Peter frowned.
"We have not mentioned it," he said. Their coming to America together had seemed most natural, but some intonation of her tone made the implication odious. Seeing his look, she said, not giving him time to answer,—
"You will help me with the Brotherhood. I must get in touch with it by every possible means."
The color came into his face. He looked half ashamed, half wondering.
"I can't account for it," he returned, "but—Electra, I shan't have time for those things any more."
"Not have time—for that!"
It was as if she accused him of lacking time to breathe.
"I can't help it," said Peter. "It's all true, Electra, as true as it was; but I've got to paint. That's my business."
"Don't you feel that you owe anything to Markham MacLeod?"
He looked at her with interest, noting the indignation that made a handsomer woman of her; but only for that reason, not because the indignation stirred him. Peter hardly knew how he felt about Markham MacLeod. He scarcely thought of him at all, save as Rose recalled him. As to the Brotherhood, now that this great persuasive force was gone, Peter could view it dispassionately, and it did not move him. It was like waves heard a long way off, the waves of a sea he once had sailed, but from which he had escaped to this upland meadow where the light was good. Only when Rose, possessed by the remembrance of Ivan Gorof's vision, had gone home and told him about it, had he felt the flare of that old enthusiasm to be in the surge of the general life,—but chiefly then because she had chanced to use the phrase "shining armor," and he saw a knight pricking through a glade, with sunlight dappling between leaves, and knew it would be good to paint. There was nothing to say to Electra, because, as Rose had told him, she could listen to nothing but the Brotherhood, and wakened only to MacLeod. It was not that she refused other challenges; but her face grew mystical and he knew her mind was afar from him. He got up to go.