"You don't mean you are building all this on a casual sentence in a book?" He frowned the harder.
Electra was breathing pleasure at the beauty of the case.
"It is not a casual sentence," she insisted. "It's an extract from a letter."
Peter had no intimate acquaintance with the business of the world, but he knew its elements. He regarded her with tenderness, as a woman attractively ignorant of harsh details.
"But Electra, dear, that isn't legal. It doesn't have the slightest bearing on what you should give or what she could exact from you—if she were that kind."
"No," she said, "it isn't legal. But it is—ethical." She used the large word with a sense of safety, loving the sound of it and conscious that Peter would not choke her off.
"But it isn't that. You don't know how your grandfather wrote that letter. He may have done it in a fit of temper, or malice, or carelessness, or a dozen things, and forgotten it next day. A letter's the idlest thing on earth. There's no reason for your considering it a minute."
"I am bound to consider it," said Electra. "There it is, in black and white. I shall make over the place to grandmother."
"Well!" Peter felt like whistling, and then unpursed his lips because, according to Electra, whistling was not polite. He had no restrictions relative to her giving away her property; but he felt very seriously that she must not be allowed to indulge herself in any form of insanity, however picturesque. A detail occurred to him, and he said quickly, with a look at her,—
"But Electra, you and Tom inherited this place together."