CHAPTER XVIIOne morning she called up The Towers to ask Kimberly for a dinner. He answered the telephone himself and wanted to know if he might not be excused from the dinner and come over, if it were possible, in the evening.Alice had almost expected the refusal. "I wish you would tell me," she said, laughing low and pleasantly, "what I have done."He paused. "What you have done?""What I have done that you avoid coming to Cedar Lodge any more?""I don't, do I?" He waited for an answer but Alice remained silent. His tone was amiable and his words simple, yet her heart was beating like a hammer. "You know I haven't gone about much lately," he went on, "but whenever you really want me for a dinner you have need only to say so.""I never ask a guest for dinner without wanting him."It was his turn to laugh. "Do you really manage that, Mrs. MacBirney? I can't; and yet I think myself fairly independent.""Oh, of course, we are all tied more or less, I suppose, but--you know what I mean.""Then you do want me to appear?"Alice suddenly found her tongue. "We should never ask any one to whom Mr. MacBirney and I are under so many obligations as we are to Mr. Kimberly without 'wanting him,' as you express it. And we really want you very much to-morrow night."He laughed, this time with amusement. "You are rather strong now on third persons and plurals. But I think I understand that you really do want me to come.""Haven't I just said so?" she asked with good-humored vexation."Not quite, but I shall arrive just the same."Alice put up the receiver, agreeably stirred by the little tilt. It was a lift out of the ruck of uncomfortable thought that went to make up her daily portion, and the elation remained with her all day.She decided that some vague and unwillingly defined apprehensions concerning Kimberly's feeling toward her were after all foolish. Why make herself miserable with scruples when she was beset with actual perplexities at home? Walter himself was now more of what she wanted him to be. He perceived his wife's success in her active hospitality and applauded it, and Alice began to feel she could, after all, be safe in a nearer acquaintance with Kimberly and thus lessen a little Lottie Nelson's pretensions.It is pleasant to a woman to dress with the assurance that anticipates success. Alice went to her toilet the following afternoon with an animation that she had not felt for weeks. Every step in it pleased her and Annie's approbation as she progressed was very gratifying to her mistress.The trifles in finishing were given twice their time, and when Alice walked into her husband's room he kissed her and held her out at arm's length in admiration. She hastened away to look at the table and the stairs rose to meet her feet as she tripped down the padded treads.Passing the drawing-room the rustle of her steps caused a man within it to turn from a picture he was studying, and Alice to her surprise saw Kimberly standing before a sanguine of herself. She gave a little exclamation."I asked not to be announced," he explained. "I am early and did not want to hurry you." He extended his hand. "How are you?""I couldn't imagine who it was, when I looked in," exclaimed Alice cordially. "I am glad to see you."He held out his hand and waited till she gave him hers. "You look simply stunning," he answered quietly. "There is something," he added without giving her a chance to speak and turning from the eyes of the portrait back again to her own, "in your eyes very like and yet unlike this. I find now something in them more movingly beautiful; perhaps twenty-five years against eighteen--I don't know--perhaps a trace of tears.""Oh, Mr. Kimberly, spare your extravagances. I hear you have been away.""At least, I have never seen you quite so beautiful as you are this moment.""I am not beautiful at all, and I am quite aware of it, Mr. Kimberly.""I would not wish you to think anything else. There the beauty of your character begins."Her repugnance was evident but she bore his eyes without flinching. "You humiliate me exceedingly," was all she attempted to say."The truth should not humiliate you. I----""Must I run away?""Not, I hope, because I tell you you are beautiful, for I shall continue to tell you so every time I see you.""Surely you will not take advantage of your hostess, Mr. Kimberly?""In what way?" he asked."By saying things most unpleasant for her to hear.""I say things awkwardly, perhaps unpleasantly, but always sincerely."Alice looked down at her fan, but spoke with even more firmness. "If we are to be good friends, you must excuse me even from sincerity on topics of this kind.""Don't cut me from your friendship. We must be the best of friends. I cannot conceive of you as being other than kind, even patient with me.""Then do not say things I cannot listen to.""I will never say anything you may not listen to. But concede me the privilege--for it is one--of paying honest tribute to your loveliness when I can't help it."Without raising her eyes she spoke with decision. "I positively will not listen." With the word she caught up her gown and started away. He walked with her. "I am afraid," he said regretfully, "you are sorry you sent for me."She turned with burning eyes. "You should be the last to make me so, Mr. Kimberly.""I wish to be the last. Yet I hate to sacrifice sincerity.""There is something I put far above sincerity."He looked mildly surprised. "What can it be?""Consideration for the feelings of another--particularly if she be somewhat helpless.""Just a moment." They were entering the hall and he stopped her. "In what way are you helpless?""Through consideration on my part for my guest to-night, for my husband's friend, for a friend to whom we both owe much----""You owe that friend nothing. If you really think so, disabuse your mind. And I have never professed the slightest friendship for Mr. MacBirney. Whatever we do, let us keep the facts clear. If we speak of consideration, what about my feelings? And about helplessness--I am up against a stone wall all the time in trying to say anything.""You have no right to say anything!" exclaimed Alice energetically and starting on as she spoke."Perhaps that is true. One that can't say things better than I do shouldn't attempt them. If one of us must be humiliated let it be me. Where are you taking me?"She stopped. "Nowhere at all, Mr. Kimberly. Won't you----""Where are you going?""To look at my table. Mr. MacBirney will be right down. Won't you wait for him in the library?""No.""I should be most grateful.""I want to see the table myself."Alice tossed her head. "This way then."At the threshold of the dining-room, Kimberly paused. The table was dressed in yellow with the lowest tones in the fruits of the centrepiece. The pears were russet, the grapes purple, and pomegranates, apples, and golden plums supplied the tints of autumn. The handles of the old silver basket were tied with knots of broad, yellow ribbon. Alice, touching the covers here and there, passed behind the chairs."You get your effects very simply," observed Kimberly. "Only people with a sure touch can do that.""I thought there were to be no more compliments."He looked at the sconces. "Just one for the lighting. Even Dolly and Imogene sin in that way. They overdo it or underdo it, and Mrs. Nelson is impossible. Where have you put me?"She pointed with her fan. "Next to Mrs. Nelson.""Next to Mrs. Nelson?" he echoed in surprise."Why not?""Did you say humiliation? Do I deserve so much?""At dinner one tries, of course, to group congenial people," suggested Alice coldly."But we are not congenial.""I supposed you were Mrs. Nelson's most frequent guest.""I have not been at Mrs. Nelson's since the evening Guyot and Lambert were there," said Kimberly. "You, yourself, were there that night."Alice betrayed no confusion but she was shocked a little to realize that she believed him instantly. Kimberly, at least as to truthfulness, had won her confidence. Her own husband had forfeited it. The difficulty now, she felt, would be ever to believe him at all."I remember," she assented with returning cordiality. "I was very proud to listen that night."Kimberly stood with his hand on the back of a chair. "Lambert is a brilliant fellow.""Possibly; my sympathies were not with his views."So I sit here?" continued Kimberly patiently. "Who sits next to you?""Your brother."Kimberly spoke with resignation. "Charles always had the luck of the family."A door opened and a butler entered the room. On seeing Kimberly he attempted to withdraw."Come in, Bell," said Alice. "What is it?""The juggler, Mrs. MacBirney; his assistant has telephoned they've missed their train.""Oh, Bell!" exclaimed his mistress in indignant protest. "Don't tell me that.""And it's the last out, till ten-thirty o'clock."Alice's face fell. "That ends my evening. Isn't ittooexasperating. Stupid jugglers!"Kimberly intervened. "What train did he miss, Bell?""The seven-ten, sir, from town.""Why don't you call up the division superintendent and ask his office to stop the eight-ten?"Bell looked at his mistress. "I might do that, sir.""Oh, can you?" cried Alice."You ought to have done it without being told, Bell," observed Kimberly. "You've done such things before.""Might I use your name, sir?""Use whatever is necessary to get him. And ask them to hunt up the juggler in the waiting-room and put him aboard. Who is he?""A China boy, sir, I understand.""In that case, they could not miss him."The butler left the room. "Do you think they will do it?" asked Alice anxiously."Don't give it further thought. We could get him out on a special if necessary."Voices came from the front room. Alice started forward. "There are guests.""By-the-way," added Kimberly, pointing to the card on his cover and that on his brother's, "you don't mind my correcting this mistake, do you?"Alice looked very frankly at him, for the success of the dinner was keenly on her mind. "You will be of more assistance, Mr. Kimberly, if you will not make any change. Mrs. Nelson and Mrs. Morgan are my difficulties and I hoped you would solve them for me.""By all means."Dolly's voice was heard in the hall. "Where are you, Alice? Here are the McCreas, from town, and Doctor Hamilton."They sat down fourteen at the table--the Kimberlys, De Castros, Nelsons, McCreas, Hamilton, Miss Venable, and Dora Morgan.Alice was playing to the enemy and meant to demonstrate to the Nelson coterie that she needed no assistance from them to establish herself as a hostess at Second Lake. If she wished, on this occasion, for a great success it was hers. The dinner was good, and the moment that Nelson had assured himself of this he began good-naturedly to help things on.A remark from some one about the gulf between law and justice gave him a chance. "Why associate the two at all?" he asked lazily. "Law is strictly a game of the wits. It is played under the convention of an appeal to justice, but justice is invoked merely to satisfy the imagination. If people understood this there would be no complaint about a gulf between the two. We imagine justice; we get law. Similarly, we imagine heaven; we get--what we deserve. If the imagination be satisfied, man will endure the sweat of Sisyphus; most of us suffer it in this world, anyway. Law and justice are like chemical incompatibles and there must be a gulf between them. And law is no better and no worse than other conventions of society. Who that studies human government in any form has ever been able to regard it otherwise than with contempt?""Certainly," interposed Fritzie Venable, with formal irony. "No one that takes care of the Kimberly interests at Washington.""The Kimberly interests at Washington," returned Nelson with complaisance, "are so well behaved that they take care of themselves.""Then I don't see