hurrying back from the East and bringing--him."

"The prince?"

"You had written me he would come with you. When he saw me again, you
said, he would not take 'no.' Peter was going home. Kind Peter! He said,
'Why don't you come with me?' He said Electra was beautiful, quite the
most beautiful person in the world. I thought she would receive me. I
could tell another woman--and so kind!--everything, and I could settle
down for a little among simple people and get rested before--" She
stopped, and he knew what she had meant to say: "Before you and your
prince began pursuing me again."

But he did not answer that. It was a part of his large kindliness never
to perpetuate harsh conclusions, even by accepting them.

"I shall go to see your Electra at once," he said.

She raised a forbidding hand.

"Do nothing of the kind. I insist on that."

But he was again reflecting.

"That puzzles me," he said at last; "that she should receive you at all
if she does not believe you. Why?"

She looked at him steadfastly for a moment, a satirical smile coming on
her face. These emotions he was awakening in her made her an older
woman.

"I really believe you don't know," she said at length.

"Certainly I don't know."

"Why, it's you!" He stared at her. It was, she saw, an honest wonder.
"She adores you. They all do, all her ladies. They meet and talk over
things, and you are the biggest thing of all. I am the daughter of
Markham MacLeod. That is what she calls me."

"I see." He mused again. "I must go over there to-night."

"No! no! no!" It was an ascending scale of entreaty, but he did not
regard it. He got up and offered her his hand.

"Come," he said. "Peter will be back. By the way," he added, as she
followed him laggingly, "does Peter know why you came to America?"

"Peter thought it the most natural thing in the world to wish to be with
Tom's relations."

"You haven't told him about the prince?"

"I have been entirely loyal to you--with Peter. Don't be afraid. He,
too, adores you."

They walked on in silence. At the house they found grannie, now in her
afternoon muslin, cheerfully ready for a new guest, and Peter in extreme
delight at seeing him.

Markham MacLeod, once in his own room, sat down a