"Let me take you home," he was urging.
It was as if Rose had been drawing draughts from some deep reservoir, and now she had enough to carry her on to victory.
"No, no, Peter," she denied him. "I won't go home. Thank you, Electra,"—a delicate frown wrinkled Electra's brows. The girl had never used her familiar name before—"thank you, I won't have any wine. Well, my father is coming. Let's hope he won't turn the country upside down, and keep the trains from running. Get in your supplies, all of you. He may instigate a strike, and if the larder isn't full, you'll starve."
"Stop the trains?" repeated Electra, who was not imaginative. "Why should he stop the trains?"
"Ah, Miss Fulton, you don't know my father," Rose answered gayly. She had seen that tiny frown punctuating her first familiarity, and took warning by it. "Don't you know how, in great gardens, you can take a key and turn on the fountains? Well, my father can turn on strikes in the same manner. He has the key in his pocket."
Electra warmed, in spite of herself.
"I should like"—she hesitated.
"You'd like to see him do it? You may. Perhaps you will. We'll sit in a circle and point our thumbs down and all the bloated capitalists shall go in and be killed." She was talking, at random, out of a tension she might not explain. Billy Stark, the coolest of them, saw that Madam Fulton had some vague inkling of it. Billy, as usual, began talking, but Rose had risen. Having proved her composure, she was going. She listened to Billy with smiling interest, and then when he had finished, humorously and inconsequently, nodded concurrence at him and said good-by. She had a few pretty words for Madam Fulton, a gracious look for Electra, and she was gone, Peter beside her. Billy Stark followed and stayed on the veranda with his cigar. But Electra remained facing her grandmother. She looked at her, not so much in triumph as with a fixed determination. Suddenly Madam Fulton became aware of her glance and answered it irritably.
"For mercy's sake, Electra, what is it?"
Then Electra spoke, turning away, as if the smouldering satisfaction of her tone must not betray itself in her face.