"Electra has given me up."
"Well, it was bound to come."
"Why was it?"
"It was a dream, Pete. You dreamed it when you were a boy. It was the best you had then."
"Well, there's something else. That's not a dream. But I don't know that I can talk of it yet. What was it you wanted to say to me?"
At intervals all night Osmond had been wondering how to broach it.
"You know, boy," he began at last, "it isn't good for you any more to have me send you money."
Peter stared.
"But it's our money," he said.
Osmond too stared, but not at him. He was wondering whether Peter could possibly fail to see that the money, all these years, had not come by favor, that it had been earned by Osmond's own arduous grappling with the earth, that struggle out of which the man had gained strength and the earth had yielded her fruits.