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Title: The Lever
       A Novel

Author: William Dana Orcutt

Release Date: March 21, 2005 [EBook #15430]

Language: English

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                               THE LEVER

                         BY WILLIAM DANA ORCUTT

AUTHOR OF "THE SPELL," "THE FLOWER OF DESTINY," "ROBERT CAVELIER," ETC.

                                 1911


"_Give me where I may stand, a lever long enough, and a fulcrum strong
enough, and I will move the world_."--ARCHIMEDES.




TO MY MOTHER

ELLEN DANA ORCUTT

"SUPREME IN THE STRENGTH OF ASSERTING THAT WHICH IS EVER WOMAN'S
CREED--JUSTICE AND RIGHT," THIS VOLUME IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED




THE LEVER




I


The girl leaned forward impulsively from the leisurely moving victoria
and looked back at the automobile which whizzed by the carriage, along
the maple-lined road leading from Washington to Chevy Chase; then she as
suddenly resumed her former position when she discovered that the young
man, who was the only occupant of the motor-car, had slowed down and was
gazing back at her.

"How impertinent!" she exclaimed, flushing, addressing herself rather
than the older woman beside her. "Of course, it couldn't be Allen; but
if it wasn't, why was he looking back at me? Did you recognize him,
Eleanor?"

"Who's impertinent?" queried Patricia, who sat between them and
exercised a ten-year-old sister's prerogative.

Mrs. Gorham was quietly amused. "Which question shall I answer first,
Alice--and who is 'Allen' supposed to be?"

It was the girl's turn to sense the situation. "How ridiculous!" she
laughed. "Of course you wouldn't know. Allen Sanford and I used to play
together when we were children in Pittsburgh. I haven't seen him since we
moved away after mamma died; but that really looked like him. I wonder if
by any chance it could be?"

"Oh, Alice, he's coming back," announced Patricia from her point of
vantage on her knees, and a moment later the same automobile, driven at
a speed at which the most conscientious of traffic guardians could not
complain, passed them slowly at the left. The young man made an effort
to conceal the fact that he was surveying the girl in the victoria, but
Alice cut short his suspense.

"It is! it is!" she cried, eagerly; and with the recognition made
certain the boy shut off his power, and, springing out of the car, was
beside her before even the discreet coachman could draw up to the curb.

"I thought I couldn't be mistaken--" he began.

"But you weren't sure," Alice finished for him. "You were trying to
remember a little girl with a pigtail down her back and horrid freckles
all over her face--now, weren't you?"

"If that's the way you really looked, I evidently wasn't as fussy about
such things then as I am now," he laughed. "All I remember is that you
were the dandiest little playmate I ever had."

The unexpected compliment caused Alice to turn quickly to Mrs. Gorham.

"This is Allen Sanford, Eleanor; and this, Allen, is my mother, sister,
and dearest friend all in one."

"And my name's Pat," added the child, refusing to be ignored and holding
out her hand cordially.

The boy was even more embarrassed by the unexpected meeting with the
second Mrs. Gorham than to find Alice developed into so lovely and
fascinating a young woman. He had always thought of Alice's step-mother,
when he had thought of her at all, as of a type entirely different from
this slender, attractive woman only a few years older than Alice
herself. There was a self-possession about Mrs. Gorham, a quiet dignity,
which made the difference in their ages seem greater than it really was;
yet, had he not known, Allen would have thought them sisters. His father
was sceptical when he heard of Gorham's second marriage: "It's bigamy,
that's what it is," were Stephen Sanford's words. "Gorham is married to
his business. Everything he touches turns into gold. Business to him is
what a great passion for a woman would be to one man, or a supreme
friendship to another; but the lever which moves Robert Gorham is
neither love nor steel; it is cold, hard cash."

All this flashed through Allen's mind in that brief moment of silence
after the introduction, but the thoughts of at least one of the two
women had been equally active. To Alice this chance meeting recalled a
time in her life sanctified by the loss of her mother, later made easier
to look back upon by the rare sympathy which had existed from the first
between herself and the sweet, tactful woman who had come into her life,
filling the aching void and awakening her to a new interest in her
surroundings. She and Allen had been "chums" in those early days, and it
gratified her to discover that the boy whom she had admired in a
childish way had become a young man so agreeable to look upon and so
little changed, except in growth, from the lad she remembered. His six
feet of height carried him to a greater altitude than of old, his
well-developed arms and shoulders showed a physical strength which his
youth had not promised, but his face wore the same frank, care-free,
irresponsible and good-natured expression which had made him beloved by
all his acquaintances and taken seriously by none.

Allen's smile returned before he found his voice, and was so infectious
that Alice, Mrs. Gorham, and Patricia were also smiling broadly.

"It's awfully good to see you again, Alice," he said, with a sincerity
which could not be doubted; "and to meet you, too, Mrs. Gorham, not
forgetting Lady Pat." And then, as if in explanation, "You see, as Alice
says, she and I were pals when we were youngsters in Pittsburgh, and I
can't realize that now she's grown up into such a--"

"Do you remember the games of baseball we used to play together?" Alice
interrupted.

"Indeed I do," he responded. "She could throw a ball overhand just like
a boy," Allen continued, turning to Mrs. Gorham lest he seem to
discriminate in his attentions.

"She can't do it now, but I can," Patricia remarked, with an air of
superiority, subsiding as Alice glanced meaningly at her.

"And once you thrashed Jim Thatcher for calling me a tomboy. Oh, I
looked upon you as a real story-book hero!"

"I suspect that's the only time on record." Allen laughed again
consciously. "That's one epithet I haven't had hurled at me enough times
to make me nervous." He looked at the horses critically. "You don't
suppose there's any chance of a runaway here to give me another
opportunity, do you?"

"How about the football games, and the races at New London?" Alice
asked.

"What do you know about those?"

"I read all about everything in the papers. Your father was so proud
that he told my father and every one about your college record; so, you
see, your friends had no difficulty in keeping posted."

"My father was proud of me?" Allen demanded, in genuine astonishment.
"Haven't you gotten things a little mixed? That doesn't sound like the
pater at all. He didn't boast any of my record in my studies, did he?"

"Father didn't say." Alice leaned forward mischievously. "Did you get
your degree _cum laude_, Allen?"

"Not exactly," he answered, frankly. "_Cum difficultate_ would be more
like it; but I got it, anyhow."

"And what have you been doing since?" Mrs. Gorham asked.

"I went abroad right after Commencement."

"To perfect yourself in the languages?"

"Well"--the boy hesitated--"that may have been the pater's intention,
but he didn't state it audibly. As a matter of fact, I perfected myself
in running an automobile more than anything else, but I had a corking
good time."

"And now what? You see how inquisitive I am," Alice said.

"And now"--he repeated it after her--"I want to go into business, and
the pater says diplomacy for mine. We've had lots of arguments over it,
until we finally compromised it just as we usually do--by my doing it
his way. So here I am in Washington, awaiting my country's call, ready
to steer the great U.S.A. through any old international complication
they can scare up. But I mustn't keep you and Mrs. Gorham here any
longer. It is just fine to see you again."

