Electra felt her face growing warm in the dusk, and an unreasonable vexation possessed her against any one who should have mapped out her purposes and given him the chart. He might know her. He was evidently destined to, she intemperately thought, better than any one else, but she could herself induct him into the paths of intimacy. There was no pleasure in feeling that he was bound to prejudge her through cognizance of this other tie she had for the moment forgotten. "Did Peter tell you that?" she asked. "I'm afraid I guessed it." His frankness put her back on their pleasant ground of intimacy; it even brought them nearer. "Why did you guess it?" Here was foolish talk, she following upon the heels of his venture, as if there were something in the very dust of his progress too precious to be lost. But MacLeod, who cared nothing about inanities once their purpose was served, whirled her away from further challenge and reply. "You must come to Paris," he said; "with or without Peter, you must come." Her heart warmed and her voice trembled as she answered,-- "I should like it. I should like nothing better." "You have been in Europe?" "Oh, yes, for a year at a time. Three times in all." "Lately?" "No. The last time I was very young." "You will see things with different eyes." He seemed to be promising her something, in the fervor of his speech. Some one had said of him once that, in talking to women, he always said "you" as if it meant "you and I." It may not have been to women alone. Young men felt that in the reconstruction of the earth it would not be merely MacLeod who led the van, but MacLeod and each one of them. "I should like," she dared, "to see the things you are doing. I should like to know--the Brotherhood." "You shall know it. There are as many women in it as men. When the starving citizens marched up to Paris to ask King Louis for bread, the women's voices were loudest, I fancy. There is no distinction in our membership. Men and women serve alike." "When could I join it?" "Not too fast, dear lady." He was smiling at her. That warm tone of personal consideration soothed her through the dusk. "It involves hardship, the laying down of self. Are you ready for that?" "I am ready," said Electra. Her heart beat high. At last life seemed large enough and rich enough to satisfy her. "Your entire allegiance and a tenth of your income," he went on. "Do not pledge it unless you can keep the pledge." "I promise. I pledge it, myself and all I have." In her uplifted state, it seemed as if some spell had been laid upon her, and she sought to recall her lost composure. The occasion, she knew, was a very large one, and she must not, she earnestly thought, deprive it of dignity. He rose. "Stand up," he said; and she also was upon her feet, with a swift compliance. "Give me your hand." She laid her hand in his. "Do you believe in the Brotherhood of Man?" To say "yes" was not enough. She repeated the words,--