hiped, and he lost not a minute in telling himself he worshiped her,
and that he was going to do it while he was man and she was woman, or
after his clay had lost its spirit. Osmond had very little time to think
of his soul, because he worked all day in the open and slept hard at
night; but it always seemed to him reasonable that he had one. Now it
throbbed up, invincible, and he looked at the lady and wondered again at
her. The lady was smiling at him.

"I wanted to meet you," she said, in her soft, persuasive voice. "You
don't come to the house any more."

He answered her simply and calmly, with no token of his inward turmoil.

"I haven't been there for some days."

"Is it because I am there?"

"Grannie hasn't needed me."

"Is it because I am there?"

Then he smiled at her, with a gleam of white teeth and lighted eyes.

"I've been a little afraid of you," he owned.

"Well, you're not now?"

"No, I'm not now."

"That's what I came here for." She settled more snugly into the chair,
and folded her hands on her knee. He looked at them curiously, their
slender whiteness, and noted, with interest, that she had no wedding
ring. She continued, "I got breathless in the house. Grandmother was
tired and went to bed. Peter has gone to see his cruel lady."

"Why do you call her cruel?"

"She won't hold out her hand to me."

That simple and audacious candor overwhelmed him. He had never known
anything so facile yet direct. It made life incredibly picturesque and
full of color. He laughed from light-heartedness, and it came into his
head that, in her company, it would be easy to believe "as many as six
impossible things before breakfast." But she was continuing:--

"Don't you find her cruel?"

"Electra? We haven't exchanged a dozen words in a year."

"Why not?"

"I'm not a notability. It's not remarkable to raise seeds for sale."

"But isn't she cruel?"

He thought a moment, and then answered gravely,--

"She is very opinionated. But she has high ideals. She would be
unyielding. Has she been unyielding to you?"

"Hasn't Peter told you?"

"Not a word."

"I came here expecting her to accept me as her brother's wife. She won't
do it."

"Won't do it? Does she say so?"

"She says nothing. But she ignores me." Her cheek took on a deeper
flush. She did not look at him, and he followed her gaze into the coals.

"You are too proud to give her proofs?" he hesitated.

She stirred uneasily in her chair.

"