"You think she would wish it?"
"We should be near her father, near headquarters. For of course we should be working for the Brotherhood."
Osmond turned abruptly.
"I must get to hoeing," he said.
Peter followed him. Something in the air struck him with a new timidity.
"You know," he qualified, when they were well into the field, "she hasn't accepted me."
"No."
"I'm not the man for her, in many ways. Who is? But by the powers! I bet I could make her happy."
He took off his hat to strike at a butterfly, not to destroy it but to prove his good-will, and Osmond, without glancing at him, knew exactly how he looked, and thought bitterly that to Peter Rose was only one of a hundred beautiful things that made the earth a treasury. And to Osmond there was but one, and that was Rose.
Peter took the path homeward, and Osmond kept on across the field. At the farthest bound, he stepped over the stone wall into the bordering tangle on the other side, and crossed that field also and went on into the pasture, to the pines. This land was his, and the deep woods, stretching forth in a glimmering twilight, had been in many moods his best resort. He did not enter far, but sat down in a little covert where in spring there were delicate flowers. There he faced himself.