"You give me too much credit, Robert. That was simply a chance suggestion; it was your master mind which gave it life."
"It is yours, none the less," Gorham insisted; "and this great corporation may be the means of giving me my son and successor, after all."
It was Eleanor's turn to show surprise, but he did not wait for the question which was on her lips.
"It is my hope that Alice may marry Covington," he continued, "and I see no reason why this should not be. She is, of course, a free agent, but I think Covington will have little difficulty in winning her. He has an attractive personality, and I know that she already admires and respects him. He is a man of rare ability and is my natural successor."
"There seems to be no logical obstacle," Eleanor admitted; "but her heart is yet to be awakened."
"As far as that is concerned," Gorham said, decisively, "Alice will not altogether disregard my wishes in the matter; and the awakening will be all the healthier if the child is guided."
"We must never do more than guide her," Eleanor said, apprehensively.
"I don't intend to. Now tell me something of this youngster who seems to have made quite an impression on my entire family."
Mrs. Gorham smiled as her mind reverted to the afternoon. "We had a charming ride," she said. "Allen has an over-developed bump of humor which encourages him to be irresponsible, but he is a likable boy and I enjoyed him."
"Probably all he needs is a smaller allowance and a greater necessity."
"I judge he isn't likely to get either from his father. As you know, Mr. Sanford insists on his becoming a diplomat, while he prefers to go into business. This naturally interested Alice, and they had a most amusing discussion about it. He really doesn't know why he prefers business, but Alice has helped him to crystallize his ideas. In fact, she has quite fired his ambition. I think you will enjoy your conversation with him at dinner to-night, Robert, for he is really most ingenuous, and a bit of advice from you will help him just now, even if he doesn't measure up to your standard of business capacity."
"You think me a stern master, don't you, Eleanor?" Gorham pressed the hand he held in his.
"It would be unfair to judge him by yourself. Boys of to-day are not having the early training that fell to your lot, and their latent ability is just that much slower in showing itself. You see so much of the serious side of life, it will be diverting to hear the frank expressions of one of the younger generation. I am curious to know what you think of him."
"I couldn't take him into the Consolidated Companies," Gorham said, flatly.
"That isn't what I mean," his wife hastened to reply. "You don't think this a disregard of your desire not to have me refer to business?"
"No, dear; I understand, and shall be glad to talk with the boy. I hope you also understand as clearly why I have had to take this seemingly arbitrary position. My day is filled with problems which require nerve and confidence in my own judgment in order to carry them through. I must let no one influence this judgment, and even a suggested preference from those I love might do it. More than this, my brain is clearer each day when I can claim an evening with you and Alice, with no intruding thoughts of business detail. Now I must send a few telegrams to clear the way for the theatre this evening. You really want me to go with you?"
"Alice has set her heart on it, and as for me—well, you know how little any evening means to me unless we are together."
"Then I will send Riley to see about the seats."
"But before you do that, I have a complaint to make."
Gorham smiled at the expression on his wife's face, half serious, half humorous.
"Who is the culprit?"
"Riley," she replied.
"Riley?" her husband repeated. "Good heavens, don't tell me that you and
Riley have been having trouble!"
"Not trouble, exactly; but really, Robert, he treats me as if I were a child."
"No!" Gorham assumed an incredulity he did not feel. "Tell me all about it."
"It is too absurd to speak of, but I was really annoyed with him for the moment. He actually wouldn't let me go shopping this morning—he said I was too tired, and absolutely refused to order a cab."
Gorham laughed. "Well, wasn't he right?"
"That isn't the question. Even a privileged servant ought not to presume too far."
Gorham did not speak for a moment. "Do you know, Eleanor," he said at length, "that idea regarding Riley never entered my head before. He was the bloody tyrant of my childhood, and I would have incurred even my much-dreaded father's wrath rather than risk a disagreement with Riley. Actually, if he had disapproved, I question whether I should have dared to marry you! Even now I can feel my old-time trembling coming on at the thought of reproving him because he prevented you from overdoing. He would consider me an ingrate for not recognizing that it was done in my best interests, and I should positively lose caste."
Mrs. Gorham laughed in spite of her temporary chagrin in the face of her husband's genuine discomfiture, which he tried to conceal by the lightness of his words. She wondered at the extremes he manifested—quiet but firm and immovable as the rock of Gibraltar in his business dealings, unaggressive and yielding in all which had to do with his home life. She hastened to withdraw her complaint.
"Don't worry about Riley," she laughed. "The next time I want to do something of which he doesn't approve, I'll have it done before he knows anything about it."
"You don't think I'm supporting Riley against you, do you?"
"No, indeed," Eleanor replied, smiling; "I understand your feelings about him."
Gorham drew a sigh of relief. "I always want you to bring everything to me, Eleanor—everything, no matter how slight, which worries you. You will always do that, won't you?"
"Of course"; Mrs. Gorham looked up quickly.
"You always have, haven't you, dear?"
"Why, yes, Robert; do you doubt it?"
"Sometimes I have a feeling that there might have been something in those sad years of yours which I could make lighter if you shared it with me."
"You have made everything lighter and brighter," she replied, gratefully, yet without directly answering his question.
V
Patricia would also have made complaints of Riley had she not considered herself entirely competent to cope with the situation. The child's disappointment at being left behind had made this a trying day for the whole family, and Eleanor's delay in joining Alice and Allen for the ride had been caused by her efforts to straighten matters out before leaving Patricia alone for the afternoon with the declaration of open warfare still in force between her and the old man. Nine times out of ten, Patricia played the tune to which Riley danced, but this was the tenth, and an older understanding would have heeded the signals of the approaching storm.
"I don't say she has more iv it than other childern," Riley explained to Mrs. Gorham; "but th' divvle is in 'em all. Go 'long wid ye'er ride, Missus Gorham, an' lave her ter me. 'Tis th' firm hand I'll be afther showin' her, but th' tinder wan, like I done wid her fa-ather forty year ago. Ye lave her ter me, ma'm."
So the motor-party set out with one member of it uncertain of what might happen during her absence; but there was no uncertainty in Patricia's mind. She watched the departure of the car from the window, and then slammed the door, knowing well that the noise would arouse all sorts of apprehensions in Riley's soul. A vigorous knock soon rewarded her efforts.