what contempt you should have for this government," retorted Fritzie vigorously."Only that it affords him no adequate exercise for his ingenuity," suggested Arthur De Castro."I don't care," protested Fritzie; "I am an American and I won't have our government abused. I believe in sticking to your own.""Well, ifwehaven't stuck to our own, I should like to know who has?" observed Charles Kimberly benevolently. "We've stuck for fifty years to our tariff builders, as Mustard would to a stot. MacBirney's farmers are doing the work for us now," he continued. "Our beet growers guard the sugar schedule at Washington. These wonderful Western States; lowest in illiteracy, highest in political sagacity! It is really a shame to take the money.""I don't see howyouconscientiously can take it," declared Hamilton, appealing to Robert Kimberly."I do it by educating my conscience, Doctor," responded Robert Kimberly. "Every one that takes the trouble to inquire knows I am a free trader. I abstain from the Reform Club, but that is out of deference to my partners. I contribute to both campaign funds; to the one for our shareholders, to the other for my conscience; for as I say, personally I am a free trader.""And a tariff beneficiary," added Arthur De Castro."Why not, Arthur? Wasn't it Disraeli who said sensible men are all of one religion? He might better have said, sensible men are all of one politics. It is true, we are tariff beneficiaries, but this country is doing business under a protective theory. We are engaged, as we were long before there was a tariff, in what is now a protected industry. We can't change our business because the government changes its economic policy."And if anybodyisto have protection here, Arthur, why shouldn't we? Who has a better right to it? Our warrants of occupation were extorted from the Iroquois. We fought the Indian, we fought the French, we fought the English----""Was there anybody you didn't fight?""We put up our credit in Paris and Amsterdam for the colonies and for the Federal Government when the colonies and the Federal Government had none. Then along comes a little coterie of steel men in our own day," Kimberly tossed his head with disdainful impatience, "who make the toil of a hundred years look like a farce--out-Herod Herod in protection and pile up hundreds of millions while we are up to our armpits in molasses trying to grind out a mere living. Protection! We don't get half enough. Who has any better sanction for exercising that airy, invisible pressure of a tariff tax?" he demanded, lifting a glass of wine to the light."Picturesque old pirate," murmured Hamilton."And he needs the money," commented De Castro. "Why quarrel with him?""I am sure you will all pledge the sugar business," continued Kimberly, raising a refilled glass blandly, "and join me in welcoming anybody that wants to go into it. This is a free country, gentlemen.""What do you use on competitors, the rack and dungeon?""Nothing that savors of them.""But you take care of competition," persisted Hamilton.Kimberly laughed."Certainly we do," interposed McCrea, quickly and frankly. "But without unnecessary cruelty, as Mr. Robert Kimberly puts it. No man that ever fought the company and had horse-sense has ever starved to death. We can use such a man's talents better than he can, and very often he comes into camp and becomes our teacher; that has happened. Our system of combination has brought comforts and luxuries into thousands of homes that never would have known them under the waste of competition. Hundreds and thousands of men have profited by uniting their efforts with ours. And no man that wasn't a business lunatic has ever been the worse for anything we've done.""Your husband talks well, Mrs. McCrea," said Robert Kimberly, to a quiet little woman near him."He has had able teachers," laughed Mrs. McCrea."No, it is because he believes in himself. It's a great thing to be able to believe in yourself.""Don't you?""Far from it.""You've made a good many others believe in you.""Not always for their own best interests, I'm afraid.""Yes, I know," Dolly was saying to those of the women who were listening to her, "the weight of authority is against me. But I have always held, and hold yet, that a simple thing, such as lapis-lazuli, is best set in gold--much better than in silver. Talk with Castellani about it sometime, or Viola.""Yes, and they'll tell you silver, every time," interrupted Fritzie vigorously.Dolly waved her hand as if to dismiss controversy."Gold is so common," objected Lottie Nelson."Not more so than lapis," retorted Dolly."But isn't that the glory of gold," suggested Robert, "that it is common? It has the seal of approval of mankind; what higher sanction do you want? You are always safe in resting with that approval. I believe in common things--pearls for example and rubies. I am just common enough to like them."Bell, passing behind his mistress, spoke in her ear. Alice's face lighted and she caught Kimberly's eye. "He is here," she nodded laughingly across the table.The juggler had come and as the dessert was being served he followed a butler into the room in his native robes and assumed his place as one of Bell's assistants. The Chinaman was handsome and of great size and strength. Alice only hinted to her guests what awkwardness might be looked for from the new footman, and the juggler smiling in Oriental silence began to cajole the senses of his spectators.After he had amused them with trifles he floated a gossamer veil of yellow silk over a huge glass bowl filled with fruit from a serving table. With this in his hands he hastened to the fireplace at the end of the room and turning heaved the bowl swiftly toward the ceiling, catching it in his arms as it descended filled with quivering goldfish swimming in water of crystal clearness.He took oranges from the side tables and, splitting them, released song-birds into the air. The guests tossed fruit at him, and from apples and pomegranates he cut favors for them--jewelled stick-pins, belt agraffes and Florentine bonbonières. When the evening was over Alice thanked her guests for their compliments. Lottie Nelson's words in particular left a flush of triumph in Alice's cheeks and she looked so happy that Kimberly paused before he spoke."Well?" said Alice questioningly. And then: "If you have had a good time, don't be afraid to say so."He looked at her as if pleased at her fervor. "Are you a little bit sorry?" he asked quizzically.Her brows rose with a pretty assumption of ignorance. "I have nothing to be sorry for.""Then I suppose I must have."She dropped her eyes for a moment to her sandalwood fan. "Of course, you will decide that.""I presume," he continued, taking the fan without apology from her hands, "I may come over when you are not at home and look at your portrait?""I am sure you don't realize how silly that sounds. I hear you have a new picture," she added, looking up."It is to be hung next week. MacBirney is to bring you over to see it. Are you sorry I came?""Oh, isthatwhat you meant? Why, such a question! You saved my evening.""But are you sorry?""I shouldn't say so if I were, should I?""No, but answer, anyway."Her expression of vexation was pleasing. "How obstinate! No, then. And you saved my evening besides.""You must take me as I am.""You cannot, I know, be less than you should be.""How about you?"She drew herself up the least bit. "I hope no friend of mine would wish me anything less.""We are both then to be all we should be.""Don't you think I am very patient?" she demanded impatiently."You are. We are both to be, aren't we?"She did not conceal her annoyance. "I sincerely trust so," she said coldly. "But there is a limit to all things."He held out his hand. "Thank you for a delightful evening."CHAPTER XVIIIThe new picture at The Towers made a topic of interest among Kimberly's friends, but Alice found excuses for not going to see it until MacBirney would brook no further delays. They drove over one afternoon and found Doctor Hamilton and Imogene in the library. Robert Kimberly came downstairs with Charles and greeted the MacBirneys. Tea was brought presently and Kimberly asked Alice to pour it."I haven't seen you since your dinner," said he, sitting down after a time by Alice. "You were indisposed the day I called. Imogene tells me you intend spending the winter in town.""Mr. MacBirney wants to.""I hoped you would winter in the country.""I like the country, but Mr. MacBirney likes the town. I shall enjoy it, too. You know we are really country folk and haven't had as much town life as you have."The others started for the east room. "Come," said Dolly, beckoning Alice, "you want to see the Rubens."The new picture was hung as a panel between a smaller Rubens and an unknown head of the Virgin, in the manner of Botticelli. Kimberly seated Alice apart from the others and stood behind her."You have been in this room before?" he said questioningly."Once before. It is very much richer now." She indicated the new picture as she spoke, a large canvas of the Crucifixion. "There are two titles for it," explained Kimberly, "a Latin and a Dutch. I like the Dutch best: 'The Ninth Hour.' This picture doesn't appeal so much to my friends as it has appealed to me. But see what this master magician has chosen here; the supreme moment of the Crucifixion."Those with them were chatting apart. Alice sat in silence while Kimberly spoke and when he had done they were silent together. "I hope you are going to like it," he said after a pause.MacBirney asked a question, and Kimberly walked to where he was seated. When he came back he seemed unable to wait longer for Alice's comment. "What is the verdict?""Nothing I have ever seen of Rubens's leaves me unmoved," she answered. "This is almost overwhelming, terrible.""Mrs. MacBirney likes my 'Crucifixion,' Dolly," observed Kimberly after another silence."Oh, you needn't quote Alice," exclaimed Dolly from a window seat. "So do I like it. All I said was, that it is a sin to pay so much for a picture.""No price is too great for a great inspiration. See," he pointed for Alice to the face of a Roman soldier cowering in the foreground of the canvas. "There is one man's face. Hamilton has studied a good many pictures and watched unnumbered faces in every expression of suffering. He has told me that, so far as he knows pictures, the emotion of fear has never been depicted on the human countenance except in that face. As a great surgeon, of a very wide experience, he may be said to know what fear pictured on a human face should be. And there it is before us. Conceive what a triumph for that man to have achieved this, so far from us in the dead centuries, and yet so near to us in this magic of his skill. Observe what a background he has chosen to depict it from--Jerusalem, bathed in the uncanny, terrifying light that accompanies a convulsion of nature. The earth rent, the dead issuing from their graves, nature prostrate, and everywhere--brooding over everything, but stamped most of all on this one guilty face--fear. How it all builds up the agony of that death sweat on the cross! By Heaven, it is tremendous! And Dolly says it is a sin to spend so much money for it. Brother Francis doesn't agree with her; I found him in here early one morning saying his prayers to it.""Before it," said Alice instantly."I thought that no mean tribute. Frankly, do you think me extravagant?""Did you really pay the price named in the newspapers?""Even then?""It does take one's breath away--at least, it took mine.""I have wanted this picture for years. Hamilton made one trip over with me to look at it--he told me of it first. Then I had to wait all these years for the opportunity to acquire it.""What patience!"His eyes were fixed on the picture. "It must have