"Do you mean you won't even give her your brother's name?"
"Even, Peter! What could be more decisive?"
"Do you expect me to introduce her as Miss MacLeod? Do you expect me to call her so?"
"I fancied you called her Rose."
"I did. I do. I began it in those unspeakable days when Tom went out of his head with fright and fever and we held him down in bed. Electra!"
She was listening.
"Was that grandmother calling?" she asked, though grandmother never yet had summoned her for companionship or service. But Electra felt her high decorum failing her. She was tired with the impact of emotion, and it was a part of her creed never to confess to weakness. She had snatched at the slight subterfuge as if it were a sustaining draught. "I am afraid I must go."
"Electra!" He placed himself before her with outstretched hands. Very simple emotions were talking in him. They told him that this was the second day of his return, that he was her lover, and he had not kissed her. And they told him also, to his sheer fright and bewilderment, that he did not want to kiss her. All he could ineffectually do was to reiterate, "We can't go on like this. Nothing in the world is worth it." Yet while he said it, he knew there was one thing at least infinitely worth while: to right the wrongs of a beautiful and misjudged lady. Only it was necessary, apparently, for the present, to keep the lady out of the question.
Electra was listening.
"It is grandmother," she said recklessly. "I must go."