"Come in," she called, innocently.
Riley stood in the doorway, with a hand resting on each hip, astonished into silence by the peaceful scene before him. Patricia was seated in the middle of the bed, completely surrounded with pillows, and fanning herself nonchalantly.
"Phwat made ye slam th' dure?" he demanded.
"Did it slam?" she asked. "It must have been the draught. There's an awful draught around this apartment—haven't you noticed it, Riley?"
"I haven't noticed nuthin' excep' that ye are a bad little gurl."
"It's the 'divvle' in me—coming out, isn't it, Riley? That's what you told mamma Eleanor, and you ought to know."
"Shure, I ought ter know, an' I do know."
"I thought you did." Patricia smiled sweetly. "But if a person has the 'divvle' in him, it is much better to let it get out."
"'Twud take more room than there is here ter let it all out iv ye," retorted the irate Riley.
"You are no gentleman, Mr. Riley, to speak to a lady like that," she said, severely. "You may go now."
"Will ye be th' good gurl if I lave ye by yersel'?"
"How do I know if it's all out of me?"
"Shure, it oughter be," he declared, in despair. "Will ye thry?"
"Certainly, I'll try." Patricia was demureness itself. "If anything happens, it will be the 'divvle's' fault, so you mustn't hold me responsible."
"It's ye'er own divvle, ain't it?—ye can make it do what ye want."
"I don't know," protested Patricia. "I didn't even know I had a 'divvle.' It was you who discovered it; and people who discover things have to be responsible for them, don't they?"
Riley shook his head in desperation. His arguments were exhausted, and all that was left to him was retreat.
"I wuddent be that child's gov'ness f'r all th' money in th' world," he muttered, as he shuffled through the hall. "An' ter think they lift her home fr'm ch'ice. 'Twas th' lucky day f'r Miss Mary—but I wish her here."
Finding the coast clear, Patricia moved the scene of her activity to the reception-room. Here she undertook to put into execution the latest idea which had struck her fancy, which was nothing less than a medieval tournament on as elaborate a scale as the properties at hand would permit. The hotel had not been furnished with an eye to contests of chivalry, but chairs, turned wrong-side up and covered with table-cloths, made richly caparisoned steeds; and Patricia's imagination easily supplied the riders.
At first the Knights and their horses were ranged together at one end of the room.
"You are Front-de-B[oe]uf," the child announced, laying her hand upon the first overturned chair; "and you are Bois-Guilbert, and you Malvoisin. We ought to have some others, but there aren't any more table-covers."
Then she moved Front-de-B[oe]uf into the centre of the arena.
"You stay there 'til I get my shield and lance," she said, and the war-like Knight made no protest.
Patricia next appeared with an open umbrella dexterously held in front of her, and a heavy cane belonging to her father in her hand. Front-de-B[oe]uf may have been intimidated by the militant figure which approached him, but he stood his ground bravely.
"I'm the Disinherited Knight," Patricia announced to the assembled multitude, pausing a moment to receive their enthusiastic plaudits.
"Largesse, largesse, gallant Knights!" she cried, boldly. "That means that I'm bigger than any one else," she explained. "Love of the Ladies—Glory to the Brave!"
With this ample notice of her intentions, the Disinherited Knight charged Front-de-B[oe]uf with a frenzy which resulted in his utter disgrace. The trappings were torn from his steed by the fury of the onslaught, the horse itself was overthrown, and Patricia surveyed the carnage with the utmost satisfaction.
"We shall meet again, I trust, where there is none to separate us," she said, solemnly.
A truce was declared while she dragged Bois-Guilbert into the lists.
"To all brave English hearts and to the confusion of foreign tyrants," was the war-cry, and in a moment more Bois-Guilbert had shared the fate of his predecessor. This time, however, the Disinherited Knight did not escape unscathed, as the front foot of the adversary's steed made a dismal rent in her umbrella shield.
Malvoisin alone remained, and he in turn took his stand against the redoubtable champion. But Malvoisin, contrary to history as Patricia knew it, proved the most stubborn adversary of the three. The heralds had not properly cleared away the débris from the tilting-field, so when the Disinherited Knight forced Malvoisin back, Bois-Guilbert supported him from behind. Patricia had found the other two so yielding that she was unprepared for this unexpected defence, and the result of her attack was the complete demolition of the umbrella and a bad fall for herself, in the course of which her lance struck the glass door of a bookcase standing near.
The noise of the fall, together with the crash of glass, brought Riley rushing to the room. Patricia recognized his indignation without need of explanation. Forgetful of her bump, she again seized the cane, and repeating her cry, "To the confusion of foreign tyrants," she charged the old man with such vigor that he stepped aside with astonishing agility, allowing her to pass him into the hall. This was all that the now thoroughly frightened Patricia desired to accomplish. Dropping the cane, she rushed into the bedroom, and retreated underneath the bed, whither she well knew Riley's infirmities would not permit him to follow.
"Come out o' there," the old man commanded, close behind her.
"It's lovely under here," the child answered; "I'd rather stay."
"Phwat in th' name o' Hiven have ye been doin'?"
"Playing tournament, Riley," came back the voice from under the bed.
"It's a splendid game. Do you want to learn it some time?"
"'Tis mesel' has sumthin' to learn ye," he retorted. "Come out o' there,
I say."
"I couldn't think of it. I'm tired."
"Well, ye oughter be—smashin' up th' furnichure, an' makin' a noise like a wake. Wait 'til I gits hold iv ye."
"You are a foreign tyrant, Riley—I shall never yield to you."
"Furrin fiddlesticks—I'll lave th' whole mess f'r ye'er mother ter see when she gits home, d'ye mind."
"All right, Riley; I'll wait for her here."
Again the old man retreated, his indignation increasing as he waited for the return of the motor-party. Mrs. Gorham was given no opportunity even to remove her wraps before she was solemnly led to the scene of the disaster. Allen and Alice followed close behind, ignorant of the nature of the calamity, but feeling certain by Riley's manner that it was a serious one. They gazed for a moment at the wreck before them.
"What has happened, Riley?" Eleanor cried, anxiously.
"It looks as if a vacuum-cleaner had been at work," volunteered Allen.
