"Yes, yes." She put the chateau aside with one of her light movements of the hands. "But here I feel as if I"d come home to something. You see it"s so safe here, Peter. It"s so darling, too, so intimate. I can"t tell what I mean. If Electra would only like me--O Peter, I could be almost happy, as happy as the day is long!" As she said the old phrase, it seemed to her to fit into the scene. She looked not merely as if happiness awaited her, but as if she could almost put her eager finger on it. And there was Electra, not so many rods away, drawbridge up and portcullis down, inquiring, "Is she a grisette?" Afterwards it seemed to Peter as if his sympathy for the distressed lady went to his head a little, for he lifted her hand and kissed it. But he did not speak, save to himself, going down the stairs:--
"It"s a d.a.m.ned shame!"
When he went out on the veranda, grannie made a smiling comment:--
"What a pretty child! Tom Fulton did well. He was a bad boy, wasn"t he, Peter?"
"Yes, grannie," said Peter, from the veranda rail where he sat picking rose leaves, "Tom was about the limit."
"Well! well! poor girl. Maybe it"s as well he went while she knew only the best of him."
Peter was not sure she did know only the best, but he inquired,--
"Shall I have time to run down and see Osmond before dinner?"
"You"d better. He was here waiting when the carriage came. When he saw her, he slipped away."
"Rose?"
"Rose? Is that her name? Now isn"t that pretty! Maybe you"ll find him before you get to the plantation. I shouldn"t wonder if he"d think it over and come back."
Peter did meet him in the lane lined with locusts on each side, walking doggedly back to the house. Some things the younger brother had forgotten about him, the beauty of the dark face that looked as if it had been cut out of rock, the extraordinary signs of strength, in spite of that which might have appealed to pity. Osmond had grown rugged with every year. His long arms, ending in the brown, supple hands, looked as if they were compact of sinewy potencies. And on his shoulders, heavier than Christian"s burden, was that pack he must carry to the end of life.
He saw his brother coming, and stopped, and Peter, as if to save him the sense of being looked at from afar, even by his own kin, ran to meet him. They did not take hands, but the older brother gave him a slap on the shoulder.
"Well, boy!" said he.
There were tears in Peter"s eyes.
"Look-a-here," he cried, "I"m sniveling. Coming up to the house?"
"No. I"ve been there once this morning. You come back with me."
They turned about, and walked on through the lane. It led to the plantation; this was the nursery, here were the forcing beds, and all the beneficent growing things that had saved Osmond"s life while he tended them, and also earned his bread for him, and Peter"s bread and paints.
"Well, boy," said Osmond, "you"ve brought a girl with you. That was why I cut. Who is she?"
"Tom Fulton"s wife--his widow."
Osmond knew Electra very well. Some phases of her were apparent to him in his secluded life that her lover, under the charm of an epistolary devotion, had never seen.
"Does Electra know it?" he asked.
"I told her." Peter"s tone added further, "Shut up, now!" and Osmond tacitly agreed.
"Coming down to dinner?" he asked safely.
"No, I must be back. I feel responsible for her--Rose. I brought her over. In fact, I rather urged her coming. Grannie has asked her to stay with us until Electra is--at home."
"Is her name Rose?"
"Yes--one of those creamy yellow ones. You must see her. She"s a dear.
She"s a beauty, too."
"Oh, I"ve seen her,--one ear and a section of cheek and some yellow hair. Then I ran."
"For heaven"s sake, man! what for?"
"She"s one of those invincible Parisians. I"ve read about them."
Peter burst out laughing. Osmond"s tone betrayed a terrified admiration.
"Do you eat down here with the men?" Peter was asking.
"Sometimes. I go up and eat with grannie once a day while she"s alone. I shan"t now."
"Why not?"
"You"ll be here to keep her company, you and your Parisian. I"ve got to go on being a wild man, Pete. I shan"t save my soul alive if I don"t do that."
Peter put out a hand and laid it, for an instant, on his brother"s arm.
"I don"t know anything about your soul, old man," he said, with a moving roughness. "But if you like this kind of a life, you"re going to have it, that"s all. Who cooks the dinner?"
"Pierre. He came just after you went to France. There"s a _pot-au-feu_ to-day. I smelled it when I went by the kitchen. It"s a good life, Pete,--if you don"t want to play the game." His eyes grew wistful, something like the eyes of the dog that longs for man.
"If you don"t play the game, I don"t know who does."
"Well!" Osmond smiled a little, whimsically. "Maybe I do; but I play with counters."
Peter was not especially ready, save with a brush in his hand. He wanted to say something to the effect that Osmond was playing the biggest of all games, with the visible universe against him; but he hardly knew how to put it. It seemed, though, as if he might some time paint it into a picture. But Osmond was recognizing the danger of soft implication, and bluffly turned the talk.
"Well, Pete, you"ve done it, haven"t you?"
There was no possibility of affecting to misunderstand. Peter knew what he had gone to Paris for, five years ago, and why Osmond had been sending him the steady proceeds of the garden farm. He was to prove himself, take his talent in his hand and mould it and turn it about with a constant will, and shape a cup to hold the drink that makes the G.o.ds jealous and men delirious with adulation. Peter was to live at his ease in Paris, sparing nothing that would keep him well and strong of heart, so that he could paint the best portraits in the world. Peter knew he had begun to paint the best portraits in the world, because he had done many good ones and one actual marvel, and suddenly, as it sometimes is in art after we have been patient and discouraged, the whole task seemed to him a light and easy one. In his extraordinary youth he had the freshness of his brain, his quick eye and obedient hand, and he felt, lightly and gayly, that he was rich,--but rich in a world where there was plenty more of whatever he might lose.
"I guess so," he said, returning to the speech of his youth. "And I can do it twice, old man. I can do it a hundred times."
Osmond stopped and laid a hand on a boulder at the termination of their way, where the lane opened into plowed fields. He looked off through the distance as if he saw the courts of the world and all the roads that run to fame. His eyes were burning. The hand trembled upon the rock.
"By George!" he said, "it"s amazing."
"What is, Osmond?"
"It"s amazing that the world can hold so much for one man. You wouldn"t think there would be water enough in all the rivers for one man to drink so deep. What does Electra say?"
"About the painting? Nothing yet."
"Didn"t you speak of it? Why, you"re covered with laurel, boy, like Jack-in-the-Green. She couldn"t help seeing it."