Rose MacLeod Part 29

"If you leave the room before I've finished," she cried, "I'll scream it after you." A small red spot had come upon each cheek. She looked like a fairy G.o.d-mother, a pinpoint of fury in the eye. "I insist upon your listening. G.o.d Almighty meant you for a handsome, well-behaved woman.

You're not clever. There's no need of your being. But you've made yourself so intelligent that you're as dull as death. You've cultivated your talents till you've snapped them all in two. You've tried so hard to be a model of conduct that you're a horror, a positive horror. And you mark my words, the reaction will come and you'll do something so idiotic that you won't know yourself. And then when you're disgraced and humble, then will be the time I shall begin to like you."

She was shaking all over, and Electra looked at her in great alarm. She dared not speak lest the paroxysm should come again. A little new gleam sprang into Madam Fulton's eyes. At last she realized that she had, though by ign.o.ble means, quite terrified her granddaughter. That one humorous certainty was enough, for the time, to mitigate her plight. She drew a quick breath, and shrugged her shoulders.

"There!" said she. "It's over. I don't know when I've had such a satisfying time. Run along, Electra. It won't happen again to-day." Then it occurred to her that she was foregoing an advantage, and she added shrewdly, "Though it might at any minute. But if you bring me anything to take, anything quieting or restorative, I'll throw it out of the window."

Electra, relieved slightly at the lulling of the storm, looked delicately away from her and out at the peaceful lawn. She would have been sorry to see again the red of anger in those aged cheeks. Her gaze hung arrested. Inexplicable emotion came into her face. She looked incredulous of what so fired her. Madam Fulton sat down again, breathing relief at the relaxing of her inward tension, and she too looked from the window. A man, very tall and broad, even majestic in his bearing, stood talking with Billy Stark. Billy, with all his air of breeding and general adaptability, looked like comedy in comparison.

"Grandmother!" Electra spoke with a rapid emphasis, "do you know who that is?"

"No, I'm sure I don't."

"It is Markham MacLeod."

"What makes you think that?"

"I know him. I know his picture. I know that bust of him. He is here before Peter expected."

Life and color came into her face. She laid down her book and papers, and went with a sweeping haste to the hall-door. Billy was coming with the stranger up the path, and MacLeod, glancing at the girl's waiting figure, took off his hat and looked at her responsively. Electra's heart was beating as she had never felt it beat before. Greatness was coming to her threshold, and it looked its majesty. MacLeod had a tremendous dignity of bearing added to the gifts nature had endowed him with at the start. He was a giant with the suppleness of the dancer and athlete. His strong profile had beauty, his florid skin was tanned by the sea, his blue eyes were smiling at Electra, and in spite of the whiteness of his thick hair he did not seem to her old. She would have said he had the dower of being perennially young. Meantime Billy Stark, who had known him at once from his portraits, had named him to her, and the great man had taken her hand. He had explained that he was in advance of his time, that he had driven to Peter's and had been told that the young man was probably here. So he had strolled over to find him.

"He is not here," said Electra. "Please come in." She was breathless with the excitement of such notability under her roof. She led the way to the sitting-room, judging hastily that grandmother was too shaken by her mysterious attack to see a stranger, and also even tremblingly anxious to speak with him before any one could share the charm. MacLeod followed her, offering commonplaces in a rich voice that made them memorable, and Billy stayed behind to throw away his cigar, and debate for an instant whether he need go in. Then he heard a voice from the library softly calling him.

"Billy, I want you."

He stepped in through the long window, and there was Madam Fulton, half laughing, half crying, and shaking all over. He ran to her in affectionate alarm.

"Billy," said she, "I've had a temper fit."

Billy put his arm about her and took her to the sofa. There he sat down beside her, and she dropped her head on his shoulder.

"Shoulders are still very strengthening, Billy," said she, laughing more than she cried, "even at our age."

"They're something to lean on," said Billy. "There! there, dear! there!"

Presently she laughed altogether, with no admixture of tears, and Billy got out his handkerchief and wiped her face. But she still shook, from time to time, and he was troubled for her.

"Now," she said presently, withdrawing from him and patting her white hair, "Now I think we've weathered it."

"What was it?" ventured Billy.

"I can't tell you now. I might die a-laughing. But I will." She rested her hand on his shoulder a moment before she went away. "I'll tell you what it is, Billy," she said, "the beauty of you is you're so human.

You're neither good nor bad. You're just human."

XIII

Markham Macleod's great advantage, after that of his wonderful physique, was his humility. A carping humorist, who saw him dispa.s.sionately, the more so that women were devoted to "the chief," said that humility was his long suit. There was his splendid body, instinct with a magnetic charm. He was born, charlatans told him, to be a healer. But he deprecated his own gifts. With a robust humor he disclaimed whatever he had done, and listened to other voices, in specious courtesy. Now, face to face with Electra, he had convinced her in five seconds that it was an illuminating thing to come to America and find her there. This was more than the pliancy of the man of the world. It seemed to her the spontaneous tribute of a sincere and lofty mind. As for her, she was abounding in a tremulous satisfaction.

"You have not been in America for a long time," she was saying.

"Not for years. I have been too busy to come."

"You are needed over there."

She glowed the more, and he looked upon her kindly as a handsome young woman whose enthusiasm became her.

He smiled and shook his head.

"I don't know whether they wanted me so much. I needed them."

"Your brothers, you mean. The units that make your brotherhood."

She was quoting from his last reported speech, and her spirits rose as she felt how glad she was to have been ready. It seemed to her that there were so many things she had to say at once that they would come tumultuously. MacLeod, when his position was a.s.sured, was quite willing to let the disciple talk. It was only over ground not yet tilled that his eloquence fell like rain. And Electra, leaning toward him in a brilliant, even a timid expectation, was saying,--

"Tell me about Russia. What do you foresee?"

A reporter had asked him the same question a few hours before, and the answer would be in the evening paper. He smiled at her, and spread out his hands in a disclaiming gesture.

"You know what I foresee. You know what you foresee yourself. It is the same thing."

"Yes," said Electra, "it is the same thing."

But there were times when MacLeod wanted to escape from posturing, even though it brought him adulation.

"I haven't apologized for breaking in on you like this," he said, with his engaging smile. "They told me at Grant's that I should probably find him over here, in the garden. The next house they said. This is the next house?"

"Oh, yes," returned Electra. "He has not been here, but I will send for him. He shall come to luncheon. You must stay."

"Shall I?" He was all good-nature, all readiness and adaptability.

Electra excused herself to give the maid an order, and while she stood in the hall, talking to the woman, temptation came upon her. Yet it was not temptation, she told herself. This was the obvious thing to do.

"Tell Mr. Grant I wish him particularly to come to luncheon," she said, "and to bring"--she hesitated at the name and s.h.i.+rked it, "and to bring the young lady,--the lady who is staying there."

Then she returned to MacLeod. But she was not altogether at ease.

Electra was accustomed to examine her motives, and she had the disquieting certainty that, this time, though they would do for the literal eye, they had not been entirely pure. Still, was it her fault if Rose, confronted by the newcomer, proved unprepared and showed what was fragile in her testimony? But she was not to be thrown off the scent of public affairs.

"Talk about Russia," she entreated. She had never felt so spontaneously at ease with any one.

MacLeod was used to making that impression, and he smiled on her the more kindly, seeing how the old charm worked.

"I'd rather talk about America," he said, "about this place of yours.

It's a bully place."

Electra was devoted to academic language, and to her certainty that all great souls expressed themselves in it. She winced a little but recovered herself when he asked with a new conversational seriousness, "and how is my friend Grant?"