lton came in then. She had removed the traces of past emotion,
but with the red still burning in her cheeks she looked very pretty.
MacLeod greeted her with an extreme deference, which presently slipped
into the ordinary courtesy of man to woman as he found she had no desire
to exact any special consideration. They went out to luncheon with that
air of accelerated life which contributes to the success of an occasion,
and then MacLeod talked. Rose sat silent, looking on with a sad
indifference, as at a scene she had witnessed many times before, to no
good end, and Madam Fulton listened rather satirically. But Electra and
Peter glowed and could hardly eat, and MacLeod addressed himself chiefly
to them. Now he did exactly what was expected of him. The brotherhood of
man was his theme, and it was no mere effusion of sympathetic
propaganda. His memory was his immense storehouse behind emotion, his
armory. He could mobilize facts and statistics until the ordinary mind
owned itself cowed by them. When they rose from the table, the
millennium was imminent, and it had been brought by the sword. At the
library door, Peter, beside Electra for an instant, irrepressibly seized
her hand, as it hung by her side, and gave it passionate pressure.
Instantly she looked at him, responsive. The sympathy they lacked in
their personal relation sprang to life under MacLeod's trumpeting.
Electra was in a glow, and Peter, with a surprised delight, felt all his
old allegiance to his imperial lady.

MacLeod would not sit down.

"I must catch my train," he said.

There was outcry at once from two quarters. He was not to return to the
city. He was to stay here, Peter declared. It was absurd, it was
unthinkable that he should do anything else. MacLeod took it with a
friendly smile and the air of deprecating such undeserved cordiality;
but he looked at Electra, who was frankly beseeching him from brilliant
eyes. It was settled finally that he should go back to his hotel for a
day or two, see some newspaper men and meet a few public engagements,
and then return for a little stay.

"Get your hat," he said to Rose, in affectionate suggestion, "and walk
with me to the station."

And as it became apparent that father and daughter had had no time for
intimate talk, they were allowed to go away together, Peter following
them with impetuous stammering adjurations to MacLeod to rattle through
his business and come back. When they were out upon the highroa