The old man's emotions were so strong that he could scarcely speak.
"What has happened?" again demanded Eleanor.
"Miss Pat," was all that Riley could articulate.
"But where is she—has she been hurt?"
"No, ma'am; but she done it. She's under th' bed in ye'er room."
The entire party rushed to the bedroom, not knowing what they might find. Mrs. Gorham knelt on the floor and raised the counterpane. There lay the Disinherited Knight, fast asleep, exhausted from her first jousting victories.
"Pat!" cried Eleanor, "are you all right?"
"Hello, mamma Eleanor," she answered, sweetly; "is Riley after you, too?"
VI
Mr. Gorham studied Allen carefully during dinner. What Eleanor had told him of the boy interested him, and his intimate knowledge of Stephen Sanford's personality made him a more sympathetic adviser than might otherwise have been the case. Allen, too, was distinctly attracted by Gorham, though his eyes rested more often on the girl facing him across the small table, who seemed even more lovely to him now, in a soft, clinging gown of exquisite texture. His memory of Gorham had been indistinct, but he had heard so much of him through his father and others during these intervening years that he was prepared to see a man who would intimidate him by his severity and awe him by the manifestation of his greatness. In fact, associating business success with his father's manners and methods, Allen had come to believe that force meant noise and bluster, and that firmness stood for an intolerance of discussion. But here, in the midst of his family, Robert Gorham displayed a side of his nature which Stephen Sanford had never seen; yet Allen was no less conscious of the man's power. The boy was more quick to sense than he was to analyze, and it was not until he had left the Gorhams, some hours later, that he was able to satisfy his silent query as to what was reminiscent in the strength behind Gorham's genial face and cordial bearing. The thought took him back to his college days, and the course in ancient history which, strange to say, he had enjoyed most of all—to the old-time Roman emperors, born to command, and indifferent to the criticism or the commendation of the world in which they labored, made up of the lesser men they dominated.
The conversation at the dinner-table soon turned to Allen's experiences in Europe, and his naive manner of telling about them afforded no little amusement.
"I like everything in London except the telephone," he explained. "It's easy enough to blow in the hot air, but it takes a whole lot of experience on the flute to make the proper connections with your fingers. And to get a number—well, it's a joke, that's what it is."
"Is it really worse than our service?" asked Alice.
"Worse? Why, ours is a direct line without a switchboard compared with theirs. I gave it up altogether after my experience trying to get Crecy & Brown—you know them, Mr. Gorham. I dropped into the office of one of the pater's correspondents and asked to use their telephone. One of the clerks offered to help me out, and I let him.
"'I say, miss,' began the clerk, 'put me through to Crecy & Brown, will you?' Then a few moments went by. 'Oh! thank you very much,' was his reply, and he restored the receiver noisily to its position on the rack. 'They have no telephone,' he said.
"I looked at him a moment, then I said as calmly as I could, 'and yet they say the English are slow.'
"'Do they?' he replied, good-naturedly. 'I don't think I quite follow you.'
"'Why, they have taken that telephone out since four o'clock yesterday afternoon. In America it would have required several days.'
"'Oh, you're joking,' he laughed; 'they couldn't have taken it out since then, you know.'
"'But they have,' I said, boldly, making a noise like the pater. 'I called them up myself at that time yesterday.'
"Then he rang the central office again. 'I say, miss, the gentleman is really positive that Crecy & Brown have a telephone, you know.'
"Some more minutes passed by, and again the clerk said, 'Oh, thank you very kindly,' and he put the receiver back.
"'They have no telephone,' he said.
"'There you are,' I cried, 'it has been taken out since four o'clock yesterday afternoon. It's simply wonderful!'
"'You Americans are such bally jokers,' the clerk said. 'They really couldn't have done that, you know.'
"'But they have! I still insist.'
"Then the Englishman went into a trance for a moment. 'I believe you think they have a telephone, after all,' he declared.
"'I really do,' I admitted.
"'Well, we'll soon find out,' the clerk cried, with an awful burst of speed, striking a bell upon his desk.
"'George,' he said to the boy, 'run around to Crecy & Brown's, will you, and see if they have a telephone.'
"I sat there for twenty minutes, discussing the weather, the Derby winner, and all the other favorite English subjects before the boy came back.
"'Yes, sir,' the boy reported, 'Crecy & Brown have a telephone, sir.
Their number is 485 Gerard, sir.'
"The clerk got me the number this time, and I did fairly well. Then I sat down.
"'Did you want to call another number?' he asked me.
"'No, not two in the same day,' I said; 'but over in America we always pass out something to the operator when she gives us wrong information like that—just for the good of the service.'
"'I suppose I ought to reprimand her,' the clerk admitted—'call her down, as you would say.'
"'If you don't, I will,' I told him.
"'Oh, I had much better do it,' he replied, hastily, taking the receiver in his hand.
"'I say, miss,' he chirped, 'that number you just gave me, 485 Gerard, is Crecy & Brown, you know, the one you said had no telephone. Rather a good joke on you, isn't it, miss?' Then he slammed the receiver on its hook.
"'There!' he said, 'I think that will hold her for a while, as you say in your country!'
"Wouldn't you think that would have just mortified her to death?"
Alice laughed. "If you were ambassador to England, Allen, you could change all that. Perhaps that's the niche for you, after all."
"What's a 'niche'?" demanded Patricia, taking advantage of the first opportunity to join in the conversation.
"What do you think it is, dear?" Mrs. Gorham asked, smiling.
"I think an itch is an awful feeling; why do you want him to have that?" Patricia replied, sinking into obscurity at the laugh which her definition evoked.
Her father, who had been an interested listener thus far, came to her rescue, and took advantage of Alice's remark to turn the conversation in the direction he had previously determined upon.
"You haven't heard from your father recently, I judge?" he said.
"I have an idea that the pater has overlooked me," Allen replied; "he's been so busy with other things."
"Why don't you fall in with his ambition to make a diplomat of you?"
"Well—I suppose the strongest reasons are those which I can't put into words, Mr. Gorham, but one that seems pretty good to me is that I don't think I'm fitted for it."
"Why not?"
"I'm too optimistic, I think, to make a good diplomat. If a man's a gentleman, and treats me square, I'm apt to think he's all right—and, from what I hear, in diplomacy the one who fools the others the most times is the best fellow. Isn't that right?"
