Rose answered coldly, and as if from irresistible impulse,--
Electra gazed at her, with wide-eyed reproach.
Rose had recovered herself and remembered again the things she meant to leave untouched.
"No," she said, "I don't give it as a reason. I only give it."
Electra was looking at her, rebuffed and puzzled; then a ray shot through her fog.
"Ah," she said, "wouldn't it be one of the inconceivable things if we who have followed his work and studied him at a distance knew him better than you who have had the privilege of knowing him at first hand?"
In spite of herself, Rose answered dryly,--
But Electra had not heard. There was the sound of wheels on the drive, and she looked out, to see Madam Fulton alighting.
"Excuse me, one moment," she said. "My grandmother has come home from town."
When Rose was alone in the room, she put her hand to her throat to soothe its aching. There were tears in her eyes. She seemed to have attempted an impossible task. But presently Electra was entering again, half supporting by the arm a fragile-looking old lady who walked inflexibly, as if she resented that aid. Madam Fulton was always scrupulous in the appointments of her person; but this morning, with the slightly fagged look about her eyes and her careful bonnet a trifle awry, she disclosed the fact that she had dressed in haste for a train. But she seemed very much alive, with the alert responsiveness of those to whom interesting things have happened.
"I want my grandmother to be as surprised as I am," Electra was saying, with her air of social ease. "Grandmother, who do you think this is? The daughter of Markham MacLeod!" She announced it as if it were great news from a quarter unexplored and wonderful. Rose was on her feet, her pathetic eyes fixed upon the old lady's face. Madam Fulton was regarding her with a frank interest it consoled her to see. It was not, at least, so disproportioned.
"Dear me!" said the old lady. "Well, your father is a remarkable man. Electra here has all his theories by heart."
"I wish I had," breathed Electra with a fervency calculated perhaps to distract the talk from other issues.
"How long have you been in America?" asked the old lady civilly, though not sitting down. She had to realize that she was tired, that it would be the part of prudence to escape to her own room.