"You will come and see us at the hotel," Mrs. Gorham said, warmly
seconded by Alice. "Won't you dine with us to-morrow evening? Mr. Gorham
will be glad to hear about you from yourself."

To-morrow evening seemed far away to Allen, so he supplemented Mrs.
Gorham's invitation by a suggestion that they take a motor ride with him
the following afternoon, which brought the time of their meeting that
much nearer.

For some little time after Allen's machine had disappeared Alice and
Mrs. Gorham continued their drive in silence, and it was Patricia who
spoke first.

"Isn't he the grandest thing?" she remarked. "He's just like one of King
Arthur's knights. And he called me 'Lady Pat.'"

"You dear child," Eleanor cried, impulsively pressing the little form to
her.

"That is exactly what I ought to be," Alice said, abruptly. "Just think
how pleased father would be."

"What ought you to be that you are not, my dear?" Mrs. Gorham inquired,
surprised.

"Why, a boy like Allen just ready to start off on a business career.
That's about the only disappointment father has ever experienced, not
having a son to succeed him. You know as I do how much it would mean to
him to 'found a house,' as he calls it. I've seen him looking at Pat and
me so many times with an expression in his eyes which I understood, and
it has hurt me all through that I couldn't have been the son he longed
for. The aggravating part of it all is that nothing interests me so
much as business. I must have inherited father's love for it. I adore
listening to him when he is discussing some great problem with Mr.
Covington. It seems to me the grandest thing in the world to be able to
influence people, and to create or expand industries and actually to
accomplish results."

Mrs. Gorham understood the girl's mood and knew that it was wiser to let
her run on without interruption.

"I don't feel the same about other things," Alice continued, pausing
from time to time as she became more introspective. "I'm fond of poetry,
of course, but I can't understand how any one can be satisfied to do
nothing else but write poems; I admire art, but with my admiration for
the artist's work there's a real pity for the man because he is debarred
from the world of action. If I were a man I would have to do something
which had a physical as well as an intellectual struggle in it, with a
reward at the end to be striven for which was not expressed alone in the
praise of the world--it would have to be power itself."

"I would rather be a damosel," Patricia put in.

"You are your father's own daughter, Alice," Mrs. Gorham said, as the
girl ceased speaking. "You could not be his child and feel otherwise."

"But that makes it all the harder," Alice rebelled. "It doesn't give me
any chance to do the things I want to do. I must

'_Sigh and cry
 And still sit idly by_.'"

The drive was coming to an end, and Mrs. Gorham was unwilling to leave
the conversation at just this point. "There is another side to all this,
Alice dear, which you mustn't overlook," she said, seriously. "It is
woman's part to inspire rather than to do, and the fact that it is often
the more difficult rôle to play perhaps makes it the nobler part, after
all. The world sings of the bravery of men who go forth to battle; we
older women know that it takes no less courage to let them go and to
content ourselves in our impotency, while they are spurred on by the
excitement which is denied to us. Those of us whom experience has tested
know this, but this realization cannot yet have come to you."

Patricia sighed, deeply, "Oh, yes, mamma Eleanor; this waiting is
awful."

"You mean that we must accept the situation as best we may and
accomplish our results by proxy?" Alice queried, still rebellious.

Mrs. Gorham smiled at the girl's interpretation. "No, dear," she
insisted; "I am not willing to admit that ours is a position of
self-abnegation. We women are denied the privilege of doing, but we
mustn't be unmindful of the blessing which is given in exchange. To me
it is infinitely more satisfying to know that we are the inspiration
which urges men on to do what they could not do without us."

"Of course that's one way of putting it," Alice admitted, interested yet
not convinced; "but, just the same, I'd rather be the one to receive the
inspiration than the one to give it."

On reaching the comfortable apartment occupied by the Gorhams at the
hotel, they found that Mr. Gorham had already returned, accompanied by
his first vice-president, John Covington, and that they were engaged in
close conversation. Mrs. Gorham took Patricia with her to her room, but
Alice immediately joined the two men.

"We have nearly finished our interview, Alice," her father said,
suggestively, after a smile of greeting.

"Please let me sit here and listen," she begged. "I am so interested in
it all."

Gorham acquiesced with a shrug of his shoulders which the girl saw and
felt.

"I don't know but that we have covered the situation, anyway," he said
to Covington. "I shall see Kenmore to-morrow, and if he can be persuaded
to join us, the Consolidated Companies will be just that much
strengthened. You had better return to New York to-night to keep your
eye on the coffee situation, and I will telephone you if I need you here
after I see the Senator."

The two men offered a striking contrast in their personalities. Robert
Gorham was a large man, about fifty years of age, whose whole bearing,
when at rest, suggested the idealist rather than the man of action. His
head was large and intellectual, his chin strong, his mouth firm,
conveying at once an impression of strength and of impenetrable
depth--an inner being which defied complete analysis. Behind the
impassive exterior there was a suggestion of latent reserve force, but
it was not until some thought or word penetrated below the surface that
the real man was revealed. Then it was that the impassive face lighted
up, that the quiet gray eyes flashed fire, that the head bent forward
decisively, and the strong-willed, large-brained leader of men stood
forth.

Covington, on the other hand, ten years Gorham's junior, was slight,
though tall, and was always, in manner, speech, and dress, most
carefully adjusted. He was an organizer of men, as Gorham was the
organizer of companies. Gorham worked so quietly that his purpose
seemed to accomplish itself; Covington won his success by a pitiless
force which left flotsam in its wake. Gorham was beloved and trusted,
Covington was respected for his abilities but dreaded by his
subordinates. It had been necessary for Gorham to supplement himself
with a man who possessed the genius of taking hold of the individual
organizations assimilated by the Consolidated Companies, and
amalgamating those engaged in similar lines into perfect, economic
wholes; and Covington's rare service had proved the wisdom of Gorham's
selection.

Covington noted Alice's disappointment when her father cut short their
interview upon her entrance, though Gorham himself was entirely
oblivious to it.

"I'll tell you all about it when we meet next time," he said to her in a
low tone as he was leaving. "It is always an inspiration to me to talk
these matters over with you."

Alice smiled gratefully but started at the word he used. This man,
acknowledged by her father to be one of the cleverest in the business
world, said that she was an "inspiration" to him. Could this be
possible! This, then, was what Eleanor had meant, this was woman's
mission. But still, she insisted to herself, she would rather be the
recipient than the giver.

As Covington left the room Gorham turned to Alice. "Now I can give
myself wholly to you," he said, holding out his arms affectionately.

"Why did you stop talking with Mr. Covington as soon as I came in?"
Alice asked, reproachfully. "Was it a private matter?"

"No indeed," he laughed, patting her affectionately on the head; "it was
just plain business."

"But I wanted to hear it," she persisted.

"It would have meant nothing to you," her father answered. "If you had
been my son that would be different, but a woman's sphere is outside the
business world. Leave that to the men. Now tell me what has happened
to-day."