taken patience to paint it. But patience gives us everything in this life." Alice was silent. "You don't agree with me?""How do you know that?""I feel it; the air is thick with your dissent. But, Alice, I am right and you are wrong."Her name coming so suddenly and for the first time from his lips astonished her. Her heart sent its blood in protest to her very ears. In a room with other people nothing could be said. But she rose and turning from Kimberly called to her husband, asking if he were ready."Before you go I have a favor to ask," said Kimberly, intervening, and Kimberly's petitions had always something of the color of command. "I told you," he said, speaking to Alice, "of my mother's portrait. It is upstairs; will you come see it?""I should like very much to see it. Come, Walter," she held out her hand for her husband. "Mr. Kimberly wants us to see his mother's portrait."Kimberly made no comment, but the manner with which he paused, waiting for MacBirney to join them, sufficiently indicated that he was conscious of waiting. When MacBirney noticed his attitude he moved from those he was with much more quickly than he would have done at his wife's behest. Dolly came with MacBirney and the four walked upstairs. Kimberly's rooms opened to the south. There were five in the apartment and while Kimberly excused himself to take MacBirney in for a moment to speak to his uncle, Dolly took Alice through Kimberly's suite."These rooms are charming!" exclaimed Alice, when the men came in to them. "You must see them, Walter. The breakfast room is dear."They were standing in the library, which served as a writing room and a conference room. It was finished in oak and on the east the breakfast room opened, in white and green.Alice took her husband's arm. "See, Walter," she said passing through the open door; "isn't this darling? These tones must be restful to wake to!""I had lunch here once," announced MacBirney in his choppy way. "With you and your brother and McCrea," he added, turning to Kimberly."You never said a word to me about seeing such a pretty place," remarked his wife."You've been in the west room?" asked Kimberly."Yes, Alice sang for me while you were with Uncle John," responded Dolly."I thought I heard music," remarked Kimberly, looking at Alice. "What did you sing?""I only hummed an old air."Kimberly tried to get her to go back to the piano but could not. "I miss music keenly," he said, "I wish I could make a contract with you to sing here every day."Alice laughed."You would be in very good company," interposed Dolly. "Some famous artistes have sung at that piano. Robert," she added, as the two women walked toward his dressing-room, "has everything here but what he ought to have--a wife. When mother lived, The Towers was more than a habitation--it was a home."In his bedroom, Kimberly indicated a portrait above the fireplace. "This is my mother," he said to Alice. "Sit down for just a moment--I want you to like her.""I like her very much, already," returned Alice. "But I should like to sit a moment to enjoy the portrait. I wish I could have known your mother.""This room I fancy best of them all," Dolly was saying to MacBirney as they walked on. "All of this wall panelling and ceiling was made from one mahogany log brought up from Santo Domingo many years ago with a cargo of sugar."Kimberly, sitting with Alice before his mother's picture, showed a self-consciousness he did not often betray, a solicitude, seemingly, that Alice should agree with his own estimate of his mother. "She was the most tender, kindly woman in the world," he said after a moment."Such a mother ought to be an inspiration to you for everything high and good, Mr. Kimberly.""Yet I have never reached anything high and good.""Sometime you will."He looked at her curiously. "Do you really think that?""Yes, I do. And thank you for letting me see your mother.""If you only could have met her!" There was an intensity of regret in his words. "It was a tragedy for such a woman to die young. I have long wanted you to see her portrait; you constantly make me think of her, Alice."She turned calmly and frankly. "It is most kind of you to say that, Mr. Kimberly. So kind that I am going to be bold enough to ask a favor.""I know what you are going to ask, but I wish you wouldn't. I want very much to do what you are about to ask me not to do----""It is almost nothing--only not to call me Alice.""There is no use my asking a favor, is there?" He turned with almost a boyish humor in his manner. His mother's eyes seemed to look at her in his eyes as he spoke."Not, Mr. Kimberly, this time. I want you to oblige me.""You are afraid of me." There was no resentment in the words; nothing beyond a regret.Her answer was low but neither weak nor confused. "Is it quite generous, Mr. Kimberly--here?""No," he answered in the same even voice, "it is not. Unhappily, there are times when generosity is weakness. I've been trying ever since I have known you to think of you just as I think of myself. I believe I have tried to give you a little the best of it--yet a selfish man can't always be sure of doing that.""I trust you think of me," she responded, "only as one of the least important among your friends.""You are afraid of me. And yet I want your confidence above everything in this world--and I must in some way deserve and win it.""I do wish you would not say these things. I have to try very hard not to dislike you exceedingly when you speak in this way.""You do dislike me exceedingly when I speak in this way. I know it perfectly."If her voice trembled the least bit it was with indignation. "I sometimes ask myself whether I should suffer it even for my husband's sake. You will force me to do something unpleasant, I fear.""I never will force you to do anything. I do want to call you Alice. But don't hate me for that."She heard with relief Dolly talking to her husband in the doorway. "It was almost three years before Imogene saw Charles again," Alice heard Dolly say, "and, would you believe it, he began exactly where he left off. After that Imogene decided it was of no use. So, she is Mrs. Kimberly!""By Jove! He had patience," laughed MacBirney.Dolly laughed a little, too. "That is the only exasperating thing about the Kimberly men--their patience."CHAPTER XIXMacBirney's decision to spend the winter in town became very welcome to Alice; the atmosphere within a wide radius of The Towers seemed too charged with electricity for mental peace. And her husband, having tasted for the first time the excitement of the stock markets, desired to be near his brokers.Fritzie, who was an authority in town affairs, made it easy for Alice to find acceptable quarters. In general the Second Lake people cared less and less for opening their town houses. Robert Kimberly's house, while nominally open, never saw its master. Charles and Imogene Kimberly for several years had spent their winters cruising and now made ready to take Grace De Castro to the eastern Mediterranean. Arthur and Dolly were to winter at Biarritz and join Charles and Imogene in Sicily on their return from the Levant. Fritzie accepted Alice's invitation to spend the season in town with her. Dora Morgan had already gone to Paris for an indefinite stay and the Nelsons, Congress being in session, were starting for Washington.MacBirney came over to The Towers just before leaving with Alice for town to see Robert Kimberly. When Kimberly asked him what was on his mind, "I would like to know," MacBirney answered frankly, "what I can make some money in this winter." It was the second time he had brought the subject up and Kimberly who had once evaded his inquiries saw that nothing was to be gained by further effort in that direction.Kimberly regarded him gravely. "Buy standard railway shares," he suggested, "on a four-and-a-half-per-cent average.""But I want to do better than four-and-a-half-per-cent. It costs something to live.""I mean, you would have your profit in the advances. But your present income ought to cover a very liberal scale of living," said Kimberly.MacBirney squirmed in his chair. Kimberly would have preferred he should sit still. "That is true," assented MacBirney, with smiling candor, "but a poor man doesn't want to spend all his money. Isn't there a chance," he asked, coming to the point in his mind, "to make some money in our own stock? I have heard a rumor there would be, but I can't run it down.""There are always chances if you are closely enough in touch with general conditions. Charles keeps better track of those things than I do; suppose you talk with him.""Charles sends me to you," protested MacBirney good naturedly."Our shares seem just now to be one of the speculative favorites," returned Kimberly. "That means, as you know, violent fluctuations."MacBirney was impatient of hazards. "Put me next on any one of your own plans, Mr. Kimberly, that you might feel like trusting me with," said MacBirney, jocularly."I don't often have any speculative schemes of my own," returned Kimberly. "However," he hesitated a moment; MacBirney leaned forward. "Doane," continued Kimberly abruptly, "has a strong party interested now in putting up the common. They profess to think that on its earnings it should sell higher. In fact, they have sounded me about an extra dividend. I am opposed to that--until Congress adjourns, at any rate. But the company is making a great deal of money. I can't uncover Doane's deal, but I can say this to you: I have agreed to help them as much as I safely can. By that, I mean, that their speculative interests must always come second to the investment interests of our shareholders.""By Jove, I wish I could get in on a movement like that, Mr. Kimberly. With you behind it----""I am not behind it--only not opposed to it. For my part, I never advise any one to speculate in our securities. I can't do it. I do business with speculators, but I never speculate myself. You don't credit that, do you? What I mean is this: I never take chances. If it is necessary, for cogent reasons, to move our securities up or down, I am in a position to do so without taking any extreme chances. That is natural, isn't it?"MacBirney laughed and swayed in his chair. "I'd like to be fixed that way for just one year of my life!" he exclaimed."If you were you would find plenty of other things to engage your attention.""Well, can you do anything for me on this present deal?"Kimberly reflected a moment. "Yes," he said finally, "if you will operate through the brokers I name and do exactly as I say, and run the risk of losing half the money you put up--I don't see how you could lose more than that. But if you don't do exactly as I tell you, without question, you might lose a great deal more. I am not supposing, of course, that you would risk more than you could afford to lose.""Not at all. I want to play safe.""Place your orders to-day and to-morrow then for what common you can carry. Hamilton will let you have what money you need--or he will get it for you. Then forget all about your investment until I tell you to sell. Don't question the advice, but get out promptly at that moment no matter what you hear or what the market looks like. Can you do that? And keep your own counsel?""Trust me.""Good luck then. And if it should come bad, try not to feel incensed at me," concluded Kimberly, rising."Surely not!" exclaimed MacBirney.Kimberly smiled. "But you will, just the same. At least, that is my experience.""What about the winter, Mr. Kimberly--are you going in town?""I haven't decided."But although Kimberly had made no decision he had made vague promises to every one. With Charles he talked about putting his own yacht into commission, taking Larrie from the refineries for a breathing spell and meeting Charlie's party in February at