Tears came slowly into Electra"s eyes. They surprised her as much as they did him. She was not used to crying, and she held them from falling, with a proud restraint. Electra felt very lonely at that moment in a world which would not understand. She was upholding truth and justice, and she was accused of mean personal motives. She had proposed a picturesque sacrifice for the sake of abstract right, and she could not be unconscious that the act ought to look rather beautiful. Yet Peter saw no beauty in it, and grandmother had called her a fool. Peter, seeing the tears, was enormously embarra.s.sed by them. He could only kiss her hand in great humility. He, on his part, put justice cheerfully aside.
"How could I?" he murmured, with the contrition of the male who has learned that tears are to be stanched without delay. "How could I?" But Electra, on her feet, had drawn her hand away from him. She felt only haste, haste to conclude her abnegation, perhaps even to forestall any question of the house by getting the matter out of her hands before MacLeod came back and she had to reckon with his testimony.
"I am not crying," she said proudly. "I must go and talk to grandmother.
Promise me this. Don"t tell her"--she hesitated.
"Rose?"
"Don"t tell her I have spoken of this."
She had gone, and Peter helplessly watched her walking up the path. Then he took his own way home. "My stars!" he muttered from time to time. His chief desire at the moment was to escape from anything so strenuous as Electra"s moral life. It made a general and warm-hearted obliquity the only possible condition of conduct in a pretty world. Peter looked round at it admiringly then, as the shadow of Electra"s earnestness withdrew into the distance. It was such a darling world, there were such dear shadows and beguiling lights and all things adorable to paint. He cast off the mood that teased him, and walking faster, began to whistle. It seemed to him that there were so many agreeable deeds to do, and so much time to do them in, that he must simply bestir himself to use half the richness of things. But when he got into the garden, the honeysuckle smelled so sweet that he sat down at its foot and breathed it until he went to sleep.
Electra walked into the library, where Madam Fulton sat at her tatting and Billy Stark read aloud to her from an idle book. Electra felt that she could not possibly delay. All her affairs must be settled at once and the ends knit up.
"I beg your pardon," she said. "Grandmother, may I speak to you a moment?"
Madam Fulton laid down her work.
"Is it the same old story?" she inquired.
"Yes, grandmother. I don"t feel that I can wait."
"Electra," said the old lady kindly, "I can"t listen to you. It"s all fudge and nonsense. If we talk about it any more, we shall be insane together. Don"t go, Billy."
"I should like to put it before Mr. Stark," said Electra, with her clear gaze upon him, as if she summoned him to some exalted testimony.
Billy stirred uneasily in his chair. He had confided to Florrie the night before that Electra"s hypothetical cases made him as nervous as the devil. Madam Fulton cast him a comical look. It had begun to occur to her that a ball, once rolling, is difficult to stop.
"Go ahead, then," she agreed. "I wash my hands of it. Billy, keep a tight grip on yourself. You"ll die a-laughing."
Then Electra stated her case; but Billy did not laugh. Like Peter, he looked at her frowningly, and owned he did not understand. Electra stated it again, and this time he repeated the proposition after her.
Madam Fulton sat in a composed aloofness and made no comment.
"But, my dear young lady," said Billy Stark, "you quite misunderstand.
An extract from a letter has no legal value compared with a doc.u.ment signed and sealed in proper form."
"I know," said Electra, "not legal, but--" She was aware that Madam Fulton"s eye was upon her and she dared not finish. "It was at least my grandfather"s expressed wish," she concluded firmly. "I shall carry it out."
"But--" Billy sought about for a simile, "my dear child,"--Electra, in the weakness of her lofty reasoning, seemed to him pathetically to be protected,--"don"t you see you"re putting yourself through all kinds of discomfort for nothing, simply nothing? You"ve gone and got a big sword--you call it justice--to cut a thread. Why, it"s not even that.
There"s nothing, absolutely nothing there. It"s very admirable of you"--Electra"s waiting att.i.tude quickened at this--"but it"s fantastic."
She spoke decisively.
"It is the thing to do."
Now Madam Fulton entered the field. She looked from one to the other, at Electra with commiseration, at Billy in a community of regret over that young intellect so dethroned.
"Now you see what I told you," she warned them. "Here we are, all crazy together. We"ve let you say it, and we"ve addled our own brains listening to it for a minute. I"ll tell you what, Electra!" She had discovered. "If you"re so anxious to get rid of the place, I"ll tell you what I"ll do. I"ll buy it."
"Buy it, grandmother? what belongs to you already?"
"Don"t say that again. It gives me a ringing in my ears. That"s what I"ll do. You"re going to marry Peter Grant and go abroad. I"ll take the place off your hands. I"ve always wanted it. I"ve made a shocking sum out of my book, shocking. I can well afford it. There"s an offer for you!"
Electra shook her head.
"I couldn"t," she said gently. "How could I sell you what is yours already? The letter--"
"The letter!" repeated the old lady, as if it were an imprecation. She looked at Billy. He returned the glance with a despairing immobility.
She reflected that the case must be worse even than she had thought, since Billy had not smiled. Electra must be madder than she had imagined, and her own culpability was the greater for weaving such a coil. "Shall I tell her, Billy?" she asked faintly.
He nodded.
"I should," he said commiseratingly, and got up to leave the room. It seemed to Billy this summer that he was constantly trying to escape situations with a delicacy which was more than half cowardice, only to be dragged back into the arena. The mandate he had expected promptly came.
"Don"t go, Billy," cried the old lady. "Sit down." Madam Fulton continued, in a hesitating humility Electra had never seen in her, "Electra, I don"t believe you"ll quite understand when I tell you there"s something queer about the letter. You see there never was any letter. I--made it up."
The boot was on the other foot. All the values of the scene had shifted.
Now it was Electra who doubted the general sanity. Electra was smiling at her.
"No, grandmother," she was saying, with a pretty air of chiding, "you mustn"t talk that way. You think that convinces me. It"s very dear of you, very dear and generous. But I know why you do it."
"Bless my sinful soul!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the old lady. "Oh--you tell her, Billy."
Billy shook his head. He was not going to be dragged as far as that. He was sorry for her, but she had had her whistle and she must pay for it.
The old lady was beginning again in a weak voice,--
"You see, Electra, that book isn"t what you think. It isn"t what anybody thinks. I--I made it up."
Electra was about to speak, but her grandmother forestalled her.
"Don"t you go and offer me wine. You get it into your head once and for all that I"m telling you a fact and that you"ve got to believe it. I made up my book of recollections. They"re not true, not one of them. As I remember, there isn"t one. The letters I wrote myself."
Electra was staring at her in a neutrality which was not even wonder.
Finally she spoke; her awed voice trembled.
"The Brook Farm letters!"
Perhaps it was this reverent hesitation which restored Madam Fulton to something of her wonted state.
"For heaven"s sake, Electra," she fulminated, "what is there so sacred about Brook Farm? If anybody is going to make up letters from anywhere, why shouldn"t it be from there?"
Electra was looking at Billy Stark as if she bade him save her from these shocks or tell her the whole world was rocking. But Billy twirled his eyegla.s.s, and watched it twirling. Finally he had to meet her eye.
"Yes," he said, with a composure he did not feel, "the book is apparently not quite straight--a kind of joke, in fact."
Electra rose. She looked very thoughtful and also, Madam Fulton thought, with a quaking at her guilty heart, rather terrible. She was pinched at the nostrils and white about the lips.
"What I must do first," she was saying, as if to herself, "is to notify the club we cannot possibly have our inquiry afternoon."