Alice knew her father too well to persist further. "Eleanor and I met
Allen Sanford while we were out driving this afternoon," she said.

"Did you?" he asked, with interest. "I knew he was in Washington and
should have told you. His father wrote me about him last week, and I was
planning to invite him here. How has he developed since we used to know
him?"

"Splendidly," Alice answered. "He's a big strapping fellow with the same
handsome, happy face. I should have known him anywhere. He wants to get
started in business, and his father wants him to go into the diplomatic
service."

"So Stephen wrote me." Gorham laughed quietly, turning to his wife, who
had entered a moment before with Patricia. "The boy's father is the
worst enemy he has. He has thoroughly spoiled him all his life, and now
expects him to do great things. He scores him because he has no
initiative, and the first time the youngster tries to exercise it by
expressing his preference for business instead of diplomacy, Stephen
calls him obstinate and ungrateful. Now he wants me to talk with Allen
and persuade him that his father is right."

"If you are not otherwise engaged you'll have a chance to-morrow
evening," remarked Mrs. Gorham; "we have invited him to dine with us."

"Good; I shall be glad to see the boy, and can acquit myself of my
obligation to his father at the same time. Hello, Mistress Patricia," he
added, catching the child in his arms. "What has my little tyrant been
up to?"

"Call me 'Lady Pat,'" she said, grandly. "_He_ named me that."

"Who did?" her father asked, his mind diverted from the previous
conversation.

"Mr. Sanford." Patricia rolled her eyes impressively. "Oh, he's the
grandest thing! He must be a prince in disguise."

"That isn't what his father calls him," laughed Gorham.

"What are you going to advise him?" Eleanor asked.

"I can't tell until I see him and discover how much imagination he has."

"Imagination?" his wife queried.

"Yes; is that a new idea to you? Ability never asserts itself to its
utmost unless fed by the imagination, and I don't know yet whether Allen
possesses either. Success in any line depends upon the extent of a man's
power of imagination."

"Then why don't poets make business successes? They have imaginative
ideas," argued Alice, thinking of her remarks upon this subject earlier
in the afternoon.

"True"--Gorham smiled at her earnestness--"great poets are inspired, but
rarely, if ever, do they apply those inspirations to practical purposes.
That is why they so seldom enter business, and still more rarely succeed
if they do."

His face sobered as the idea took firmer possession of him.

"I differ from the poet only in that I make use of my imaginative ideas
in solving the great business problems of the present and the future
instead of in forming rhymes and metres. To do this I must command
unlimited resources; but what does money mean except the opportunity to
gratify ideals? With this I can force my imagination to produce
utilitarian results."

This would have been Robert Gorham's exposition of his conception of the
Archimedes lever, as opposed to that which Allen Sanford had heard his
father give. To Gorham the power of the lever depended upon the strength
of the imaginative ideals, and the "cold, hard cash" was simply the
necessary fulcrum upon which the lever rested.




II


"The proposition is too gigantic for me even to comprehend."

The Hon. Mr. Kenmore, member of the United States Senate, laid down the
bulky prospectus of the "Consolidated Companies," and looked up into his
caller's genial face.

Gorham flicked the ash from his cigar and smiled good-naturedly. "That
is, perhaps, a natural statement, Mr. Kenmore," he replied,
deliberately. "I am not surprised that you find it difficult to
comprehend the vast possibilities of our enterprise; yet its success,
already established, must convince you that no good argument can be
advanced against its practicability."

"But see what it contemplates!" The Senator again took the prospectus in
his hand and opened the pages. "You propose to control the building and
the manufacturing of the world," he continued, reading aloud from the
prospectus, "and all the allied trades, to construct and deal in all
kinds of machinery, to carry on any other kinds of businesses, to
acquire patents and concessions, to erect and maintain gas and electric
works, to enter into any arrangement with any government, to promote
companies, to lend money--"

"It is summed up in that last clause," Gorham interrupted, quietly; "'to
do all such other things as are incidental or conducive to the
attainment of the above objects.' You see, I know the articles by heart.
May I ask you to glance over the names of the present stockholders?"

Gorham handed a leather-covered record-book to his companion and then
walked to the window, where he quietly smoked his cigar, looking out on
the broad avenue while the Senator scanned the names written in the
small volume. He appeared indifferent to the smothered exclamations
which escaped involuntarily from Kenmore's lips as the latter's eye
passed on from page to page, and for the time being he seemed more
deeply interested in the people passing below on the street. His
calmness was in striking contrast to the Senator's growing excitement.

"By George!" Kenmore exclaimed at length, rising and advancing toward
the window. "This list of names is even more extraordinary than your
stupendous plans."

"Does not each one explain the other?" asked Gorham.

"But how did you ever persuade such men as these to lend themselves to
any enterprise--no matter how attractive? Why, there is hardly an
omission--the leaders of the world in finance, politics, diplomacy,
literature, art, and science."

"There are many omissions, as you would discover if you examined the
list more carefully," Gorham answered; "not the least of which is the
name of the Hon. Mr. Kenmore!"

"I know, I know," the Senator replied, impatiently; "but how did you get
them?"

Gorham looked at his questioner attentively for a moment before he
answered. "The proposition itself appeals to that human instinct which
is more or less developed in us all--self-interest--"

"But that, my dear sir, is nothing more or less than--"

Gorham held up a protesting hand. "Let me save you from using so ugly a
word as you have in mind, Senator. You are fully justified in having
this thought suggest itself to you--such is the business code of morals
of to-day. Yet I consider myself an idealist, and the whole plan on
which the Consolidated Companies is based a moral one. I must have
succeeded in convincing these men, whose characters are admittedly above
reproach, or they could not have been persuaded to become associated
with our corporation."

"Idealism, monopoly, and self-interest seem ill-mated partners, Mr.
Gorham."

"Must monopoly and self-interest always be translated into selfishness
and oppression?"

"As far as I have observed they always have been," Kenmore asserted.

"Perhaps so; but must they necessarily be so exercised? Is it not
possible to control these human instincts to the extent of producing
beneficent results?"

The Senator considered. "I cannot conceive it to be even within the
bounds of possibility."

"Then, unless I can convince you to the contrary, I shall cheerfully
withdraw my proposition," Gorham replied, with decision. "You will
admit, I feel sure, that were I to eliminate self-interest the great
consolidation which we are discussing could not exist."

"Absolutely."

"Will you also admit the possibility--I do not yet say probability--of
conducting an organization such as the Consolidated Companies along
lines which might be for the public good?"

"Provided the public received the benefits of such economies as your
consolidations effected."

"Precisely--or even a part of these economies. Now, many of our
stockholders, whose names you see on that list, are in positions of
trust. Our directors have endeavored to select only those whose
reputations guarantee the honorable observance of their
responsibilities."

"Then how can they serve the Consolidated Companies?"