"Some people would tell you that the same thing holds true in business."
"I know; but in business there seems to be something more tangible to work on. Of course I don't know anything about it, but I think I could make a better show selling bonds or cotton than ententes cordiales."
"Have you made any effort to secure a position?"
"Not yet, Mr. Gorham. The pater would be more than peeved if I didn't wait for him and his diplomatic expectations. But if he doesn't get busy pretty soon, I think I'll hike it over to New York, and see what's doing."
Gorham smiled in spite of the boy's earnestness. "Surely your father would realize how much in earnest you are if you talked to him as you're talking to me now."
"Father always looks upon me as a joke," Allen continued. "He made his own way, you see, and then, because he was rich, he didn't want me to endure the hardships which really made him what he is. He gave me plenty of money all the way through Harvard, and ever since, in fact; yet he is always wondering why I lack 'initiative.' He's been mighty generous, and I appreciate it all, but don't you think it's one thing to build your own character and economize because you have to, and another to economize when you know you don't have to? I guess that's my complaint."
"He was very proud of what you did at college," Gorham said. "I never used to meet him without hearing about some of your athletic triumphs."
"I suspect it is you who call them triumphs," Allen replied; "that doesn't sound like the pater to me. Of course, some of the things I did in college seemed worth while at the time; I tried for the football team, and I made it—by hard work, with a hundred other fellows doing their best to push me back on the side lines; I tried for the crew, and I made it; I rowed two years at New London, and there was some work about that. I'm afraid I made athletics my vocation and studies my avocation, but I tried to do what I undertook as well as I knew how, and some of the boys still think I'm pretty good in certain lines."
"Life is scarcely a football-field, my boy," Gorham remarked, sententiously. "The world of business admits of no vacuum. It is the survival of the fittest, and work is the great secret of success."
"I know what a 'vacuum' is, anyway," Patricia was recovering from her temporary chagrin.
"Now is your chance to square yourself," said her father, turning to her, kindly.
"I learned that at school last winter," the child continued, proudly: "a 'vacuum' is the place where the Pope lives when it is vacant."
"There, Allen," laughed Gorham, "you have no excuse for not understanding my statement."
"Not in the least. Lady Pat has explained my whole difficulty! But, after all, Mr. Gorham, don't you think there are some things about business and football which are the same?" pleaded Allen, when Patricia was again quieted, his attitude with Mr. Gorham being quite different from the one he had affected with Alice. "I've often tried to think what I'd do if I ever got started, and I've said to myself that when I came up against the other fellow I'd just grit my teeth and say, 'That confounded Eli shan't get through'; and I'm pretty certain that he'd find something in his way before he got the contract I was after."
Gorham was distinctly interested in the boy's intensity. "Suppose I write a line to your father and suggest that he take active steps to get you started somewhere."
"Please don't," Allen said, quickly. "I'll write him myself at once. If you do it, he'll think I haven't got the spunk. Perhaps I can put it strong enough so he will realize that I'm tired of killing time running about in my motor-car."
"I thought your father told me you had lost your license, for speeding."
The boy grinned guiltily. "'Allen Sanford, owner,' lost his license, but 'A. Sanford, chauffeur,' is still allowed to run a car." Then turning to Mrs. Gorham: "You didn't realize you were riding with a chauffeur to-day, did you?"
"You had two licenses?"
"I couldn't possibly get along without them here in Washington. I guess you don't know how wise these police guys are."
Gorham looked at the boy steadily for a moment with an amused expression in his eye.
"I have half a mind to try it," he said, aloud.
"Taking out two licenses?" Allen asked, innocently.
"No," Gorham answered; "I was thinking of something else. Your father will be here some day this week, Allen, and you will have a chance to discuss the whole matter. Perhaps you can get him to agree to some compromise. Whatever you go into, remember what one of our great captains of industry once said—and it's as applicable to diplomacy as it is to business—'The man who starts first gets the oyster; the second man gets the shell.'"
"I'll settle it definitely when I see the pater," Allen said, with determination, "and if I live through the interview I'll go for that oyster with a flying start. Oh, I expect I'll find plenty of good interference against me, but I can stand that. What's that story in mythology about the hydra or something—every time they cut off its head two more grew? That's what I'm going to be—a hydra. Every time I get turned down I'm going to bob up twice again, and, the first thing you know, somebody will give me a job just to get rid of me."
VII
After the theatre Mr. Gorham devoted himself to some late despatches which required immediate attention, so Alice and Eleanor found themselves in the apartment alone. The latter wore a more serious expression than her face had shown earlier in the evening, and the girl was quick to notice it.
"You are not feeling well," she said, more in the form of a statement than as a question, looking at her anxiously. "What can I do for you?"
Mrs. Gorham smiled quietly as she impulsively drew Alice to her and kissed her.
"There's nothing the matter, dear," she answered, pleased with the intuition which prompted the anxiety; "there was something about the play which brought back old memories and they hurt me—that is all."
"Dear heart," was all the girl replied, yet the words brought grateful tears to Eleanor's eyes.
"Are you tired?" she asked, suddenly, with an appeal which caused Alice to look at her inquiringly, but she did not wait for the unnecessary negative. "Then come into my room and let us have a little talk before we go to bed."
As Eleanor sat down Alice threw herself on the floor at her feet, and resting her elbows upon the convenient knees, with her face upon her hands, she looked up expectantly.
"I love these cozy talks," she said. "There is something about this particular hour of the night which makes anything which happens in it of the greatest importance. How beautiful you are! I love just to look at you—no wonder father worships you!"
"You are a sweet child, Alice," Eleanor said, stroking the soft hair affectionately, while unfastening the loose coils until they fell over her shoulders in masses of rippling gold. "You have no idea how much you have done to make my life as happy as it is now. What has your father ever told you about me?"
"Nothing, dear, except that you had suffered much before he met you, and that it was our privilege to try to make you forget the past."
"Was that all?"
"All about you. He told me how happy you had made him, so of course I loved you at once."
"And you never asked any questions?"
Alice looked surprised. "Why, no; if father had wished to tell me any more he would have done so without my asking."
"I am glad," Eleanor said, simply. "It is better for me to tell you myself."