Taormina. He discussed with Dolly a shorter vacation, one of taking passage to Cherbourg, motoring with Arthur and herself across France and meeting Charles at Nice, whence all could come home together.The Nelsons left the lake last. Lottie gave Kimberly a parting thrust as she said good-by, delivering it in such a way that she hoped to upset him. "So you are in love with Alice MacBirney?" she said smilingly.Kimberly looked frankly into her clear, sensuous eyes. "What put that into your head, Lottie?"She laughed unsympathetically. "I'm glad you've got some one this time that will make you do the walking--not one like the rest of us poor creatures.""Why do you talk about 'this time,' and 'us poor creatures'? Let me tell you something.""Do, so I can tell it to Alice.""You may at any time tell Mrs. MacBirney anything I say. It is this: if I should ever find a woman to love, I expect to do the walking. Tell her that, will you? I respect Mrs. MacBirney very highly and admire her very much--is that clear? But that is far from outraging her feelings by coupling her name with mine or mine with hers. Don't do that. I will never forgive it." She had never seen him so angry.He realized more than once during the long winter that the slighted woman had told him only the truth. But from her it was an impertinent truth. And it galled him to be forced to admit to the loose-thinking members of his own set what he felt toward Alice.Meantime, he spent the whole winter at The Towers with Uncle John, the tireless Francis, and his own unruly thoughts. His time went to conferences with his city associates, infrequent inspections of the refineries, horseback rides over the winter landscape, and to winter sunsets watched alone from the great western windows.In town Alice found Fritzie an admirable guide."I try," said Fritzie calmly, answering one of Alice's jests at her wide acquaintance, "to move with the best. I suppose in heaven we shall encounter all sorts. And if we don't cultivate the elect here we may never have another chance to.""You are far-sighted, Fritzie dear," smiled Alice. "What I can't understand is, why you don't marry.""I have too many rich relations. I couldn't marry anybody in their class. I should have to pick up with some wretched millionaire and be reduced to misery. The Lord deliver us from people that watch their incomes--they are the limit. And it must, I have always thought, be terrible, Alice, to live with a man that has made a million honestly. He would be so mean. Of course, we are mean, too; but happily a good part of our meannesses are underground--buried with our ancestors."Fritzie's light words struck home with an unsuspected force. Alice knew Fritzie had no thought of painting MacBirney; it was only Alice herself who recognized her husband's portrait.Fritzie certainly had, as she admitted, an appetite for the luxurious and even MacBirney liked her novel extravagances. In their few resting hours the two women talked of Second Lake. "Fritzie," said Alice one night when they were together before the fire, "the first time I met you, you said every one at Second Lake was contented, with two exceptions. You were one; who was the other?""Robert, dear. He is the most discontented mortal alive. Isn't it all a strange world?"Alice, too, had thoughts that winter, but they were confused thoughts and not always to be tolerated. She, likewise, was beginning to think it a strange world.MacBirney, guided by McCrea, followed the pool operations with sleepless vigilance. They reached their height when Congress adjourned early without disturbing the tariff. The street saw enormous gains ahead for the crowd operating in the Kimberly stocks and with public buying underway the upward movement in the shares took on renewed strength.It was just at this moment of the adjournment of Congress that Kimberly sent McCrea to MacBirney with directions to sell, and explicitly as to how and through whom to sell. MacBirney, to McCrea's surprise, demurred at the advice and argued that if he dropped out now he should lose the best profits of the venture.McCrea consented to talk to Kimberly again. Doane, the Hamilton banking interests and their associates were still ostensibly buying and were talking even higher prices. It did not look right to MacBirney to sell under such circumstances but McCrea came back the very next day with one word: "Sell." No reasons, no explanations were given, nothing vouchsafed but a curt command.MacBirney, doubtful and excited, consulted Alice, to whom indeed, in serious perplexity, he often turned. Knowing nothing about the situation, she advised him to do precisely as Kimberly directed and to do so without loss of time. He was still stubborn. No one but himself knew that he was carrying twice the load of stock he had any right to assume, and battling thus between greed and prudence he reluctantly placed the selling orders.Just as he had gotten fairly out of it, the market, to his mortification, advanced. A few days later it ran quite away. Huge blocks of stock thrown into it made hardly any impression. The market, as MacBirney had predicted, continued strong. At the end of the week he felt sure that Kimberly had tricked him, and in spite of winning more money than he had ever made in his life he was in bad humor. Kimberly himself deigned no word of enlightenment. McCrea tried to explain to MacBirney that the public had run away with the market--as it sometimes did. But MacBirney nursed resentment.The Nelsons came over from Washington that week--it was Holy Week--for the opera and the week-end, and MacBirney asked his wife to entertain them, together with Lambert, at dinner on Friday night.Alice fought the proposal, but MacBirney could not be moved. She endeavored to have the date changed to Easter Sunday; MacBirney was relentless. He knew it was Good Friday and that his wife was trying to avoid entertaining during the evening. But he thought it an opportunity to discipline her. Alice sent out her invitations and they were accepted. No such luck, she knew, as a declination would be hers.Lottie, amusing herself for the winter with Lambert, was in excellent humor. But Alice was nervous and everything went wrong. They rose from the table to go to the opera, where Nelson had the Robert Kimberly box. Alice seeking the retirement of an easy-chair gave her attention to the stage and to her own thoughts. In neither did she find anything satisfying. Mrs. Nelson, too talkative with the men, was a mild irritation to her, and of all nights in the year this was the last on which Alice would have wished to be at the opera. It was only one more link in the long chain of sacrifices she wore for domestic peace, but to-night her gyves lay heavy on her wrists. She realized that she was hardly amiable. This box she was enjoying the seclusion of, brought Kimberly close to her. The difference there would be within it if he himself were present, suggested itself indolently to her in her depression. How loath, she reflected, Kimberly would have been to drag her out when she wished to be at home. It was not the first time that she had compared him with her husband, but this was the first time she was conscious of having done so. All they were enjoying was his; yet she knew he would have been indifferent to everything except what she preferred.And it was not alone what he had indicated in deferring to her wishes; it was what he often did in deferring in indifferent things to the wishes of others that had impressed itself upon her more than any trait in his character. How much happier she should be if her own husband were to show a mere trace of such a disposition, she felt past even the possibility of telling him; it seemed too useless. He could not be made to understand.For supper the party went with Nelson. The gayety of the others left Alice cold. Nelson, with the art of the practised entertainer, urged the eating and drinking, and when the party left the buzzing café some of them were heated and unrestrained. At two o'clock, Alice with her husband and Fritzie reached their apartment, and Alice, very tired, went directly to her own rooms. MacBirney came in, somewhat out of humor. "What's the matter with you to-night?" he demanded. Alice had dismissed Annie and her husband sat down beside her table."With me? Nothing, Walter; why?""You acted so cattish all the evening," he complained, with an irritating little oath.Alice was in no mood to help him along. "How so?" she asked tying her hair as she turned to look at him.An inelegant exclamation annoyed her further. "You know what I mean just as well as I do," he went on curtly. "You never opened your mouth the whole evening. Lottie asked me what the matter was with you----"Alice repeated but one word of the complaining sentence. "Lottie!" she echoed. Her husband's anger grew. "If Lottie would talk less," continued Alice quietly, "and drink less, I should be less ashamed to be seen with her. And perhaps I could talk more myself.""You never did like anybody that liked me. So it is Lottie you're jealous of?""No, not 'jealous of,' only ashamed of. Even at the dinner she was scandalous, I thought."Her husband regarded her with stubborn contempt, and it hurt. "You are very high and mighty to-night. I wonder," he said with a scarcely concealed sneer, "whether prosperity has turned your head.""You need not look at me in that way, Walter, and you need not taunt me.""You have been abusing Lottie Nelson a good deal lately. I wish you would stop it." He rose and stood with one hand on the table. Alice was slipping her rings into the cup in front of her and she dropped in the last with some spirit."I will stop it. And I hope you will never speak of her again. I certainly never will entertain her again under any circumstances," she exclaimed."You will entertain her the next time I tell you to."Alice turned quite white. "Have you anything else to say to me?"Her very restraint enraged him. "Only that if you try to ride your high horse with me," he replied, "I will send you back to St. Louis some fine day.""Is that all?""That is all. And if you think I don't mean what I say, try it sometime." As he spoke he pushed the chair in which he had been sitting roughly aside.Alice rose to her feet. "I despise your threats," she said, choking with her own words. "I despise you. I can't tell you how I despise you." Her heart beat rebelliously and she shook in every limb; expressions that she would not have known for her own fell stinging from her lips. "You have bullied me for the last time. I have stood your abuse for five years. It will stop now. You will do the cringing and creeping from now on. That woman never shall sit down at a table with me again, not if you beg it of me on your knees. You are a cowardly wretch; I know you perfectly; you never were anything else. I have paid dearly for ever believing you a man." Her contempt burned the words she uttered. "Now drive me one step further," she sobbed wildly, "if you dare!"She snapped out the light above her head with an angry twist. Another light shone through the open door of her sleeping-room and through this door she swiftly passed, slamming it shut and locking it sharply behind her.MacBirney had never seen his wife in such a state. He was surprised; but there could be no mistake. Her blood was certainly up.
CHAPTER XVII
One morning she called up The Towers to ask Kimberly for a dinner. He answered the telephone himself and wanted to know if he might not be excused from the dinner and come over, if it were possible, in the evening.
Alice had almost expected the refusal. "I wish you would tell me," she said, laughing low and pleasantly, "what I have done."
He paused. "What you have done?"
"What I have done that you avoid coming to Cedar Lodge any more?"