"Let me explain more clearly," Gorham continued. "A franchise for a
street railway expires--here in Washington, in Chicago, in London, or in
Vienna. Those who are influential in awarding the new franchise are
among our stockholders. It is to their self-interest, truly, to place
the franchise in the hands of the Consolidated Companies, but it is also
to the best interests of the public, who, after all, are most concerned,
because the Companies is equipped with men and funds to give them
greater efficiency or cheaper transportation than any smaller
organization could possibly afford to do. In awarding us the franchise,
therefore, these officials are in no way proving themselves false to
their trust."

Gorham studied the half-averted face of his companion carefully before
he proceeded. "Do you follow me?"

"Perfectly, although not wholly sympathetically," the Senator replied.

Gorham smiled at Kenmore's frankness. "Suppose a government requires a
loan of, say, fifty million pounds sterling," he continued. "Here in
this little book you will find the names of practically all the
financial heads of the governments of the world. You will also find here
the leading figures in the world of finance. What is more natural than
that the Consolidated Companies be asked to negotiate the loan, to the
distinct advantage of both parties and of the Companies itself?
Incidentally I might say that we shall eventually establish an
international bank which will further simplify details. If it is a
matter of building bridges, we have among our stockholders the officials
who will award the contracts and the engineers best fitted to execute
them. Acting as a medium for both creator and producer, and in serving
their mutual self-interest, the Consolidated Companies can easily become
the greatest patron of the arts, both fine and mechanical, that the
world has ever seen,--and all this, with profit to itself. Could
anything be simpler?"

"You are prepared to build navies and also submarines to destroy them?"

"'To do all such other things as are incidental or conducive to the
attainment of the above objects,'" quoted Gorham; "but our energies are
always exerted in constructive directions."

The Senator became absorbed in his own thoughts and was silent for
several moments.

"I don't see yet how those men were persuaded to associate themselves
with your corporation," he said, more to himself than to his companion.
"The vast business advantages which it already possesses are quite
apparent, but I cannot reconcile the conflict which must exist between
the dual capacities of your stockholders as individuals and as public
officials or officers of trust. Without intending to cast reflections
upon any name I have seen, I can scarcely resist asking myself if every
man has his price."

"I claim he has," Gorham stated.

The Senator turned upon him sharply. "Then my first impressions of the
principles of your enterprise were correct. I beg--"

"Please hear me out, Senator," Gorham urged. "I believe implicitly that
what I have just said is true, yet I venture to repeat to you that I
consider myself an idealist and an optimist. A man's 'price' has come to
be associated with money. I know this phase--what business man does not?
But beyond this, are there not far subtler influences, which in one form
or another draw every man away from the course he would naturally steer
for himself as surely as the iron deflects the magnet's needle? Ambition
influences an honorable legislator apparently to condone acts which he
knows are wrong, that he may gain a Governor's chair, from which
position he can more surely crush out the evils he has always recognized
and abhorred. I do not say that all our stockholders are influenced by
the guarantee I have given them that a franchise or a concession awarded
to the Consolidated Companies means an advantage to the people they
serve, but I have at least convinced them by word and act of my own
sincerity, and of the possibility of so conducting the Companies that
these results can be obtained. I do not even say that every public
official who co-operates with us is actuated by the highest motives in
giving the Consolidated Companies special privileges, but I do say that
he may properly be so actuated--and the public receives the benefits."

"But think of the power which this corporation must eventually possess,
and the powerlessness of any individual or organization, business or
otherwise, to oppose it."

"Why should they wish to oppose it?" Gorham continued. "As I have said,
the combinations suggested can but result in economies in production
and consequent reductions in the living expenses of the masses."

"Yet you would hardly suggest that the Consolidated Companies has been
launched as a philanthropic enterprise?"

Gorham's smile returned. "Not primarily, yet the people have already
been benefited in no small degree. It is entirely possible to conduct it
along lines which will reduce the cost of all public utilities and
necessities, and yet secure large financial returns to the Companies."

"I was thinking--" Kenmore began, and then stopped.

"Well?" Gorham encouraged, interrogatively.

"I was thinking what an easy thing it is to mistake a temptation for an
opportunity."

"Or the reverse," Gorham remarked, significantly, flushing slightly.
"Does it not all depend upon the basis on which the corporation is
administered?"

As the Senator ventured no reply, Gorham continued, with more feeling
than he had as yet displayed:

"You and I, Mr. Kenmore, are familiar with the contention made by our
great captains of industry that they are entitled to the vast fortunes
which they have amassed as a return for the benefits which the public
enjoys as a result of their energy and the risks they have taken. They
have opened up new sections of the country, provided transportation
facilities which were previously lacking, or have increased those which
already existed; they have multiplied industries which promoted increase
in population and trade, and have thus largely contributed to the
prosperity enjoyed by the communities themselves and by the country at
large."

"All of which the Consolidated Companies claims to be doing, or about
to do, upon a scale which makes similar past achievements seem
insignificant," interrupted Kenmore.

"Yes," Gorham assented, "but with a fuller appreciation that these
accomplishments are not the results alone of individual ability, but far
more of the exercise of the corporate power placed in its hands, not for
its unlimited personal gain, but intrusted to it by law for public
advantage. The law confers upon a corporate organization a power far
beyond that which any individual himself could obtain; it enables him to
make use of capital which thousands have contributed, toward whom he
stands in a relation of trust, and without whom he could not accomplish
the individual triumphs which become so magnified in his own mind, and
for which he demands so great a recompense. The Consolidated Companies
considers itself bound to use franchise privileges and corporate
organization for the equal benefit of all those who contribute of their
capital, with due regard for those public interests which corporations
are created to serve, and to rest content with a fair return upon its
own capital and a reasonable compensation for their services, on the
part of the officers of the enterprises of which it assumes the
responsibility and direction."

"How long do you think the Consolidated Companies can be run upon such
altruistic principles?"

"As long as Robert Gorham remains its president and as long as those men
whose names you have seen there remain its directors. This is my pledge.
When the Consolidated Companies, intrusted with the power, credit, and
resources of the many corporations which are and will be included in
it, but which are not agencies of its own creation and do not belong to
it, begins to take advantage of these for personal profit beyond
legitimate return upon investment and fair compensation for services
rendered, it will be guilty of a gross betrayal of trust. When it issues
securities in excess of the requirements of its business and manipulates
them for its own profit; when it makes use of its power, its funds, or
its credit in enterprises which are not for the equal benefit of all who
have contributed to its capital or in the interest of the public, which
gives it its power; when it employs its profits so as to affect the
market value of securities and then speculates in these for its own
advantage,--then it will be flagrantly abusing a power which has been
given to it in trust, and its unique position in the business world will
be destroyed."

There was another long silence, which this time was not broken until the
Senator was quite ready to speak. When the moment came the question was
asked abruptly:

"How much can you consistently tell me of any of the corporation's
transactions? I know of them, of course, by hearsay, but I should be
glad to receive more intimate information."

"Nothing, without assurances of your serious interest, provided I can
demonstrate to your satisfaction the strength of the facts I have
mentioned; everything when you care to give me these assurances."