Mrs. Gorham paused, and Alice realized that this was not the time to interrupt. Eleanor seemed to be bracing herself as for an ordeal, yet when she spoke the words came with perfect calmness.
"You were ten years old when your mother died," she said.
The girl's face saddened. "Yes, just Pat's age now; and the next four years were so lonely until you came. I try never to think of them. Pat was too young to give me any companionship, so I was virtually alone with my governess. Father never realized my unhappiness. He was so busy with his own matters that, young as I was, I knew that he must not have mine to worry about."
"Those were the years in which I suffered, too," Eleanor replied, quietly. "Perhaps that is what drew us so closely together from the first. Four years of torture!" she continued, more to herself than to the girl before her.
"Why do you speak of them?" Alice begged. "Why not forget them, as I have tried to do?"
"I do try, dear, but the play to-night brought everything back to me. How strange that we should happen on that particular one so soon after your father and I had spoken of those years! The 'Great Divide'—God only knows the human agony and truth those words contain!"
Eleanor controlled herself before she continued.
"It is a story which I have told only once before, and I had not thought to take any one except your father into its sad confidences; but you should know it, dear. My father's health broke down after mother died, and he was ordered West in the hope of prolonging his life. I was sixteen then, two years younger than you are now. We went to Colorado, on a ranch which father had bought upon the recommendation of a friend. How well I remember the first impressions I received of that glorious country: the exhilaration of that wonderful air, the inspiration of those towering mountains, the novelty of the strange new conditions! I rejoiced in the largeness of everything, and it seemed to me, those first few days, as though life amid these surroundings could but reflect the richness with which nature itself overflowed."
Alice's eyes were fixed upon Eleanor's face with intense interest. The girl sensed even in these preliminary words the importance of what was to follow, and was unwilling to lose a single syllable. Eleanor caught the interest and sympathy of the girl's face as she paused for a moment, and it gave her strength.
"Were you quite alone there?" Alice asked.
"Practically alone—the nearest ranch was four miles from ours. Naturally, we saw few people, the most constant visitor at this time being a young man who owned the ranch next to ours, who, during the year, had ridden over to see us with increasing frequency. His name was Ralph Buckner, and he seemed to us to be a characteristic product of the West—with his large frame, bluff manners, and frank, open countenance. We all liked him, and the fact that he differed so much from the Eastern men I had known perhaps caused me to show a greater interest in him than I really felt. At all events, no girl was ever more genuinely surprised by an offer of marriage than I was, when it came unexpectedly one day, with that determination back of it to secure what he desired which was a part of the man himself. I did manage to collect my senses long enough to insist that I have time to think the matter over—for I had no idea of marrying him; but, much to my surprise, father approved the idea from the moment I told him of the proposal. Then it developed that Ralph had already approached him on the subject. Father, poor dear, thought only of my future and what he believed would be my happiness. It was so evident that I held in my hands the solution of his most serious problem that he never knew the misgivings I felt from the first. He could live on at the ranch for the present, busying himself with the work which kept him out-of-doors; then later, if he preferred, he could come and live with us."
"Couldn't he see what a sacrifice it meant to you?" Alice asked.
"No, dear; you must remember that, in his way, Ralph was an attractive fellow. He had been successful with his ranch; he was agreeable and intelligent; his Western boldness, as it seemed to me, was at times tempered with a certain gentleness hardly to be expected in a man of his nature; and, all in all, he was a man to whom any girl could at least give respect, and affection might come later. It meant settling down in the West for the rest of my life, but this was inevitable, anyway. I must forget the old friends and the old associations, and could I not do this better with a husband's help than alone? I asked myself a thousand questions and ended by deciding that I would marry him.
"It was a short courtship—delay was a word not found in Ralph Buckner's vocabulary. We were married and began our life at his ranch, which, as I say, was near enough to my father so that we could be in frequent communication. He had been much concerned about me, having discovered more of my homesickness for the East than I had realized, so to see me well settled and apparently happy relieved him of a heavy load."
"But you weren't happy even at first," Alice insisted. "How could you be?"
"I say 'apparently happy,' dear, for that was all it was. Ralph did what he could for me in his own way, so at first it was perhaps my fault that we were not more congenial; but his ways were not my ways, and I kept looking for what was not there. He was well-born, but his life on the ranch for so many years had dulled his appreciation of those finer, innate qualities which every wife craves—he had forgotten how to be the gentleman. Don't think that I expected the impossible, or anything incongruous to the life we were leading; but there are little attentions, thoughtful considerations and other things in a husband's relation to his wife, trivial perhaps in themselves, which the wife expects and misses if she does not receive—the more so, if she has deluded herself into believing that the instincts for them are inborn, and only require her suggestion to develop and bring them to fruition. These qualities he had seemed to show before we were married, but they proved to be only a veneer which soon wore off."
"Why do you bring this all back now ?" Alice asked, sympathetically, seeing the lines deepen in Eleanor's face.
"I must tell it to you, dear—we have grown so close that I feel this is all that remains between us. When you know this, we shall be sisters indeed."
"We are that already and more," Alice urged. "Only think how near of an age we really are."
"In years, yes; but sometimes I feel as if I had already lived centuries."
"Will the telling of this take a few of those centuries from you?" the girl inquired, smiling.
"I hope so; and that is one reason why I am asking you to share the burden with me. All that I have told you so far has been unimportant compared with what followed. Had it simply been a difference in temperament, I have no doubt that I should have become accustomed to the absence of these things I craved, and have adjusted my life to meet the new conditions. But other and more serious difficulties soon arose. With Ralph Buckner possession seemed to be enough. I have seen him scheme for months to secure some high-bred horse or a fancy breed of cattle, and after they became his property hardly care whether he ever saw them again. So it was with his wife. Within six months he resumed his fortnightly visits to Colorado Springs on alleged business, from which he always returned worn out and ill-tempered. Until we were married, I had no idea that his life on the ranch and his life in Colorado Springs were so distinctly apart, but I was soon to learn it with bitter clearness."
As the story progressed Alice could feel the increasing tenseness. Eleanor had herself well in hand, but the occasional break in her voice evidenced the strain.