"I don't, do I?" He waited for an answer but Alice remained silent. His tone was amiable and his words simple, yet her heart was beating like a hammer. "You know I haven't gone about much lately," he went on, "but whenever you really want me for a dinner you have need only to say so."
"I never ask a guest for dinner without wanting him."
It was his turn to laugh. "Do you really manage that, Mrs. MacBirney? I can't; and yet I think myself fairly independent."
"Oh, of course, we are all tied more or less, I suppose, but--you know what I mean."
"Then you do want me to appear?"
Alice suddenly found her tongue. "We should never ask any one to whom Mr. MacBirney and I are under so many obligations as we are to Mr. Kimberly without 'wanting him,' as you express it. And we really want you very much to-morrow night."
He laughed, this time with amusement. "You are rather strong now on third persons and plurals. But I think I understand that you really do want me to come."
"Haven't I just said so?" she asked with good-humored vexation.
"Not quite, but I shall arrive just the same."
Alice put up the receiver, agreeably stirred by the little tilt. It was a lift out of the ruck of uncomfortable thought that went to make up her daily portion, and the elation remained with her all day.
She decided that some vague and unwillingly defined apprehensions concerning Kimberly's feeling toward her were after all foolish. Why make herself miserable with scruples when she was beset with actual perplexities at home? Walter himself was now more of what she wanted him to be. He perceived his wife's success in her active hospitality and applauded it, and Alice began to feel she could, after all, be safe in a nearer acquaintance with Kimberly and thus lessen a little Lottie Nelson's pretensions.
It is pleasant to a woman to dress with the assurance that anticipates success. Alice went to her toilet the following afternoon with an animation that she had not felt for weeks. Every step in it pleased her and Annie's approbation as she progressed was very gratifying to her mistress.
The trifles in finishing were given twice their time, and when Alice walked into her husband's room he kissed her and held her out at arm's length in admiration. She hastened away to look at the table and the stairs rose to meet her feet as she tripped down the padded treads.
Passing the drawing-room the rustle of her steps caused a man within it to turn from a picture he was studying, and Alice to her surprise saw Kimberly standing before a sanguine of herself. She gave a little exclamation.
"I asked not to be announced," he explained. "I am early and did not want to hurry you." He extended his hand. "How are you?"
"I couldn't imagine who it was, when I looked in," exclaimed Alice cordially. "I am glad to see you."
He held out his hand and waited till she gave him hers. "You look simply stunning," he answered quietly. "There is something," he added without giving her a chance to speak and turning from the eyes of the portrait back again to her own, "in your eyes very like and yet unlike this. I find now something in them more movingly beautiful; perhaps twenty-five years against eighteen--I don't know--perhaps a trace of tears."
"Oh, Mr. Kimberly, spare your extravagances. I hear you have been away."
"At least, I have never seen you quite so beautiful as you are this moment."
"I am not beautiful at all, and I am quite aware of it, Mr. Kimberly."
"I would not wish you to think anything else. There the beauty of your character begins."
Her repugnance was evident but she bore his eyes without flinching. "You humiliate me exceedingly," was all she attempted to say.
"The truth should not humiliate you. I----"
"Must I run away?"
"Not, I hope, because I tell you you are beautiful, for I shall continue to tell you so every time I see you."
"Surely you will not take advantage of your hostess, Mr. Kimberly?"
"In what way?" he asked.
"By saying things most unpleasant for her to hear."
"I say things awkwardly, perhaps unpleasantly, but always sincerely."
Alice looked down at her fan, but spoke with even more firmness. "If we are to be good friends, you must excuse me even from sincerity on topics of this kind."
"Don't cut me from your friendship. We must be the best of friends. I cannot conceive of you as being other than kind, even patient with me."
"Then do not say things I cannot listen to."
"I will never say anything you may not listen to. But concede me the privilege--for it is one--of paying honest tribute to your loveliness when I can't help it."
Without raising her eyes she spoke with decision. "I positively will not listen." With the word she caught up her gown and started away. He walked with her. "I am afraid," he said regretfully, "you are sorry you sent for me."
She turned with burning eyes. "You should be the last to make me so, Mr. Kimberly."
"I wish to be the last. Yet I hate to sacrifice sincerity."
"There is something I put far above sincerity."
He looked mildly surprised. "What can it be?"
"Consideration for the feelings of another--particularly if she be somewhat helpless."
"Just a moment." They were entering the hall and he stopped her. "In what way are you helpless?"
"Through consideration on my part for my guest to-night, for my husband's friend, for a friend to whom we both owe much----"
"You owe that friend nothing. If you really think so, disabuse your mind. And I have never professed the slightest friendship for Mr. MacBirney. Whatever we do, let us keep the facts clear. If we speak of consideration, what about my feelings? And about helplessness--I am up against a stone wall all the time in trying to say anything."
"You have no right to say anything!" exclaimed Alice energetically and starting on as she spoke.
"Perhaps that is true. One that can't say things better than I do shouldn't attempt them. If one of us must be humiliated let it be me. Where are you taking me?"
She stopped. "Nowhere at all, Mr. Kimberly. Won't you----"
"Where are you going?"
"To look at my table. Mr. MacBirney will be right down. Won't you wait for him in the library?"
"No."
"I should be most grateful."
"I want to see the table myself."
Alice tossed her head. "This way then."
At the threshold of the dining-room, Kimberly paused. The table was dressed in yellow with the lowest tones in the fruits of the centrepiece. The pears were russet, the grapes purple, and pomegranates, apples, and golden plums supplied the tints of autumn. The handles of the old silver basket were tied with knots of broad, yellow ribbon. Alice, touching the covers here and there, passed behind the chairs.
"You get your effects very simply," observed Kimberly. "Only people with a sure touch can do that."
"I thought there were to be no more compliments."
He looked at the sconces. "Just one for the lighting. Even Dolly and Imogene sin in that way. They overdo it or underdo it, and Mrs. Nelson is impossible. Where have you put me?"
She pointed with her fan. "Next to Mrs. Nelson."
"Next to Mrs. Nelson?" he echoed in surprise.
"Why not?"
"Did you say humiliation? Do I deserve so much?"
"At dinner one tries, of course, to group congenial people," suggested Alice coldly.
"But we are not congenial."
"I supposed you were Mrs. Nelson's most frequent guest."
"I have not been at Mrs. Nelson's since the evening Guyot and Lambert were there," said Kimberly. "You, yourself, were there that night."
Alice betrayed no confusion but she was shocked a little to realize that she believed him instantly. Kimberly, at least as to truthfulness, had won her confidence. Her own husband had forfeited it. The difficulty now, she felt, would be ever to believe him at all.
"I remember," she assented with returning cordiality. "I was very proud to listen that night."
Kimberly stood with his hand on the back of a chair. "Lambert is a brilliant fellow."
"Possibly; my sympathies were not with his views.
"So I sit here?" continued Kimberly patiently. "Who sits next to you?"
"Your brother."
Kimberly spoke with resignation. "Charles always had the luck of the family."
A door opened and a butler entered the room. On seeing Kimberly he attempted to withdraw.
"Come in, Bell," said Alice. "What is it?"
"The juggler, Mrs. MacBirney; his assistant has telephoned they've missed their train."
"Oh, Bell!" exclaimed his mistress in indignant protest. "Don't tell me that."
"And it's the last out, till ten-thirty o'clock."
Alice's face fell. "That ends my evening. Isn't ittooexasperating. Stupid jugglers!"
Kimberly intervened. "What train did he miss, Bell?"
"The seven-ten, sir, from town."
"Why don't you call up the division superintendent and ask his office to stop the eight-ten?"
Bell looked at his mistress. "I might do that, sir."
"Oh, can you?" cried Alice.
"You ought to have done it without being told, Bell," observed Kimberly. "You've done such things before."
"Might I use your name, sir?"
"Use whatever is necessary to get him. And ask them to hunt up the juggler in the waiting-room and put him aboard. Who is he?"
"A China boy, sir, I understand."
"In that case, they could not miss him."
The butler left the room. "Do you think they will do it?" asked Alice anxiously.
"Don't give it further thought. We could get him out on a special if necessary."
Voices came from the front room. Alice started forward. "There are guests."
"By-the-way," added Kimberly, pointing to the card on his cover and that on his brother's, "you don't mind my correcting this mistake, do you?"
Alice looked very frankly at him, for the success of the dinner was keenly on her mind. "You will be of more assistance, Mr. Kimberly, if you will not make any change. Mrs. Nelson and Mrs. Morgan are my difficulties and I hoped you would solve them for me."
"By all means."
Dolly's voice was heard in the hall. "Where are you, Alice? Here are the McCreas, from town, and Doctor Hamilton."
They sat down fourteen at the table--the Kimberlys, De Castros, Nelsons, McCreas, Hamilton, Miss Venable, and Dora Morgan.
Alice was playing to the enemy and meant to demonstrate to the Nelson coterie that she needed no assistance from them to establish herself as a hostess at Second Lake. If she wished, on this occasion, for a great success it was hers. The dinner was good, and the moment that Nelson had assured himself of this he began good-naturedly to help things on.
A remark from some one about the gulf between law and justice gave him a chance. "Why associate the two at all?" he asked lazily. "Law is strictly a game of the wits. It is played under the convention of an appeal to justice, but justice is invoked merely to satisfy the imagination. If people understood this there would be no complaint about a gulf between the two. We imagine justice; we get law. Similarly, we imagine heaven; we get--what we deserve. If the imagination be satisfied, man will endure the sweat of Sisyphus; most of us suffer it in this world, anyway. Law and justice are like chemical incompatibles and there must be a gulf between them. And law is no better and no worse than other conventions of society. Who that studies human government in any form has ever been able to regard it otherwise than with contempt?"
"Certainly," interposed Fritzie Venable, with formal irony. "No one that takes care of the Kimberly interests at Washington."
"The Kimberly interests at Washington," returned Nelson with complaisance, "are so well behaved that they take care of themselves."