The Senator winced. He had expected to meet a man with whose type he was
perfectly familiar, to explain to him that the private affairs of the
Hon. James Kenmore, business or otherwise, were always kept entirely
distinct from his political life, and to dismiss him with merely the
courtesy demanded by the unusually strong letters which had introduced
him. But Robert Gorham did not belong to the expected type. There were
no earmarks of the promoter about him, in spite of the fact that the
enterprise of which he stood as the head and front was in reality the
most gigantic piece of promotion engineering the world had seen. On the
contrary, Gorham was the refined man of affairs, confident in himself
and in the certainty of his strength. And as for dismissal, the Senator
realized that his caller had already made himself the dominant power.

"You wish me to subscribe for stock in this corporation to the extent of
a hundred thousand dollars?"

"I am empowered by our directors to offer you the opportunity to
subscribe for that amount."

The Senator passed over the obvious correction.

"Why am I selected by your directors rather than others of my colleagues
whose names I do not observe upon that list?"

"Because we consider your position in the United States Senate to be one
of increasing importance, and of value to the Companies," Gorham
answered, frankly.

"Why has the specific amount of my desired subscription been so
carefully stipulated?"

"Because your investment in the Consolidated Companies must be heavy
enough in its relation to your personal fortune to make the success of
the corporation a matter of real concern to you."

"Are these amounts, then, uniform in size?"

"Not at all. A hundred thousand dollars to you may be no more than five
thousand to some other stockholder, and no less, on the other hand, than
half a million to a third. In every case the amount of the subscription
is carefully considered."

"Your directors have made a preliminary estimate of my financial
standing?"

"Certainly."

Kenmore smiled incredulously. "Would it be asking too much to inquire
what the inventory, made by your experts, shows?"

"One million two hundred thousand," Gorham responded, promptly. "Except
for your unfortunate investment in the Arizona oil-wells a year ago, it
might have been half a million more--a loss which your fortunate
connection during the past three years as a special partner in the
well-known banking-house of Gilroy and Company has more than made up."

The Senator sprang excitedly to his feet. "By George! sir, by what power
or authority do you make yourself aware of my private affairs down
practically to the last penny?"

"I apologize, Senator, if I answered your question too literally,"
Gorham replied, quietly.

"But how do you know it?"

"I neglected to state that the secret-service department of the
Consolidated Companies excels in efficiency that of any government. You
can readily appreciate its importance."

"And you know with equal minuteness the financial condition of every man
on that list?"

Gorham nodded. "Yes; and of every individual, corporation, business
house, and government wherever it is of any value to us to know it."

Kenmore again relapsed into silence. He was experiencing a larger number
of new sensations during his conference than he remembered ever having
had aroused by any previous discussion. He was angry with himself for
having permitted the interview, he was incensed by the proposition
itself and the apparent unassailability of the Companies, he was annoyed
by Gorham's good manners and his complete self-control. Never once had
this man, who appeared to have his finger upon the pulse of the world,
allowed his attitude even to approach enthusiasm. He simply presented
facts, and then allowed them to tell their own story.

"You are at liberty, sir, to acquaint me with the transactions of the
Consolidated Companies," the Senator finally remarked.

"Probably a few specific cases will suffice," Gorham responded, as if
expecting to receive Kenmore's permission. "You will remember, perhaps,
the apparently insurmountable complications which arose over the placing
of the recent loan of fifty million dollars to the Chinese government,
for their currency reforms and other necessary improvements. As soon as
the Consolidated Companies assumed the responsibility of the
negotiations, all international bickerings ceased, for the Chinese,
French, German, English, and American financiers knew that the loan
would be handled to the advantage of all. I could cite, perhaps, a
hundred cases of similar importance, would time permit. As for the
present, you are aware that England is building several great men-of-war
to restore its navy to its previous supremacy. The contracts for this
work have been placed in the hands of the Consolidated Companies. Our
political strength was tested in a small way two years ago in causing a
cessation of hostilities between Austria and her neighbors. We shall be
strong enough before the war cloud gathers too heavily over England and
Germany to prevent the grievous calamity which threatens these nations.
Shall I give you other data?"

"But the Consolidated Companies separates the world into two parts--"
the Senator began.

"Precisely--into those who are stockholders and those who are not. Both
are benefited by the existence of the corporation. But is there any
question as to which is the more favored class?"

"None whatever," Kenmore replied, with decision.

"Then may I call to-morrow to learn in which class you decide to place
yourself?" Gorham asked, as he rose and slipped into his overcoat.

"No," the Senator replied, after a moment's thought. "I will send my
secretary to you to arrange the matter of taking over stock to the
amount of one hundred thousand dollars in the Consolidated
Companies--Unlimited!"




III

If punctuality is a virtue presaging business success, Allen gave
evidence, the following afternoon, of a brilliant future. Previously,
he had made no criticism of the condition in which his motor-car was
delivered to him at the garage, but this time the men found him
strangely unreasonable. The brasses had to be repolished, the hood
opened up, and the dust wiped from the long-neglected creases, and every
detail was inspected with a carefulness which created comment.

"Goin' to sell his car," one of the men remarked, sententiously, to
which sage comment his companion nodded acquiescence.

In spite of the delay thus caused, Allen shut off his power in front of
the hotel entrance at exactly the appointed hour. He bounded into the
lobby, and a few moments later was ushered into the elevator and guided
to the Gorhams' apartment.

"Why, it's Riley!" the caller exclaimed, enthusiastically, as the door
was opened for him by Mr. Gorham's aged retainer--"it's the same Riley
who used to box my ears when I tramped over his flower-beds in
Pittsburgh."

The old man regarded the visitor attentively. "Shure it's Misther Allen
Sanford, grown out iv his short pants into a fine young man, so he has."
A broad grin replaced the questioning expression on his face. "I did
box ye'er ears good, didn't I, sor? but go along wid yer, th' trouble
ye made me, ye an' Miss Alice a-traipsin' over me flower-beds." Then,
with a sigh: "Ah, sor, I remimber it as if 'twas yisterday. Miss Alice's
mother was livin' thin, God rist her soul. Thank ye, sor, f'r
remimberin' me. I'll call Mrs. Gorham an' Miss Alice."

It was the girl who appeared first, greeting Allen with frank
cordiality.

"Eleanor will be ready in a moment," she said. "Isn't this the greatest
coincidence?" she continued. "Yesterday at this time I had no idea you
were within a thousand miles, and now it seems as if we might almost be
back in Pittsburgh again, living the same childish life and playing the
same games."

"It was certainly a dandy coincidence for me," Allen agreed, "but I
don't quite follow you back to the kid games we played."

"Why, Allen!" Alice reproached him, "have you forgotten the motor rides
you and I took with wash-tubs, turned upside down, for seats, and the
remnant of your express-wagon for a steering-wheel? My! how fast we used
to go!"

"That's so!" he admitted. "I'd forgotten all about it. You used to look
great sitting on that tub."