"There was a so-called club in Colorado Springs whose members included the wildest young men of the town and several of the younger ranchmen who were able to stand the pace. In this Ralph was a leading spirit, drinking and gambling with that abandon which was his dominant characteristic. 'Buckner is a poor gambler but a good loser,' one of them is reported to have said, but that only meant that Ralph succeeded in concealing his real feelings until he reached home; for it was his wife who received the full force of the reaction as his brain cleared from the fumes of the liquor and he came to a realization of his losses."
She paused and looked at her companion, and encouraged by Alice's rapt attention continued:
"Our baby was born a year after we were married—"
"I never knew of that," the girl said, quietly.
"Don't," was the reply; "I can't go on if you weaken me by your sympathy."
"Forgive me, dear Eleanor," Alice murmured.
"By that time every remnant of a tie which held us together had disappeared. The child, however, was a real link, and for a little while gave us something to think of besides ourselves. For a year, perhaps, Ralph went less frequently to Colorado Springs, and I came to think that we might possibly be able to continue our lives together for the child's sake. But the novelty wore off from this new plaything, as it had from the others, though it lasted longer than anything else ever had, and then Ralph's absences from the ranch became more and more frequent and of longer duration. I cared little for this, as it enabled me to take Carina to my father's ranch, where I forgot for the time being the emptiness of the home to which we must sooner or later return."
Alice glanced up tenderly. "Poor dear Eleanor," she said, softly; but
Mrs. Gorham went on without heeding:
"One day, when little Carina was three years old, we were visiting at my father's. It was late in the afternoon, and we were playing some child's game together when the door was suddenly thrown open and Ralph glowered in at us, his face purple with drunken anger. Even the four-mile ride had failed to sober him, and he leaned against the framework of the door to steady himself. The child, startled by the sudden interruption and terrified by the expression on her father's face, ran to me for protection, burying her little face in my lap.
"'That's right,' he leered at her; 'that's what they teach you to do here—make you hate your father, don't they? I'll give you a chance to get acquainted with me.'
"Then he crossed the room and tore the child from my arms, in spite of her shrieks of fear and our joint efforts to stop him. Even my father, who did all he could, was helpless against the man's almost superhuman strength. In a moment he had mounted his horse with Carina in front of him, and was galloping at breakneck speed down the long trail which led to our ranch. Father rushed to the barn, but I was there before him. Between us we saddled the mare I had ridden so many times before I was married, and I urged her forward to make up as much as possible for the lost time. But I had not far to go—"
The recital proved too much for Eleanor, in spite of her efforts to control herself. Her eyes filled with tears, and her body was convulsed with emotion as she bent her head until it rested against her companion's face.
"Don't, dear," urged Alice; "tell me the rest some other time."
"No, no!" Mrs. Gorham cried; "you must know it all, and then we need not speak of it again. I had gone over less than half the distance when I came upon them both lying in the trail. I never knew how it happened. He told some one afterward that the horse stumbled. It may have been that; it may have been anything with him in that condition. He had fallen at the side of the trail and was conscious before I left him, but Carina was—dead."
"Don't, don't go on—I can't stand it!" cried Alice.
Eleanor paused as if in response to Alice's appeal, but a glance at her face showed that an emotion stronger than even the words had expressed was holding her in its grip.
"Father was dead, too, when I returned," she said at last, her eyes still gazing into space.
"The excitement killed him?" Alice asked, breathlessly, still further shocked by the double tragedy.
"That and his anxiety over my unexplained absence."
"Your absence?" queried the girl, mystified by Eleanor's apparent incoherency. "Didn't you just say that he was dead when you returned?"
Mrs. Gorham started violently. "What am I saying!" she cried, involuntarily. In a moment she was herself again. "Yes, dear, of course I returned; but not as soon as he expected, and the shock of it all killed him. You understand, don't you? I was very ill, and a friend helped me to a hospital in Denver."
"But you said you had no friends except the man you married," Alice urged, trying to follow the narrative.
"Yes, dear, you are right," Eleanor replied somewhat confused; "but one always finds friends when in trouble, you know. It was so with me, and after I recovered my strength I lived on there in Denver with the small legacy my father left me, supplemented later by a little more from the sale of the ranch. A year after Carina's death I applied for a divorce, on the ground of desertion. My lawyer found Ralph somewhere to serve the summons on him, and reported him as having already become a professional gambler and a confirmed drunkard. He made no defence at the trial, and I have never seen him since."
"But it's all over now, Eleanor dear," Alice said, soothingly. "Daddy and I will try to make up to you for what you have been through. You must let us do that."
"You have done it already," Eleanor replied, feelingly, her temporary obsession having passed. "You and darling little Patricia have become a real part of my life, and my one prayer has been that I could do as much for you. Your father restored my lost faith in men almost the first time I met him in my lawyer's office in Denver."
"Yes." Alice accepted the tribute to her father as a matter of fact. "He nearly killed himself in Pittsburgh before he gave up his business there, and he went out West two or three times to get back his health. And the last time he brought you back, too. I have always loved the West for that."
Mrs. Gorham smiled as she continued: "I learned of his work from others and from himself, and rejoiced to find a man with real ideals, in business and in his every-day life, actually lived up to. I had no notion of what that first chance meeting would lead to, of the home that it would give me among my girlhood friends, filled with the love and sympathy which my heart had always craved. Now you know the whole story, Alice dear—now you know why the tears come sometimes to my eyes as I press to my heart that quaint, precious little sister of yours, so near the age Carina would have been, who softens the memory of the sweet dead face by giving to it a living reality."
"I understand," the girl cried, throwing her arms about Eleanor's neck and embracing her warmly. "I can't say the right thing now I am so unstrung, but I love you even more than ever because you've let me share it with you."
So they separated for the night—the woman's heart bleeding from the reopening of the former wound, yet happier that her accepted confidante had become acquainted with that part of her life which was consecrated to a memory; the girl made older by the sudden drawing of the curtain from one of life's daily yet unheralded tragedies.
VIII
Stephen Sanford arrived in Washington two days later. Little as the boy realized it, his father's pride in his son was unbounded, and stood out in marked contrast to the sterner elements in his character which had combined in such fashion as to enable him to carve out a success among and in competition with the sturdy, persistent business luminaries who developed Pittsburgh from an uncouth bed of iron and coal into a great manufacturing centre. His friends rallied him on his many indulgences to his son, all of which he accepted in good part, with a uniform rejoinder that, say what they liked, his son was going to be brought up a gentleman.
