eemed
significant, and, to any partial ear, quite adequate.

"My father founded what he calls the Brotherhood. He speaks for it. He
works for it. But you know that already."

Stark nodded.

"I know," he said. "It is tremendous. He says to this man 'Come,' and he
cometh, and so on. I should think it would make him lie awake o'
nights."

"No," said Rose, smiling brilliantly in a way she had when the smile had
no honest mirth in it, "my father never lies awake. Responsibility is
the last thing he fears."

Now Electra was smiling upon her so persuasively that Rose bent toward
the look as if it were a species of sunshine.

"We want you to do something for us," Electra said.

"Oh, I'll do it," Rose was responding eagerly. "Gladly."

"We want you to give us a talk on your father."

Rose, painfully thrown back upon herself, looked her discomfort.

"Do you mean"--she began. "That was what you asked me before."

"For the Club."

"They want me to give a talk on my book," said Madam Fulton, looking at
Stark with a direct mirth. Then, still with a meaning for him, she
added, to Rose, "You do it, my dear. So will I, if they drive me to it.
We'll surprise them."

"That would be very sweet of you, grandmother," said Electra, innocent
of hidden meanings. "Then we might count on two afternoons."

"What do you want to know about my father?" asked Rose, and Electra
answered with a contrasting enthusiasm,--

"His habit of thought, something about his daily life as seen by those
nearest him, anything to interpret a great man to us."

"I can't do it." Rose had answered with a touch of harshness strangely
contrasted with her facile ways. "I really can't."

Now she saw why she had been summoned, and her gratitude sobered into
dull distaste. She felt cold.

"That sort of thing is very difficult," said Stark, in a general desire
to quell the emotional tide. "I often think a person next us has to be
inarticulate about us. He doesn't know really what he thinks of us till
we are gone. You know a big Frenchman says it is like being inside the
works of a clock. You can't tell the time there. You have to go
outside."

Rose was upon her feet, a lovely figure, wistful and mysteriously sad.

"I must go back," she said. "Thank you for letting me come." She had
turned away when Madam Fulton called to her.

"Miss MacLeod!" Rose stood, arrested. Madam Fulton continued, "Why not
stay to luncheon with us?"

The girl did not answer.