"Then I don't see what contempt you should have for this government," retorted Fritzie vigorously.
"Only that it affords him no adequate exercise for his ingenuity," suggested Arthur De Castro.
"I don't care," protested Fritzie; "I am an American and I won't have our government abused. I believe in sticking to your own."
"Well, ifwehaven't stuck to our own, I should like to know who has?" observed Charles Kimberly benevolently. "We've stuck for fifty years to our tariff builders, as Mustard would to a stot. MacBirney's farmers are doing the work for us now," he continued. "Our beet growers guard the sugar schedule at Washington. These wonderful Western States; lowest in illiteracy, highest in political sagacity! It is really a shame to take the money."
"I don't see howyouconscientiously can take it," declared Hamilton, appealing to Robert Kimberly.
"I do it by educating my conscience, Doctor," responded Robert Kimberly. "Every one that takes the trouble to inquire knows I am a free trader. I abstain from the Reform Club, but that is out of deference to my partners. I contribute to both campaign funds; to the one for our shareholders, to the other for my conscience; for as I say, personally I am a free trader."
"And a tariff beneficiary," added Arthur De Castro.
"Why not, Arthur? Wasn't it Disraeli who said sensible men are all of one religion? He might better have said, sensible men are all of one politics. It is true, we are tariff beneficiaries, but this country is doing business under a protective theory. We are engaged, as we were long before there was a tariff, in what is now a protected industry. We can't change our business because the government changes its economic policy.
"And if anybodyisto have protection here, Arthur, why shouldn't we? Who has a better right to it? Our warrants of occupation were extorted from the Iroquois. We fought the Indian, we fought the French, we fought the English----"
"Was there anybody you didn't fight?"
"We put up our credit in Paris and Amsterdam for the colonies and for the Federal Government when the colonies and the Federal Government had none. Then along comes a little coterie of steel men in our own day," Kimberly tossed his head with disdainful impatience, "who make the toil of a hundred years look like a farce--out-Herod Herod in protection and pile up hundreds of millions while we are up to our armpits in molasses trying to grind out a mere living. Protection! We don't get half enough. Who has any better sanction for exercising that airy, invisible pressure of a tariff tax?" he demanded, lifting a glass of wine to the light.
"Picturesque old pirate," murmured Hamilton.
"And he needs the money," commented De Castro. "Why quarrel with him?"
"I am sure you will all pledge the sugar business," continued Kimberly, raising a refilled glass blandly, "and join me in welcoming anybody that wants to go into it. This is a free country, gentlemen."
"What do you use on competitors, the rack and dungeon?"
"Nothing that savors of them."
"But you take care of competition," persisted Hamilton.
Kimberly laughed.
"Certainly we do," interposed McCrea, quickly and frankly. "But without unnecessary cruelty, as Mr. Robert Kimberly puts it. No man that ever fought the company and had horse-sense has ever starved to death. We can use such a man's talents better than he can, and very often he comes into camp and becomes our teacher; that has happened. Our system of combination has brought comforts and luxuries into thousands of homes that never would have known them under the waste of competition. Hundreds and thousands of men have profited by uniting their efforts with ours. And no man that wasn't a business lunatic has ever been the worse for anything we've done."
"Your husband talks well, Mrs. McCrea," said Robert Kimberly, to a quiet little woman near him.
"He has had able teachers," laughed Mrs. McCrea.
"No, it is because he believes in himself. It's a great thing to be able to believe in yourself."
"Don't you?"
"Far from it."
"You've made a good many others believe in you."
"Not always for their own best interests, I'm afraid."
"Yes, I know," Dolly was saying to those of the women who were listening to her, "the weight of authority is against me. But I have always held, and hold yet, that a simple thing, such as lapis-lazuli, is best set in gold--much better than in silver. Talk with Castellani about it sometime, or Viola."
"Yes, and they'll tell you silver, every time," interrupted Fritzie vigorously.
Dolly waved her hand as if to dismiss controversy.
"Gold is so common," objected Lottie Nelson.
"Not more so than lapis," retorted Dolly.
"But isn't that the glory of gold," suggested Robert, "that it is common? It has the seal of approval of mankind; what higher sanction do you want? You are always safe in resting with that approval. I believe in common things--pearls for example and rubies. I am just common enough to like them."
Bell, passing behind his mistress, spoke in her ear. Alice's face lighted and she caught Kimberly's eye. "He is here," she nodded laughingly across the table.
The juggler had come and as the dessert was being served he followed a butler into the room in his native robes and assumed his place as one of Bell's assistants. The Chinaman was handsome and of great size and strength. Alice only hinted to her guests what awkwardness might be looked for from the new footman, and the juggler smiling in Oriental silence began to cajole the senses of his spectators.
After he had amused them with trifles he floated a gossamer veil of yellow silk over a huge glass bowl filled with fruit from a serving table. With this in his hands he hastened to the fireplace at the end of the room and turning heaved the bowl swiftly toward the ceiling, catching it in his arms as it descended filled with quivering goldfish swimming in water of crystal clearness.
He took oranges from the side tables and, splitting them, released song-birds into the air. The guests tossed fruit at him, and from apples and pomegranates he cut favors for them--jewelled stick-pins, belt agraffes and Florentine bonbonières. When the evening was over Alice thanked her guests for their compliments. Lottie Nelson's words in particular left a flush of triumph in Alice's cheeks and she looked so happy that Kimberly paused before he spoke.
"Well?" said Alice questioningly. And then: "If you have had a good time, don't be afraid to say so."
He looked at her as if pleased at her fervor. "Are you a little bit sorry?" he asked quizzically.
Her brows rose with a pretty assumption of ignorance. "I have nothing to be sorry for."
"Then I suppose I must have."
She dropped her eyes for a moment to her sandalwood fan. "Of course, you will decide that."
"I presume," he continued, taking the fan without apology from her hands, "I may come over when you are not at home and look at your portrait?"
"I am sure you don't realize how silly that sounds. I hear you have a new picture," she added, looking up.
"It is to be hung next week. MacBirney is to bring you over to see it. Are you sorry I came?"
"Oh, isthatwhat you meant? Why, such a question! You saved my evening."
"But are you sorry?"
"I shouldn't say so if I were, should I?"
"No, but answer, anyway."
Her expression of vexation was pleasing. "How obstinate! No, then. And you saved my evening besides."
"You must take me as I am."
"You cannot, I know, be less than you should be."
"How about you?"
She drew herself up the least bit. "I hope no friend of mine would wish me anything less."
"We are both then to be all we should be."
"Don't you think I am very patient?" she demanded impatiently.
"You are. We are both to be, aren't we?"
She did not conceal her annoyance. "I sincerely trust so," she said coldly. "But there is a limit to all things."
He held out his hand. "Thank you for a delightful evening."
CHAPTER XVIII
The new picture at The Towers made a topic of interest among Kimberly's friends, but Alice found excuses for not going to see it until MacBirney would brook no further delays. They drove over one afternoon and found Doctor Hamilton and Imogene in the library. Robert Kimberly came downstairs with Charles and greeted the MacBirneys. Tea was brought presently and Kimberly asked Alice to pour it.
"I haven't seen you since your dinner," said he, sitting down after a time by Alice. "You were indisposed the day I called. Imogene tells me you intend spending the winter in town."
"Mr. MacBirney wants to."
"I hoped you would winter in the country."
"I like the country, but Mr. MacBirney likes the town. I shall enjoy it, too. You know we are really country folk and haven't had as much town life as you have."
The others started for the east room. "Come," said Dolly, beckoning Alice, "you want to see the Rubens."
The new picture was hung as a panel between a smaller Rubens and an unknown head of the Virgin, in the manner of Botticelli. Kimberly seated Alice apart from the others and stood behind her.
"You have been in this room before?" he said questioningly.
"Once before. It is very much richer now." She indicated the new picture as she spoke, a large canvas of the Crucifixion. "There are two titles for it," explained Kimberly, "a Latin and a Dutch. I like the Dutch best: 'The Ninth Hour.' This picture doesn't appeal so much to my friends as it has appealed to me. But see what this master magician has chosen here; the supreme moment of the Crucifixion."
Those with them were chatting apart. Alice sat in silence while Kimberly spoke and when he had done they were silent together. "I hope you are going to like it," he said after a pause.
MacBirney asked a question, and Kimberly walked to where he was seated. When he came back he seemed unable to wait longer for Alice's comment. "What is the verdict?"
"Nothing I have ever seen of Rubens's leaves me unmoved," she answered. "This is almost overwhelming, terrible."
"Mrs. MacBirney likes my 'Crucifixion,' Dolly," observed Kimberly after another silence.
"Oh, you needn't quote Alice," exclaimed Dolly from a window seat. "So do I like it. All I said was, that it is a sin to pay so much for a picture."
"No price is too great for a great inspiration. See," he pointed for Alice to the face of a Roman soldier cowering in the foreground of the canvas. "There is one man's face. Hamilton has studied a good many pictures and watched unnumbered faces in every expression of suffering. He has told me that, so far as he knows pictures, the emotion of fear has never been depicted on the human countenance except in that face. As a great surgeon, of a very wide experience, he may be said to know what fear pictured on a human face should be. And there it is before us. Conceive what a triumph for that man to have achieved this, so far from us in the dead centuries, and yet so near to us in this magic of his skill. Observe what a background he has chosen to depict it from--Jerusalem, bathed in the uncanny, terrifying light that accompanies a convulsion of nature. The earth rent, the dead issuing from their graves, nature prostrate, and everywhere--brooding over everything, but stamped most of all on this one guilty face--fear. How it all builds up the agony of that death sweat on the cross! By Heaven, it is tremendous! And Dolly says it is a sin to spend so much money for it. Brother Francis doesn't agree with her; I found him in here early one morning saying his prayers to it."
