with the imperial lady,
felt shamefaced in his knowledge of it.

"We didn't get to that," he said. "We were talking about Rose. Who do
you think she is, Osmond?"

"Tom's widow. So you said."

"Yes, but what more? She's the daughter of Markham MacLeod."

He was watching Osmond narrowly, to weigh the effect of the name. But
Osmond's face kept its impressive interest.

"You know who he is," Peter suggested.

"Yes, oh, yes! But that doesn't mean anything to me. Nothing does until
I see the man. He works with too big a brush. He is an agitator. He may
be Christ or Anti-Christ, but he's an agitator. That's all I know. I
can't give a snap judgment of a man that gets whole governments into a
huff and knows how to lead a rabble a million strong. So he's her
father?"

Peter, unreasonably irritated, pitched upon one word for a cause of war.

"Rabble? What do you mean by that? Labor?"

Osmond smiled broadly and showed his white teeth.

"I'm labor myself," he said. "You know that, boy."

"Then what do you want to talk so for? Rabble!"

"I only meant it in relation to numbers," said Osmond, again
irritatingly, in his indifference to all interests outside his dear
boy's home-coming. "I'll make it a rabble of kings, if you say so.
Folks, Peter, that's what I mean, folks. He deals with them in the mass.
That makes me nervous. I can't like it."

"He believes in the equality of man," Peter announced, as he was
conscious, rather swellingly. "The downfall of kings, the freedom of the
individual."

"There's the _pot-au-feu_ smoking inside that shack," said Osmond,
indicating a shanty across the field. "Come and have dinner with labor."

But Peter turned. He shook his head.

"I can't, Osmond," he said. "I've brought this girl into the house, and
I've got to see her through. Won't you come up to-night?"

"Not till your Parisian has gone over to Electra's. You come down here.
Come down about dusk and we'll have another go."

As Peter hurried back, conscious of being a little late, he could have
beaten his head against the locust trees for the stupidity of his
home-coming. He had the shattered moment with Electra to remember, and
now he had turned the other great meeting of the day into a fractious
colloquy. Unformed yet vivid in his mind, for the last year, had been
strong, determining anticipations of what would happen when he at last
came home. He had known certainly what would happen when he saw Electra.
She would sti