Allen's boyhood was guided by private tutors, and so hemmed in with conventions which even to his youthful mind were obviously veneers, that it was with a positive relief that he welcomed the change from the restraint of home to the freedom of college life. Yet the boy naturally possessed inherent qualities which, while not leading him to drink too deeply from the fount of wisdom, still kept him within lines which won for him the affection of his fellows and the respect of his instructors, even though his standing as a student was far below what the professors thought it might have been.
During all this period his father followed his career with that same care and insight which had characterized his own business success. He was proud of the position which the boy took—proud of his ability to mix well with his fellows; proud of his splendid run against Yale at New Haven which placed the ball within striking-distance of the blue goal; proud of his seat in the victorious eight at New London, and equally certain that the other seven had not done their full duty when the shell was nosed out by Yale at the finish on the succeeding year. If the boy had missed getting his degree Stephen Sanford would have considered his son a failure, but with the prized parchment actually secured—the first in the history of the Sanford family—he cared little how narrow the margin.
Yet Allen had passed through all these years without a suspicion of his father's real feelings toward him. He was rebuked for his extravagances each time he asked for money, yet a substantial check always accompanied each rebuke. He was criticised for not making a better record in his studies, and his success in other lines, it seemed to him, was always accepted as a matter of course. He felt convinced that his father looked upon him as a colossal failure, and he was too good-natured to quarrel with this estimate of his abilities; yet with characteristic optimism, he saw no reason to let this fact interfere with his every-day life and the pleasures it offered him.
So Allen went to Europe soon after graduation and acquired further experience in running a motor-car in England and on the Continent, together with an increased familiarity with foreign scenery and the most expensive hotels. On his return, he announced his desire to begin his business career, more because that was what his classmates were doing than because he was anxious to exchange the freedom of his present life for the confinement of an office.
"You leave that to me," his father had answered, brusquely. "What you don't know about business won't help you any in giving advice. You're going into the diplomatic service."
Unfortunately for the smooth execution of Stephen Sanford's idea, the whole country at this moment happened to be agitated over the discovery that a member of the diplomatic corps at Washington had taken advantage of his official position to secure plans and information, which he had transmitted to a power unfriendly to America, but allied to the government which he represented. The diplomat fled, ignominiously disgraced; but as far as Allen could judge from the comment he heard, his greatest sin was considered to be the breaking of the thirteenth commandment, "Thou shalt not be found out."
All this prejudiced the boy unduly against diplomacy as a profession. In his eyes the acts of this man were unsportsmanlike; and to Allen Sanford, who looked upon a "good sport" as the noblest work of God, this charge was the most serious in the category of crime. But his expostulations and protests to his father were of no avail. Stephen Sanford had made up his mind, and that was the end of it. Until he met Alice, Allen had been more upset because his father still treated him as a child than on account of any serious opposition to plans which he himself had formed. He had never yet focussed himself upon any one particular determination with sufficient strength to make his father's objections other than an annoyance. But now, assimilating a part of the girl's enthusiasm, and strengthened by the instant admiration which Mr. Gorham commanded, he was determined to make a stand at this point, taking the head of the great Consolidated Companies as his model, and with lance in hand to charge the world just as he would have "bucked" the Yale line. Even the undesired diplomatic position was apparently not forthcoming; now he would not only make an effort on his own account, but he would insist upon his right to do so. He did not know that the real reason he had heard nothing from his father during these weeks was because the positions which had been offered thus far appeared to the older man too insignificant for his son to be able to accept with dignity. As one of the Pennsylvania senators remarked, "Stephen Sanford evidently expects his son to go to the Court of St. James."
With Allen in this mood, it was not surprising that the meeting between father and son, immediately after Stephen Sanford arrived in Washington, should have ended in a declaration of war. During the interview Allen gave abundant evidence of his unfitness for anything which required diplomacy; and his father, surprised to find in the boy a will as unyielding as his own, and angered beyond expression by Allen's opposition, lost all control over himself and stamped out of the house, leaving his son behind, cast out forever from his affection, protection, and support.
"Let the young cub starve for a while and he'll realize what his father has done for him," he fumed. "Let him shift for himself and we'll see how soon he'll come home to roost."
On he stamped along the street, his cane expressing upon the pavement the anger which consumed him, but becoming less violent as he approached the hotel where he had his appointment with Gorham. He must calm himself, he urged, inwardly. He had acted in the only way he could, and his old friend must not think he had been hasty or injudicial in the position he had taken. He must be deliberate and self-possessed, as Gorham himself would have been under the same circumstances. Then the cane came down again on the hard pavement with a resounding blow. "Damn Gorham!" he muttered; "damn all these smooth-mannered men who never lose their tempers; damn everybody!"
"Come in, Stephen, come in; I'm glad to see you," Gorham greeted him as he puffed into the apartment, almost exhausted by the double strain of losing his self-control and his strenuous efforts to regain it. "I didn't realize it was so warm outside. This is the most summer-like October I have ever seen. Sit down and I'll have Riley mix you up something cooling."
"No," commanded Sanford, "not a drop; I'm cool enough. I've been hurrying, that's all. Haven't forgotten how fussy you are about keeping appointments on the minute, you see."
Gorham laughed. "I must have learned the trait from you; but it doesn't apply to an old friend like Stephen Sanford," he said. "Business is business, of course; but you wrote me that you wanted my advice. There are no minute appointments in friendship, Stephen. My time is yours."
"Thank you." Sanford was sparring for breath. "I haven't pestered you much with my personal affairs, have I?"
"You couldn't 'pester' me with them, Stephen. If I can serve you I'll be as glad to as you would be to reciprocate."
"Yes, yes." The visitor still employed monosyllables as far as possible as his vehicle of expression, but he was mastering his emotion.
"Have you seen Allen?" Gorham asked, naturally but unfortunately.
Sanford sprang out of his chair and waved his arms wildly. "Why do you try to stir me all up again ?" he cried. "Can't you let me get my breath?"
Gorham looked at him amazed. "Has anything happened?" he asked.