"Freckles and all?"

"I didn't remember the freckles, either, until you spoke of them. You
were a little corker, even then."

"Even then?" Alice repeated, without intending to.

"No one has told you that you've gone backward in looks, has he?" Allen
laughed, looking straight into her face. Then he continued: "There's one
other game we played, which I haven't forgotten: Do you remember how we
used to keep house together? You were Mrs. Allen Sanford then, and we
had everything fixed up--"

Alice sobered. "I--I think I have forgotten that one," she said. "Isn't
it ridiculous what games children do play?"

"But the motor-car game has come true," he insisted, "and you'll look
just as good to me sitting in the real car, as you used to on top of
that tub. And as for the other--"

"How long Eleanor is taking!" she interrupted; "I'll run and find her."
With which she disappeared, returning almost immediately, accompanied by
Mrs. Gorham.

"I shan't be asked again, if I keep you waiting so long, shall I?"
Eleanor apologized.

"The appointed time always arrives at the same moment that Mrs. Gorham
does," Allen replied.

"So!" Eleanor was frankly surprised by the boy's gallantry. "If this is
a sample, I must agree with your father that diplomacy is your natural
field. It would be a pity to waste that in a business office."

"Don't you join the opposition, Mrs. Gorham," he said, seriously. "I'm
going to have a hard enough time with the pater as it is. Now, if
you're ready, shall we start? It isn't going to be the most sociable
arrangement in the world, with me driving the car, but we'll go slowly,
which will give us a chance to visit."

With Fort Meyer as the objective point, Allen took the road through Rock
Creek Park to Chevy Chase, feeling attracted, perhaps unconsciously,
because it was there he had renewed this acquaintance which promised to
end the _ennui_ he had experienced during the weeks he had spent in
Washington. Slowing his speed down to a point requiring the least
attention, he was able to converse with his guests. Alice had said
little since they left the hotel, but at last she found an opportunity
to free her mind.

"Eleanor wasn't serious in what she said about your going into
diplomacy, Allen. Any ability a man has in that line is just as valuable
in business."

Mrs. Gorham laughed as she turned to Alice. "Has that been troubling
you, my dear?" Then to Allen: "You touched on a very live wire when you
said what you did yesterday, Mr. Sanford. Alice thinks that a man who
chooses anything but a business career is blind to what life offers
him."

"You do too, don't you, Allen?" the girl asked.

"Why--yes," he answered. "I haven't exactly analyzed it, but I know I'd
rather go into business than into the diplomatic service."

"But you must have some reason for it," she urged.

"I have--I don't want to spend my life in other countries. Little old
New York is good enough for me. I have lots of friends there, and that's
where I'd like to settle down."

"New York is a hard place for a young man to start his career," said
Mrs. Gorham. "You will find there an absolute intolerance for the man in
the making. New York demands the finished product."

"But you don't have to start in New York," Alice added. "You could make
your success in some other city, and then come to New York if you wanted
to."

Allen became unusually thoughtful as the conversation progressed.

"Gee!" he said; "I knew that I wanted to go into business, but I didn't
realize how much there was to think over before doing it."

"But it's worth all the time and thought you can give to it," the girl
said, enthusiastically. "I can't imagine anything grander than to stand
at the threshold of the world ready to enter the battle of life, to
struggle with the obstacles and to conquer them. Think, Allen--just
think of what you have before you, while we girls never get any such
chance at all."

"Yes." Allen hesitated, carried off his feet by the intensity of the
words and the rapt expression of her face. "Yes, I guess it is grand,
though it never struck me just that way before. I say!--" he continued,
after a moment's pause, "you're an enthusiast on this business question,
aren't you?"

"Could she be Robert Gorham's daughter and not be an enthusiast?" Mrs.
Gorham asked.

"If father would only let me, I know I could make a success in
business," Alice continued. "I watch him, when he least suspects it; I
study the papers which he leaves around, and sometimes it seems as if I
just must be a boy, and get into the thick of it."

"What a funny idea!" Allen remarked. "I never thought girls cared
anything about business."

"But it's no use," she bemoaned. "I've got to be a girl whether I like
it or not; but you haven't any such handicap."

"Haven't I?--you forget the pater."

"If you felt as strongly about it as I do, you could persuade him."

"Have you--met the pater?" he asked, significantly.

Alice smiled for a moment, and then became serious again. "If you
have determination enough to succeed in business, Allen, the same
characteristic will win out with your father."

The boy did not know quite what to answer. Stephen Sanford insisted
that the only reason Allen showed a preference for business was because
he knew his father had set his heart on a different career for him. It
may have been merely an unconscious assertion of his budding manhood
which rebelled against having his life-work laid out for him without
consultation, just as his governess used to lay out his clothes. At all
events, from his very nature, Allen had not considered the matter as
seriously as he now saw Alice had done, and he was entirely unequal to
the task of holding up his end of the discussion. So, after a few
moments' silence, during which she watched him with eager expectancy, he
turned his face toward her, and grinned broadly.

"I'm mighty glad you are a girl," he said, irrelevantly; "and I'm mighty
glad you can't go into business."

Alice was disappointed on his account, but she chose to reply only to
his reference to her.

"Of course," she pouted. "You men are all alike. You're selfish and
unsympathetic. You want all the interesting things for yourselves,
and--some of you--don't even know why you want them."

"I really believe you're getting personal." Allen laughed. "Don't knock;
come right in. Now, to heap coals of fire upon your head, I'll tell you
what I'll do, Alice; I'll divide chances with you, beginning with the
first."

"Do you mean to say you haven't had even a first chance yet?"

He nodded cheerfully. "Not a single first, to say nothing of doubtful
seconds."

"Then it's because you haven't tried," she asserted.

"Of course; but that doesn't mean that some one else hasn't tried. I've
been the dutiful son, waiting for 'papa' to show him that the paternal
way is the only way; but even the pater hasn't proved a blooming success
in that line. The real trouble is that the old man is too conscientious.
Just as the President gets all worked up and just crazy to send me as
minister plenipotentiary to the Republic of Zuzu, the pater coughs
guiltily, and murmurs, 'Oh, yes; he's a good boy, if he is my son, but
he hasn't been brought up in my school,' and shows by every movement
that he knows he's passing off a gold brick. Then, of course, the whole
game is up."

"Why doesn't he take you into his own business?" Mrs. Gorham asked.

"Jealousy or judgment; can't say which."

"Do be serious, Allen," Alice insisted. "I don't believe you have any
strong feelings about it anyway. No wonder your father gets out of
patience with you if you talk to him about it as you do to us."

"Oh, he gets out of patience, all right," Allen admitted, "but it's
simply because he can't refute my arguments. He talks about what he was
doing at my age, but I tell him my record is a whole lot better than
his. He couldn't afford to go to college, while I could, and at the same
proud point in our careers I was successfully touching him for five
hundred a month, while he was with great difficulty earning a hundred
and fifty, on which he supported a family. But the pater--well, the
pater has a way of looking at things which is all his own."

