Rose MacLeod

								

"True? I tell you it is true. Electra, what are you saying?"
But Electra was looking at him with those clear eyes where dwelt neither
guile nor tolerance of the guile of others.
"Did she tell you so," she inquired, "or do you know it for a fact?"
He had himself well in hand now, because it had sprung into his wise
artist brain that he must not break the beauty of their interview. It
was fractured, but if they turned the hurt side away from the light,
possibly no one would know, and the outer crystalline sheen of the thing
would be deceptively the same.
"I know Markham MacLeod," he said. "I have seen them together. She calls
him father."
A wave of interest swept over her face.
"Do you mean you really know him, Peter?"
"Assuredly."
"As the leader of the Brotherhood?"
"Yes, the founder."
"He is proscribed in Russia and watched in France. Is that true?"
"All true."
"He gave up writing for this--to go about organizing and speaking?
That's true, isn't it?"
"Quite true."
"How much do you know about the Brotherhood, Peter?"
"I belong to it."
He straightened as he spoke. An impulse of pride passed over him, and
she read the betrayal in his kindling eyes and their widened pupils.
"Is there work for you?" she asked, "for men who don't speak and
proselytize?"
"I do speak, Electra."
"You do?"
"I have spoken a little. I can't do it yet in the way he wants. What he
wants is money."
"We have sent him money," she agreed. "The Delta Club gave a series of
plays last winter and voted him the proceeds. The first was for labor in
America. The second for free Russia."
"Yes, it pours in on him. It's his enormous magnetism."
"It's his cause."
She seemed to have reached something now that warmed her into life, and
he took advantage of that kindling.
"Rose is his daughter," he reminded her. "She is very beautiful, very
sad. She is worthy of such a father."
"Rose? Is that her actual name?"
"Yes. They are Americans, though since her childhood she has lived in
France."
"What did she do before Tom--got acquainted with her? Live there in
Paris with her father?"
"She sang. She has a moving voice. She always hoped she was going to
sing better, but there never was money enough to give her the right
training. Then she began going about with her father. She spoke, too."
"In public? For the Brotherhood?"
"Yes. She has great magnetism. But she stopped doing that."
"Why?"
"I don't know. I have heard her father ask her to do it, but she
refused. She is beautiful, Electra."
Electra was looking at him thoughtfully.
"Did she persuade you to join the Brotherhood?" she asked.
"No," said Peter, unmoved, "the chief himself persuaded me. I went to a
great meeting one Sunday night. I heard him. That was the end of me. I
knew where I belonged."
Electra, her mind hidden from him as completely as if a veil had fallen
between them, was, he could see, considering him. As for her, he hardly