There were tears in Peter's eyes.
"Look-a-here," he cried, "I'm sniveling. Coming up to the house?"
"No. I've been there once this morning. You come back with me."
They turned about, and walked on through the lane. It led to the plantation; this was the nursery, here were the forcing beds, and all the beneficent growing things that had saved Osmond's life while he tended them, and also earned his bread for him, and Peter's bread and paints.
"Well, boy," said Osmond, "you've brought a girl with you. That was why I cut. Who is she?"
"Tom Fulton's wife—his widow."
Osmond knew Electra very well. Some phases of her were apparent to him in his secluded life that her lover, under the charm of an epistolary devotion, had never seen.
"Does Electra know it?" he asked.
"I told her." Peter's tone added further, "Shut up, now!" and Osmond tacitly agreed.
"Coming down to dinner?" he asked safely.