poise and strove for it almost in
her sleep, felt a little shaken at the deferred prospect of seeing him.
It was after those five years, and his letters, voluminous as they were,
had not told all. Especially had they omitted to say of late whether he
meant to return to France when he should be able to take her with him.
To see a lover after such a lapse was an experience not unconnected with
a possibility of surprise in herself as well as in him. She had hardly,
even at the first, explicitly stated that she loved him. She had only
recognized his privilege of loving her. But now she had put on a white
dress, to meet him, and the garden was, in a sense, a protection to her.
The diversity of its flowery paths seemed like a shade out of the glare
of a defined relation. At last there was a step and he was coming. She
forced herself to look at him and judge him as he came. He had scarcely
changed, except, perhaps from his hurrying gait and forward bend, that
he was more eager. There was the tall figure, the loose tie floating
back, the low collar and straight black hair--the face with its aquiline
curve and the wide sweet mouth, the eager dark eyes--he looked exactly
like the man who had painted the great portrait of the year. Then he was
close to her, and both her hands were in his. He lifted them quickly to
his lips, one and then the other.

"Electra!" he said. It was the same voice, the slight eager hesitancy in
it like the beginning of a stammer.

Electra, to her surprise, said an inconsequent thing. It betrayed how
she was moved.

"Grandmother is away. She has gone to town."

"We will go into the summer-house," said the eager voice. "That is where
I always think of you. You remember, don't you?"

He had kept her hand, and, like two children, they went along the broad
walk and into the summer-house, where there was a green flicker of light
from the vines. There was one chair, a rustic one, and Peter drew it
forward for her. When she had seated herself, he sat down on the bench
of the arbor close by, and, lifting her hand, kissed it again.

"Do you remember the knock-kneed poem I wrote you, Electra?" he asked
her. "I called it 'My Imperial Lady.' I thought of it the minute I saw
you standing there. My imperial lady!"

The current was too fast for her. She could not manage large, impetuous
things like flaming words that hurtled at her and seemed to ask a like
exchange--something strong and steady in her to meet them