Peter shook back the lock of hair he encouraged to tumble into his eyes. It was his small affectation. It kept him at one with his artistic brotherhood.
"I am rejected," he said, and do what he might, he announced it exultingly, and not in the least with the dignity he would have admired in the lady who had refused him. But at that moment Peter had had enough of dignity and the outer form of things. He wanted to be himself, light or sad, bad or good, and speak the truth as the moment revealed it to him. "But I am rejected," he continued, when she looked at him in a quick reproof, "turned down, jilted, smashed into a cocked hat. And I came just as quick as I could. Rose—"
"Don't!" she warned him. "Don't say that, Peter."
"Just as quick as I could get here without running—I couldn't run, there were so many pretty things to look at—to tell you, to beg of you"—Peter's voice broke. He was behaving badly to conceal how much he was moved. "I came to offer it to you," he said seriously, in a low tone. "Not what was given back to me, but something else, so much better you couldn't speak of 'em in the same day. When I think of what might be, it's all light and color—and the leaves of the wood moving. It's a great big dream, Rose, and you fit into it. You fit into the dream." He was intoxicated with youth and life. She was not sure whether it was with her.
"I hope you haven't quarreled," she said soberly. She wished she might recall him. "But if you have and are patient—"
Peter could not let her go on. He put out his quick, clever hands in an eager gesture, as if he pushed something away.
"Ah," he said, "I don't want to be patient! I want to be rash. I don't want anything back. I want something new and beautiful. I want to tell you a million things in a minute—chiefly how much I love you."
His voice had deepened. It swept her on apace, in spite of herself, because it was like Osmond's. For a moment she felt the kinship between them, the same swift blood, the picturesque betrayals. There was something at the heart of each that was dear to her, and Peter, for the moment, speaking in the sunshine with her eyes upon him, was also the voice out of the dark. But she had nevertheless to recall him.
"Have you really given each other up?" she asked.
"Yes," said Peter, in the same glad acquiescence. "And what do you think she told me, the last thing of all?"