. You're just human."

XIII

Markham Macleod's great advantage, after that of his wonderful physique,
was his humility. A carping humorist, who saw him dispassionately, the
more so that women were devoted to "the chief," said that humility was
his long suit. There was his splendid body, instinct with a magnetic
charm. He was born, charlatans told him, to be a healer. But he
deprecated his own gifts. With a robust humor he disclaimed whatever he
had done, and listened to other voices, in specious courtesy. Now, face
to face with Electra, he had convinced her in five seconds that it was
an illuminating thing to come to America and find her there. This was
more than the pliancy of the man of the world. It seemed to her the
spontaneous tribute of a sincere and lofty mind. As for her, she was
abounding in a tremulous satisfaction.

"You have not been in America for a long time," she was saying.

"Not for years. I have been too busy to come."

"You are needed over there."

She glowed the more, and he looked upon her kindly as a handsome young
woman whose enthusiasm became her.

He smiled and shook his head.

"I don't know whether they wanted me so much. I needed them."

"Your brothers, you mean. The units that make your brotherhood."

She was quoting from his last reported speech, and her spirits rose as
she felt how glad she was to have been ready. It seemed to her that
there were so many things she had to say at once that they would come
tumultuously. MacLeod, when his position was assured, was quite willing
to let the disciple talk. It was only over ground not yet tilled that
his eloquence fell like rain. And Electra, leaning toward him in a
brilliant, even a timid expectation, was saying,--

"Tell me about Russia. What do you foresee?"

A reporter had asked him the same question a few hours before, and the
answer would be in the evening paper. He smiled at her, and spread out
his hands in a disclaiming gesture.

"You know what I foresee. You know what you foresee yourself. It is the
same thing."

"Yes," said Electra, "it is the same thing."

But there were times when MacLeod wanted to escape from posturing, even
though it brought him adulation.

"I haven't apologized for breaking in on you like this," he said, with
his engaging smile. "They told me at Grant's that I should probably find
him over here, in the garden. The next house they said. This is the next
house?"

"Oh, yes," returned Elect