"That was before you saw her. It means more now, infinitely more."
"I hope it does."
"Think what you're saying, Electra," he said violently, so that she lifted her hand slightly, as if to reprove him. "You refuse to receive her—"
"I have received her,—as her father's daughter. I may even do so again."
"But not as your sister?"
"That would be impossible. You must see it is impossible, feeling as I do."
"But how, how? You imply things that dizzy me, and then, when it comes to the pinch, I can't get a sane word out of you." That seemed to him, as to her, an astonishing form of address to an imperial lady, and he added at once, "Forgive me!" But he continued irrepressibly, "Electra, you can't mean you doubt her integrity."
She had her counter question:—
"Did you see them married?"
"No, no, heavens, no! Why, I didn't come on Tom in Paris until his illness. Tom never had any use for me. You know that. Meantime he'd been there a couple of years, into the mire and out again, and he'd had time to be married to Rose, and she'd had time to leave him."