"The young reprobate! I'll show him. I've cut him off without a penny,
Robert; do you understand—without a penny!"
"You've done what?" Gorham demanded, his face sobering.
"I'll show him that he can't make a monkey out of his father. You've seen him, Robert. You know what an obstinate, headstrong cub he is. Wants to go into business, does he? Thinks he knows what's good for him better than his father does, does he? I'll show him. He can go to the devil now—that's where he can go."
Gorham knew better than to interrupt Sanford until his tirade was spent. He watched him pacing up and down the room; he noted the twitching of his features, the clenched hands, and the violent color in his face.
"You're taking chances to let yourself get worked up like this, Stephen," he said, quietly, at length. "You and I are growing older, and our systems won't stand what they used to."
Sanford stopped abruptly. "That's what he's counting on, the ingrate. I've spent my whole life building up those furnaces and making money so that he might be a gentleman. Now he throws it all over, and he thinks I'll shuffle off in one of these spells; but I'll fix him. Not a penny of my money shall he get—not one penny."
"How has Allen disgraced himself? Has he been stealing, or is it forgery or murder?"
"You—you," Sanford sputtered, "you dare to suggest that my boy would disgrace himself! You—you—"
"Sit down, Stephen, and calm yourself," Gorham laughed. "No one could think of a less heinous crime than I have suggested, judging by your own arraignment of the boy. How can I help you unless you tell me what has happened?"
"I'm an old fool to let you string me so, but I'm all used up."
"And the boy has been a young fool and proved himself a chip of the old block—how is that for a guess?"
"So you're going to take sides with him, are you?"
"How can I tell until I know the circumstances ?"
"He won't do what his father tells him," Sanford explained. "That's the situation in a nutshell."
"Good! Now you are becoming communicative. So you've cut him off because he won't do what you tell him?"
"Yes—the young reprobate. How he ever broke into my family is more than
I can understand."
"You're sure your way is better than his, are you, Stephen?"
"Of course I am. Aren't you?"
"I don't know what your way is any more than I know Allen's, so I can speak without prejudice. I just wanted to be sure that you had given both sides of the question sufficient consideration to be certain of your position. It's a serious thing to send your own son adrift, Stephen."
"He's my son, isn't he?"
"I judge that he has proved that."
"Would you let a son of yours lead you around by the nose?"
"No; nor would I condemn a high-strung colt to the bone-yard because I couldn't put a bridle on him the first time I tried."
"H'm!" Sanford ejaculated. "It's the women who don't have children who always attend 'mothers' meetings.' Of course you know just how to handle a son."
"If you hadn't thought I had some ideas, I don't suppose I should have had the pleasure of this interview."
"Then you think he ought to be allowed to go into business?"
"This proposition seems now to have become of secondary importance. The main issue is whether or not a boy twenty-three years old is to be allowed to express his ideas when they differ from his father's. Allen, apparently, has settled the matter without any advice from either of us."
"You don't know what that boy is to me." Sanford's voice broke a little in spite of him.
"I can imagine," Gorham replied, feelingly. "I know what he would be to me if he were mine."
"He's all I have in the world, Robert. I've had to be father and mother to him. I've given him the best education money could buy, I've sent him to Europe to get that foreign finish every one talks about; and now he won't do what my heart is set on."
"If the boy wants to go into business, why don't you make a place for him in your own concern? That's where he ought to be—to take the responsibilities off your shoulders, one by one, and to continue your name."
"Put Allen in my furnaces?" Sanford demanded, his choleric attitude beginning to return. "How can you make a gentleman in my furnaces? Do you suppose I'd buy a twenty-thousand-dollar painting and hang it up in the cellar? No, sir; I mean to make something out of that boy better than his father is, and that isn't the place to do it. But in the diplomatic service they're all gentlemen—that's why I want to put him there."
"And if you can't have your own way you prefer to lose the boy altogether?"
"Oh, he'll come back, the young cub. He'll see which side his bread is buttered on. It'll be a long time before he can earn the five hundred a month I give him for an allowance, and he knows it. He'll be back."
"I'm not so sure," Gorham said, seriously.
"You don't think—" Sanford began, showing signs of alarm.
"Would you in his place?"
"That's nothing to do with it; he's only a boy."
"Did you—in his place?"
Sanford looked up quickly. "I had more cause," he replied. "My father was unreasonable; his isn't."
"Allen's ideas on that subject may differ from yours. Now, if you want my advice, here it is: Go back to that boy. Tell him you're ashamed to have lost your temper, and advise him to guard against that greatest weakness which his father possesses. Tell him you want him to go into the diplomatic service for a time to gratify your ambition for him, but that if, after the trial, he prefers business you will stand right back of him and get him started. Tell him, as you have just told me, that he is all you have, and that he must make certain sacrifices for your sake, that he must bear with your weaknesses and profit by your points of strength. But, above all, make him feel that you believe in him, that you're proud of him, and that you've been a fool to make such a humiliating exhibition before him as you did this afternoon."
The gathering storm in Stephen Sanford's face did not deter Gorham from finishing his remarks. He knew that his old friend had seldom, if ever, had the truth spoken to him as unreservedly as now; but he had been asked for his advice, and he proposed to give it.
"You—you—" Sanford choked in his rage. "So that's what you think of me, is it? It's worth something to know that. Knuckle down to that young cub and have him putting it over me for the rest of my life? What do you take me for? I'll see him starve first. Why should you undertake to advise me about my boy—"
"Chiefly because you asked it, Stephen."
"Well, I don't ask for it any more. With all your experience you're not competent—"
"Should I have shown greater competency if my advice had agreed with your own ideas?"
"Don't try to juggle with words, Robert. It's all off between the boy and me, understand. I'll paddle my canoe and he can paddle his. When he's ready to use my stroke he knows where my landing is. And now good-day to you. 'Bear with my weaknesses, eh?' 'Humiliating exhibition.' Good-day, I say." And without giving Gorham the opportunity to do so he flung open the door and stamped out into the corridor to the elevator, his cane keeping time with the tumult of thoughts which surged through his brain.
Gorham watched the unyielding back of his friend until he turned the corner, then he closed the door.
"Poor old Stephen," he sighed to himself. "If I had only been blessed with that boy."