"There is absolutely no use expecting to talk business with you," the
girl declared. "Father won't discuss it with me, and you won't be
serious at all, and I know Mr. Covington is really laughing at me all
the time, even though he tries to make me think that he looks upon me as
a very business-like young woman."

"Who is Mr. Covington?" Allen asked, bluntly, inwardly resenting the
fact that any one except her father was as intimate with Alice as the
words indicated.

"He's father's right-hand man in the Consolidated Companies. If you
could once see him and father at work and hear them talk you would
understand the fascination of it."

"Then you like business conversation?" The boy found it difficult to
comprehend.

"Better than anything else in the world."

Allen became really serious. "If that's the case," he said,
emphatically, "I'm going to become a man of affairs, just to give
you that pleasure."

Alice clapped her hands with delight. "What are you going to do?" she
asked.

He turned so blank a face to the expectant one he saw before him that
the seriousness could no longer be preserved. The vacuity turned into a
smile, and the smile into a broad grin.

"I guess I lose if I have to answer that question now," he admitted,
frankly; "but you keep your eye on Willie and the push-ball, and watch
the professor change him into a big roaring captain of industry. Then
you shall talk business with him as much as you like, and he won't make
you feel that he's laughing at you, as that Mr.--, what's his name,
does."

"Good for you, Allen!" the girl cried, really pleased by the clumsily
expressed compliment.

"So all is settled now except the pater, and I'm almost launched on my
career," Allen replied. "Now suppose we take up your case. What have you
been doing all these years?"

"Well," said Alice, smiling, "the history of my life is yet to be
written, but the main facts up to the present are that I have safely
passed through school and most of my other childhood diseases; that I
had my coming-out ball in New York last winter; that I am happy,
and--most important of all--that I have Eleanor."

She took Mrs. Gorham's hand affectionately in hers as she spoke, and
Allen needed nothing more to demonstrate the strength of the bond which
existed between the two. It was not the affection between mother and
daughters, or between sisters, or friends, but rather the best of all
three merged and purified by the yearning each had felt for that which
now each had found.

The conversation during the ride back to the hotel was in lighter vein,
in which Allen showed greater proficiency. Alice's interest in him was
mingled with a disappointment that the years had not made him older and
less irresponsible. She felt herself distinctly his senior, yet she also
felt a confidence in his unexpressed ability. To Mrs. Gorham the
passages-at-arms between the two children, as she would have called
them, were refreshing. She knew that each was being benefited by coming
in contact with a different nature. Alice's serious side needed the
leaven of a lighter viewpoint on life; Allen's buoyancy was already
being tempered by her ambition. This was why, when Alice asked her
later, in their apartment, "Don't you think Allen needs a little of that
'inspiration' you spoke of?" she had kissed the girl, and answered
without hesitation, "Yes, dear; and you are just the one to give it to
him."

"Then this is my chance to enter business by proxy?" Alice asked again;
and Mrs. Gorham, smiling quietly to herself, had answered, "Perhaps."




IV


After his interview with Senator Kenmore, Gorham walked rapidly down the
slight incline from the Senators' office building to the hotel, where
the clerk passed out to him a handful of letters and telegrams. In the
lobby, unseasonably crowded by the extra session of Congress, he nodded
cordially to three or four men who obviously courted recognition, and
ascended in the elevator to his apartment.

"You don't know Gorham?" queried one of the men, turning to his
friend--"wonderful man, wonderful organizer, head of the great
Consolidated Companies. Thought the Consolidated Companies a myth? Well,
well! That's a great compliment to the man and his methods. You'll know
both well enough before long. But that's characteristic of Gorham--moves
along so quietly that you think he's doing nothing; then you wake up and
find that his corporation has tucked away a big government contract you
thought you'd tied up yourself. Better keep your eye on Gorham and the
Consolidated Companies."

"There you are, daddy!" cried a welcoming voice as Gorham threw open the
door, the words being quickly followed by a rustle of skirts and an
enthusiastic embrace. "I'm so glad you're back early. You know Allen is
coming to dinner, and couldn't we all go to the theatre afterward?"

Alice released her father partially, but still held one of his hands in
each of her own. Hat, letters, and telegrams had already fallen in
confusion upon the floor, as the result of the girl's onslaught. She
caught the look, half amusement, half dismay, upon his face.

"Never mind, daddy dear," she continued, reassuringly; "I'll pick them
all up in a moment. You will go with us to the theatre, won't you?"

Gorham looked significantly at the telegrams and the letters on the
floor.

"Let me see," he said, doubtfully. "I really ought to work on these
papers after dinner. How can I do that and go with you, Puss? There's
a problem for you!--unless I could use Riley for a secretary," he
continued, jocosely. "That's the only capacity he hasn't served in.
Where is he, anyway?"

"Couldn't I help you?" she asked, quickly, without answering his
question. "You don't know how much I'd like to. And I'm sure I could,"
she added, with confidence.

"Tut, tut!" Gorham stroked the soft fair hair affectionately, but
discreetly. "Little girls shouldn't concern themselves with such
matters."

The girl released him, and, dropping on her knees, gathered up the
fallen missives. Instead of handing them to her father, she sat back and
looked up seriously into his face.

"Girls are no good, anyhow," she rebelled. "If you would only give me
the chance, I know I could help you in lots of ways, and then I'd feel
that I was worth something. I just can't stand it to sit around all the
time and have things done for me. Oh, why wasn't I a boy!"

"Come, come." Gorham raised her gently to her feet, noting the tears
in her eyes, and drew her to him. "I didn't mean to hurt your feelings,
dear; but business and battle are meant for men. The Amazons in ancient
history didn't change the order of things, did they? You should be proud
to be just what you are. Now give me my letters. There's some one else I
want to see, you know."

"She's waiting for you," Alice replied, simply, looking into his face
with comprehension. "She's the sweetest thing, daddy," the girl
continued. "One moment she is so wise that she seems old enough to be my
truly mother; and then again so young and sympathetic as to be just an
older sister. I can't tell you how much she does for me every day, or
how completely she understands me."

"You and I are mighty lucky to have Eleanor, Alice," Gorham replied,
feelingly. "We should both be very grateful to her, dear."

"I _am_ grateful, daddy; and I love her better every day. There's Riley;
he'll help you get ready for the theatre."

Gorham made no answer, but patted his daughter's cheek affectionately as
he turned from her to the genial face of his valet and general factotum.
The old man had been in Gorham's family for forty years, and his loyalty
to "Misther Robert" had steadily increased during the period which had
elapsed since "Old Gorham," as his original master had been known in
Pittsburgh, delivered him over to his son as a part of the house and
household effects which constituted the paternal wedding present. Now,
ten years Gorham's senior, he still adopted an attitude at once
protective and admiring, enjoying that intimacy which is the reward of
a lifelong service of loyalty.

"Miss Alice wishes me to go to the theatre to-night, Riley," Gorham
remarked as the man relieved him of his coat.

