st have worked very
hard in Paris."

MacLeod entered into that with fluency. Peter must have worked hard, he
owned, but that was in the days before they met. When they met, Peter's
talent was at its blossoming point. It was more than talent. It was
genius, it was so free, so strong, so unconsidered. He implied that
Peter had everything that belonged to a fortunate youth.

Electra's eyes glowed. Here was some one to justify her choice. The
newspapers had done it, but she had not yet heard Peter's praises from
the mouth of man.

"You have had an enormous influence over him," she ventured.

He deprecated that.

"He has an enormous affection for me, if you like," he owned, "but
influence! My dear young lady, I couldn't influence a nature like that.
I'm nowhere beside it. All I could hope for is that it would think some
of the things I think, feel some of the things I feel. Then we could get
on together."

Billy Stark, coming in at the door, thought that sounded like poppycock,
but Electra knew it was the wisdom of the chosen. She rose and indicated
Billy.

"You know Mr. Stark?"

The two men recurred humorously to their meeting in the garden, and
owned their willingness to continue the acquaintance. At the moment
there were steps and MacLeod turned to see Rose coming into the room.
Electra's heart beat thickly. She felt choked by it. And there was, she
could not help owning, a distinct drop of disappointment when MacLeod,
with an exclamation of delighted wonder, went forward and kissed Rose on
the cheek. Then he kept her hand while he gave the other one to Peter,
and regarded them both with expansive kindliness. Rose was the one who
had blenched under the ordeal. Yet she had herself immediately in hand.
She let her fingers stay in MacLeod's grasp. She looked at him, not
affectionately nor in pride, but with a sad steadfastness, as if he were
one of the monumental difficulties of life, not to be ignored. Peter was
ecstasy itself.

"How did you get here?" he was insisting. "How did you know I might be
over here? You hadn't met Electra."

Then the stranger dropped the hands he held and turned to her.

"I haven't met her yet," he said, with a humorous consideration that
stirred her heart. "Is this Electra?" He put out his hand, and she laid
hers in the waiting palm. She felt bound to something by the magnetic
grasp. The certainty was not weakened by any knowledge that other men
and women felt the same.

Madam Fu