"Before it," said Alice instantly.
"I thought that no mean tribute. Frankly, do you think me extravagant?"
"Did you really pay the price named in the newspapers?"
"Even then?"
"It does take one's breath away--at least, it took mine."
"I have wanted this picture for years. Hamilton made one trip over with me to look at it--he told me of it first. Then I had to wait all these years for the opportunity to acquire it."
"What patience!"
His eyes were fixed on the picture. "It must have taken patience to paint it. But patience gives us everything in this life." Alice was silent. "You don't agree with me?"
"How do you know that?"
"I feel it; the air is thick with your dissent. But, Alice, I am right and you are wrong."
Her name coming so suddenly and for the first time from his lips astonished her. Her heart sent its blood in protest to her very ears. In a room with other people nothing could be said. But she rose and turning from Kimberly called to her husband, asking if he were ready.
"Before you go I have a favor to ask," said Kimberly, intervening, and Kimberly's petitions had always something of the color of command. "I told you," he said, speaking to Alice, "of my mother's portrait. It is upstairs; will you come see it?"
"I should like very much to see it. Come, Walter," she held out her hand for her husband. "Mr. Kimberly wants us to see his mother's portrait."
Kimberly made no comment, but the manner with which he paused, waiting for MacBirney to join them, sufficiently indicated that he was conscious of waiting. When MacBirney noticed his attitude he moved from those he was with much more quickly than he would have done at his wife's behest. Dolly came with MacBirney and the four walked upstairs. Kimberly's rooms opened to the south. There were five in the apartment and while Kimberly excused himself to take MacBirney in for a moment to speak to his uncle, Dolly took Alice through Kimberly's suite.
"These rooms are charming!" exclaimed Alice, when the men came in to them. "You must see them, Walter. The breakfast room is dear."
They were standing in the library, which served as a writing room and a conference room. It was finished in oak and on the east the breakfast room opened, in white and green.
Alice took her husband's arm. "See, Walter," she said passing through the open door; "isn't this darling? These tones must be restful to wake to!"
"I had lunch here once," announced MacBirney in his choppy way. "With you and your brother and McCrea," he added, turning to Kimberly.
"You never said a word to me about seeing such a pretty place," remarked his wife.
"You've been in the west room?" asked Kimberly.
"Yes, Alice sang for me while you were with Uncle John," responded Dolly.
"I thought I heard music," remarked Kimberly, looking at Alice. "What did you sing?"
"I only hummed an old air."
Kimberly tried to get her to go back to the piano but could not. "I miss music keenly," he said, "I wish I could make a contract with you to sing here every day."
Alice laughed.
"You would be in very good company," interposed Dolly. "Some famous artistes have sung at that piano. Robert," she added, as the two women walked toward his dressing-room, "has everything here but what he ought to have--a wife. When mother lived, The Towers was more than a habitation--it was a home."
In his bedroom, Kimberly indicated a portrait above the fireplace. "This is my mother," he said to Alice. "Sit down for just a moment--I want you to like her."
"I like her very much, already," returned Alice. "But I should like to sit a moment to enjoy the portrait. I wish I could have known your mother."
"This room I fancy best of them all," Dolly was saying to MacBirney as they walked on. "All of this wall panelling and ceiling was made from one mahogany log brought up from Santo Domingo many years ago with a cargo of sugar."
Kimberly, sitting with Alice before his mother's picture, showed a self-consciousness he did not often betray, a solicitude, seemingly, that Alice should agree with his own estimate of his mother. "She was the most tender, kindly woman in the world," he said after a moment.
"Such a mother ought to be an inspiration to you for everything high and good, Mr. Kimberly."
"Yet I have never reached anything high and good."
"Sometime you will."
He looked at her curiously. "Do you really think that?"
"Yes, I do. And thank you for letting me see your mother."
"If you only could have met her!" There was an intensity of regret in his words. "It was a tragedy for such a woman to die young. I have long wanted you to see her portrait; you constantly make me think of her, Alice."
She turned calmly and frankly. "It is most kind of you to say that, Mr. Kimberly. So kind that I am going to be bold enough to ask a favor."
"I know what you are going to ask, but I wish you wouldn't. I want very much to do what you are about to ask me not to do----"
"It is almost nothing--only not to call me Alice."
"There is no use my asking a favor, is there?" He turned with almost a boyish humor in his manner. His mother's eyes seemed to look at her in his eyes as he spoke.
"Not, Mr. Kimberly, this time. I want you to oblige me."
"You are afraid of me." There was no resentment in the words; nothing beyond a regret.
Her answer was low but neither weak nor confused. "Is it quite generous, Mr. Kimberly--here?"
"No," he answered in the same even voice, "it is not. Unhappily, there are times when generosity is weakness. I've been trying ever since I have known you to think of you just as I think of myself. I believe I have tried to give you a little the best of it--yet a selfish man can't always be sure of doing that."
"I trust you think of me," she responded, "only as one of the least important among your friends."
"You are afraid of me. And yet I want your confidence above everything in this world--and I must in some way deserve and win it."
"I do wish you would not say these things. I have to try very hard not to dislike you exceedingly when you speak in this way."
"You do dislike me exceedingly when I speak in this way. I know it perfectly."
If her voice trembled the least bit it was with indignation. "I sometimes ask myself whether I should suffer it even for my husband's sake. You will force me to do something unpleasant, I fear."
"I never will force you to do anything. I do want to call you Alice. But don't hate me for that."
She heard with relief Dolly talking to her husband in the doorway. "It was almost three years before Imogene saw Charles again," Alice heard Dolly say, "and, would you believe it, he began exactly where he left off. After that Imogene decided it was of no use. So, she is Mrs. Kimberly!"
"By Jove! He had patience," laughed MacBirney.
Dolly laughed a little, too. "That is the only exasperating thing about the Kimberly men--their patience."
CHAPTER XIX
MacBirney's decision to spend the winter in town became very welcome to Alice; the atmosphere within a wide radius of The Towers seemed too charged with electricity for mental peace. And her husband, having tasted for the first time the excitement of the stock markets, desired to be near his brokers.
Fritzie, who was an authority in town affairs, made it easy for Alice to find acceptable quarters. In general the Second Lake people cared less and less for opening their town houses. Robert Kimberly's house, while nominally open, never saw its master. Charles and Imogene Kimberly for several years had spent their winters cruising and now made ready to take Grace De Castro to the eastern Mediterranean. Arthur and Dolly were to winter at Biarritz and join Charles and Imogene in Sicily on their return from the Levant. Fritzie accepted Alice's invitation to spend the season in town with her. Dora Morgan had already gone to Paris for an indefinite stay and the Nelsons, Congress being in session, were starting for Washington.
MacBirney came over to The Towers just before leaving with Alice for town to see Robert Kimberly. When Kimberly asked him what was on his mind, "I would like to know," MacBirney answered frankly, "what I can make some money in this winter." It was the second time he had brought the subject up and Kimberly who had once evaded his inquiries saw that nothing was to be gained by further effort in that direction.
Kimberly regarded him gravely. "Buy standard railway shares," he suggested, "on a four-and-a-half-per-cent average."
"But I want to do better than four-and-a-half-per-cent. It costs something to live."
"I mean, you would have your profit in the advances. But your present income ought to cover a very liberal scale of living," said Kimberly.
MacBirney squirmed in his chair. Kimberly would have preferred he should sit still. "That is true," assented MacBirney, with smiling candor, "but a poor man doesn't want to spend all his money. Isn't there a chance," he asked, coming to the point in his mind, "to make some money in our own stock? I have heard a rumor there would be, but I can't run it down."
"There are always chances if you are closely enough in touch with general conditions. Charles keeps better track of those things than I do; suppose you talk with him."
"Charles sends me to you," protested MacBirney good naturedly.
"Our shares seem just now to be one of the speculative favorites," returned Kimberly. "That means, as you know, violent fluctuations."
MacBirney was impatient of hazards. "Put me next on any one of your own plans, Mr. Kimberly, that you might feel like trusting me with," said MacBirney, jocularly.
"I don't often have any speculative schemes of my own," returned Kimberly. "However," he hesitated a moment; MacBirney leaned forward. "Doane," continued Kimberly abruptly, "has a strong party interested now in putting up the common. They profess to think that on its earnings it should sell higher. In fact, they have sounded me about an extra dividend. I am opposed to that--until Congress adjourns, at any rate. But the company is making a great deal of money. I can't uncover Doane's deal, but I can say this to you: I have agreed to help them as much as I safely can. By that, I mean, that their speculative interests must always come second to the investment interests of our shareholders."
"By Jove, I wish I could get in on a movement like that, Mr. Kimberly. With you behind it----"
"I am not behind it--only not opposed to it. For my part, I never advise any one to speculate in our securities. I can't do it. I do business with speculators, but I never speculate myself. You don't credit that, do you? What I mean is this: I never take chances. If it is necessary, for cogent reasons, to move our securities up or down, I am in a position to do so without taking any extreme chances. That is natural, isn't it?"
MacBirney laughed and swayed in his chair. "I'd like to be fixed that way for just one year of my life!" he exclaimed.
"If you were you would find plenty of other things to engage your attention."
"Well, can you do anything for me on this present deal?"
Kimberly reflected a moment. "Yes," he said finally, "if you will operate through the brokers I name and do exactly as I say, and run the risk of losing half the money you put up--I don't see how you could lose more than that. But if you don't do exactly as I tell you, without question, you might lose a great deal more. I am not supposing, of course, that you would risk more than you could afford to lose."
"Not at all. I want to play safe."
"Place your orders to-day and to-morrow then for what common you can carry. Hamilton will let you have what money you need--or he will get it for you. Then forget all about your investment until I tell you to sell. Don't question the advice, but get out promptly at that moment no matter what you hear or what the market looks like. Can you do that? And keep your own counsel?"
"Trust me."
