"You will marry Peter and go away!"
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."