"Yis, sor; 'twill do ye good, Misther Robert--ye wid so manny grand
plans in ye'er head. 'Twill do ye good, sor."

"But I have so much to do, Riley," Gorham protested. "The more items I
cross off my daily memorandum, the more I find left there to be done."

"Yis, sor; that's right, sor--I know it's right; it's just like th'
Widow Cruse's oil jug in th' Bible, sor. But th' widow come out all
right, Misther Robert, and ye'll do th' same. I'll have ye'er things
ready f'r ye in a minnit, sor."

If Riley was in the conspiracy for the theatre-party, Gorham realized
that opposition would be futile, so he turned into his wife's room.

"I thought I heard voices in the hall," Mrs. Gorham greeted her husband,
affectionately. "You have returned early, which will give us a little
visit together before dinner-time. Has the day been satisfactory?"

Gorham did not reply at once. He held her face between his hands,
looking down into the depth of her eyes with a strength of feeling which
she could but sense. There was an expression of expectancy, an unspoken
desire that she should recognize something which as yet she had failed
to see. There was a tenseness which would have frightened her except for
the tenderness which accompanied it.

"Why do you look at me like that, Robert?"

"Because I love you, Eleanor," he replied at length. "Isn't that an
admission for a man of my age to make? I know it always, but there are
times when I must tell you so. Don't call it weakness, dear, or
sentimentality. There is a relief which I could never explain in turning
from these battles with men and with events to your companionship, which
demanded nothing from me except myself."

"Nothing except yourself?" Mrs. Gorham smiled, reassured. "What more
could one ask or give? Now that you have confessed, I must do likewise:
I simply count the moments every day until you come, but I never should
have dared to tell you for fear you would laugh at me. What would this
callous world say if it discovered that the great Robert Gorham and his
insignificant wife were really in love with each other! But I am so
thankful for it, dear. What do the years mean unless they add to one's
power to love?"

"The thankfulness is mine, Eleanor," Gorham replied; "but I shan't let
you speak of 'the years' at twenty-six. Wait until you add twenty-five
more to them and reach my dignified estate."

"It is experience which adds the years, my Robert; and this almost gives
me the right to priority."

"I know, I know," her husband replied, drawing her gently to him. "Do
you never forget it?"

"You and the dear girls have softened the past into a memory which I can
at least endure," she continued, "and you fill the present with so much
happiness that I rarely have time to look backward."

"Alice spoke just now of how much you had been to her, and it started
something moving in my own heart. That is probably what led me to speak
as I did."

"Alice is a darling," Mrs. Gorham replied, happy beyond words at the
double tribute received from father and daughter. "Just now she is
passing through what seems to her to be a crisis, and she needs
assistance from us both."

Gorham looked at her in surprise. "A crisis?" he asked.

"Yes, Robert; and the responsibility is yours: you have passed on to
her, as directly as heredity can do it, that love of business which has
made you what you are. You have been denied a son, but whether you wish
it or not your daughter naturally possesses those very business
instincts which you would have been proud to recognize in your son."

"You amaze me," Gorham replied. "Alice is forever trying to persuade me
to let her help me and all that, but I have attributed it simply to an
affectionate desire on her part to be of service to me."

"It is more than that--there is the reflection of yourself in the girl's
soul which demands expression."

"But it would be absurd for her to do anything of that kind."

"Why so? I don't mean for her to go into a business office, of course.
But could you not gratify her by explaining certain problems which she
could grasp, and then give her an opportunity to work them out herself
in some minor personal matter of which you have so many?"

"It seems ridiculous to me," Gorham said, after a moment's silence, "but
I will think it over carefully. I am disappointed, I admit, that neither
one of my children, especially Alice, should have been a son to
perpetuate my name and to continue my work; but that was not to be, and
my daughters are all that I could ask."

"They are indeed," she assented, feelingly. "I believe Alice realizes
your disappointment and actually reproaches herself, poor child, for not
being what you wished."

"Oh, no!" he protested. "I must set her right on that at once. I admit
my disappointment, but that does not lessen my appreciation of my
blessings. You and the girls are everything to me--and you have given me
more than a son in your wonderful conception--the Consolidated Companies
is your child, Eleanor, for without your suggestion of an organization
founded upon an altruistic basis I should never have thought of creating
this corporation which is now certain to be the greatest power the world
has seen."

"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 in judicial 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."




IX


Allen had ample opportunity to act the part of the hydra. When his
father left him after their stormy interview the boy utterly failed to
realize the seriousness of the situation. The "pater" had been angry
with him before,--if the truth be told, he was usually angry with
him,--so the fact that the altercation this time had been more severe
than usual was a matter simply of degree. The cutting off of his
allowance was a tangible evidence that his father was more than
ordinarily angry; but, on the other hand, Allen felt himself to be the
aggrieved party, and in a virtuous burst of righteousness he declared to
himself that he "didn't want the pater's money, anyway." He considered
it fortunate that it was still early in the month, and it did not occur
to him to consider the rather handsome balance he still possessed as too
tainted to retain; but as he looked at it the upshot of the whole matter
was that now he would be forced to go into business at once--and this
was his strongest desire since he had met Alice. So Allen "hiked it" to
New York, and spent a fortnight seeking out the opening which should
best offer him the opportunity to become a captain of industry with the
least possible delay.

In the mean time, Covington had returned to Washington to assist Gorham
in putting through a government contract for the building of the new
battleships just authorized by Congress. He found his chief gratified by
the continued advance of the Companies' interests, but still more
impressed by the personal responsibility which this success entailed.

"I repeated the cable from Brazil to you by wire," Covington remarked.

"Yes; the Consolidated Companies now controls the coffee output of the
world. With the economies which we can introduce in production and
handling there will be a saving of about twelve millions a year."

"That will be a handsome addition to the dividends already assured the
stockholders," Covington observed.

"Only a drop in the bucket compared with what is to come," Gorham
assured him. "The people can now save six millions a year on their
breakfast cup of coffee, while the Consolidated Companies may
conscientiously drop the other six into its own cup by way of
sweetening."

"You don't really mean that you are going to throw away all that
profit?" was the incredulous inquiry.

"I'm not going to 'throw away' any of it."

"I know," Covington said, quickly; "but six millions is a large sum of
money, and one million given to the public by way of lower prices, if
properly advertised, would accomplish the purpose just as well."

Gorham looked at him critically. "You're not serious, are you?"

"As serious as you are." Covington smiled understandingly. "This is man
to man now, you know; that other talk is a great card for the Companies,
as you give it. Of course it isn't necessary to give away so large a
share of the savings."

"Not necessary, but just and--good business," replied Gorham. "This is
where you and I and the others in the Companies can reap our richest
dividends: we can take the tremendous profits which we are receiving
with the gratifying knowledge that every dollar we get is clean, and
represents an equal sum saved to the people. No one of us has made an
unfair penny out of the promotion; no one of us has improperly used the
information which has come to him while negotiating our consolidations;
there is no act of ours, individually or officially, which will not
stand the fullest publicity. What oth