"Good luck then. And if it should come bad, try not to feel incensed at me," concluded Kimberly, rising.
"Surely not!" exclaimed MacBirney.
Kimberly smiled. "But you will, just the same. At least, that is my experience."
"What about the winter, Mr. Kimberly--are you going in town?"
"I haven't decided."
But although Kimberly had made no decision he had made vague promises to every one. With Charles he talked about putting his own yacht into commission, taking Larrie from the refineries for a breathing spell and meeting Charlie's party in February at Taormina. He discussed with Dolly a shorter vacation, one of taking passage to Cherbourg, motoring with Arthur and herself across France and meeting Charles at Nice, whence all could come home together.
The Nelsons left the lake last. Lottie gave Kimberly a parting thrust as she said good-by, delivering it in such a way that she hoped to upset him. "So you are in love with Alice MacBirney?" she said smilingly.
Kimberly looked frankly into her clear, sensuous eyes. "What put that into your head, Lottie?"
She laughed unsympathetically. "I'm glad you've got some one this time that will make you do the walking--not one like the rest of us poor creatures."
"Why do you talk about 'this time,' and 'us poor creatures'? Let me tell you something."
"Do, so I can tell it to Alice."
"You may at any time tell Mrs. MacBirney anything I say. It is this: if I should ever find a woman to love, I expect to do the walking. Tell her that, will you? I respect Mrs. MacBirney very highly and admire her very much--is that clear? But that is far from outraging her feelings by coupling her name with mine or mine with hers. Don't do that. I will never forgive it." She had never seen him so angry.
He realized more than once during the long winter that the slighted woman had told him only the truth. But from her it was an impertinent truth. And it galled him to be forced to admit to the loose-thinking members of his own set what he felt toward Alice.
Meantime, he spent the whole winter at The Towers with Uncle John, the tireless Francis, and his own unruly thoughts. His time went to conferences with his city associates, infrequent inspections of the refineries, horseback rides over the winter landscape, and to winter sunsets watched alone from the great western windows.
In town Alice found Fritzie an admirable guide.
"I try," said Fritzie calmly, answering one of Alice's jests at her wide acquaintance, "to move with the best. I suppose in heaven we shall encounter all sorts. And if we don't cultivate the elect here we may never have another chance to."
"You are far-sighted, Fritzie dear," smiled Alice. "What I can't understand is, why you don't marry."
"I have too many rich relations. I couldn't marry anybody in their class. I should have to pick up with some wretched millionaire and be reduced to misery. The Lord deliver us from people that watch their incomes--they are the limit. And it must, I have always thought, be terrible, Alice, to live with a man that has made a million honestly. He would be so mean. Of course, we are mean, too; but happily a good part of our meannesses are underground--buried with our ancestors."
Fritzie's light words struck home with an unsuspected force. Alice knew Fritzie had no thought of painting MacBirney; it was only Alice herself who recognized her husband's portrait.
Fritzie certainly had, as she admitted, an appetite for the luxurious and even MacBirney liked her novel extravagances. In their few resting hours the two women talked of Second Lake. "Fritzie," said Alice one night when they were together before the fire, "the first time I met you, you said every one at Second Lake was contented, with two exceptions. You were one; who was the other?"
"Robert, dear. He is the most discontented mortal alive. Isn't it all a strange world?"
Alice, too, had thoughts that winter, but they were confused thoughts and not always to be tolerated. She, likewise, was beginning to think it a strange world.
MacBirney, guided by McCrea, followed the pool operations with sleepless vigilance. They reached their height when Congress adjourned early without disturbing the tariff. The street saw enormous gains ahead for the crowd operating in the Kimberly stocks and with public buying underway the upward movement in the shares took on renewed strength.
It was just at this moment of the adjournment of Congress that Kimberly sent McCrea to MacBirney with directions to sell, and explicitly as to how and through whom to sell. MacBirney, to McCrea's surprise, demurred at the advice and argued that if he dropped out now he should lose the best profits of the venture.
McCrea consented to talk to Kimberly again. Doane, the Hamilton banking interests and their associates were still ostensibly buying and were talking even higher prices. It did not look right to MacBirney to sell under such circumstances but McCrea came back the very next day with one word: "Sell." No reasons, no explanations were given, nothing vouchsafed but a curt command.
MacBirney, doubtful and excited, consulted Alice, to whom indeed, in serious perplexity, he often turned. Knowing nothing about the situation, she advised him to do precisely as Kimberly directed and to do so without loss of time. He was still stubborn. No one but himself knew that he was carrying twice the load of stock he had any right to assume, and battling thus between greed and prudence he reluctantly placed the selling orders.
Just as he had gotten fairly out of it, the market, to his mortification, advanced. A few days later it ran quite away. Huge blocks of stock thrown into it made hardly any impression. The market, as MacBirney had predicted, continued strong. At the end of the week he felt sure that Kimberly had tricked him, and in spite of winning more money than he had ever made in his life he was in bad humor. Kimberly himself deigned no word of enlightenment. McCrea tried to explain to MacBirney that the public had run away with the market--as it sometimes did. But MacBirney nursed resentment.
The Nelsons came over from Washington that week--it was Holy Week--for the opera and the week-end, and MacBirney asked his wife to entertain them, together with Lambert, at dinner on Friday night.
Alice fought the proposal, but MacBirney could not be moved. She endeavored to have the date changed to Easter Sunday; MacBirney was relentless. He knew it was Good Friday and that his wife was trying to avoid entertaining during the evening. But he thought it an opportunity to discipline her. Alice sent out her invitations and they were accepted. No such luck, she knew, as a declination would be hers.
Lottie, amusing herself for the winter with Lambert, was in excellent humor. But Alice was nervous and everything went wrong. They rose from the table to go to the opera, where Nelson had the Robert Kimberly box. Alice seeking the retirement of an easy-chair gave her attention to the stage and to her own thoughts. In neither did she find anything satisfying. Mrs. Nelson, too talkative with the men, was a mild irritation to her, and of all nights in the year this was the last on which Alice would have wished to be at the opera. It was only one more link in the long chain of sacrifices she wore for domestic peace, but to-night her gyves lay heavy on her wrists. She realized that she was hardly amiable. This box she was enjoying the seclusion of, brought Kimberly close to her. The difference there would be within it if he himself were present, suggested itself indolently to her in her depression. How loath, she reflected, Kimberly would have been to drag her out when she wished to be at home. It was not the first time that she had compared him with her husband, but this was the first time she was conscious of having done so. All they were enjoying was his; yet she knew he would have been indifferent to everything except what she preferred.
And it was not alone what he had indicated in deferring to her wishes; it was what he often did in deferring in indifferent things to the wishes of others that had impressed itself upon her more than any trait in his character. How much happier she should be if her own husband were to show a mere trace of such a disposition, she felt past even the possibility of telling him; it seemed too useless. He could not be made to understand.
For supper the party went with Nelson. The gayety of the others left Alice cold. Nelson, with the art of the practised entertainer, urged the eating and drinking, and when the party left the buzzing café some of them were heated and unrestrained. At two o'clock, Alice with her husband and Fritzie reached their apartment, and Alice, very tired, went directly to her own rooms. MacBirney came in, somewhat out of humor. "What's the matter with you to-night?" he demanded. Alice had dismissed Annie and her husband sat down beside her table.
"With me? Nothing, Walter; why?"
"You acted so cattish all the evening," he complained, with an irritating little oath.
Alice was in no mood to help him along. "How so?" she asked tying her hair as she turned to look at him.
An inelegant exclamation annoyed her further. "You know what I mean just as well as I do," he went on curtly. "You never opened your mouth the whole evening. Lottie asked me what the matter was with you----"
Alice repeated but one word of the complaining sentence. "Lottie!" she echoed. Her husband's anger grew. "If Lottie would talk less," continued Alice quietly, "and drink less, I should be less ashamed to be seen with her. And perhaps I could talk more myself."
"You never did like anybody that liked me. So it is Lottie you're jealous of?"
"No, not 'jealous of,' only ashamed of. Even at the dinner she was scandalous, I thought."
Her husband regarded her with stubborn contempt, and it hurt. "You are very high and mighty to-night. I wonder," he said with a scarcely concealed sneer, "whether prosperity has turned your head."
"You need not look at me in that way, Walter, and you need not taunt me."
"You have been abusing Lottie Nelson a good deal lately. I wish you would stop it." He rose and stood with one hand on the table. Alice was slipping her rings into the cup in front of her and she dropped in the last with some spirit.
"I will stop it. And I hope you will never speak of her again. I certainly never will entertain her again under any circumstances," she exclaimed.
"You will entertain her the next time I tell you to."
Alice turned quite white. "Have you anything else to say to me?"
Her very restraint enraged him. "Only that if you try to ride your high horse with me," he replied, "I will send you back to St. Louis some fine day."
"Is that all?"
"That is all. And if you think I don't mean what I say, try it sometime." As he spoke he pushed the chair in which he had been sitting roughly aside.
Alice rose to her feet. "I despise your threats," she said, choking with her own words. "I despise you. I can't tell you how I despise you." Her heart beat rebelliously and she shook in every limb; expressions that she would not have known for her own fell stinging from her lips. "You have bullied me for the last time. I have stood your abuse for five years. It will stop now. You will do the cringing and creeping from now on. That woman never shall sit down at a table with me again, not if you beg it of me on your knees. You are a cowardly wretch; I know you perfectly; you never were anything else. I have paid dearly for ever believing you a man." Her contempt burned the words she uttered. "Now drive me one step further," she sobbed wildly, "if you dare!"
She snapped out the light above her head with an angry twist. Another light shone through the open door of her sleeping-room and through this door she swiftly passed, slamming it shut and locking it sharply behind her.
MacBirney had never seen his wife in such a state. He was surprised; but there could be no mistake. Her blood was certainly up.