Robert Kimberly Part 15

"Not at all. I change my arrangements when necessary every ten minutes."

"But there isn't any conflict, and I shall be delighted to come. Pray, how do you know I like music?"

"I heard you say so once to Arthur De Castro. Tell me what you are amused about?"

"Have I betrayed any amus.e.m.e.nt?"

"For just about the hundredth part of a second, in your eyes."

They were looking at each other and his gaze though within restraint was undeniably alive. Alice knew not whether she could quite ignore it or whether her eyes would drop in an annoying admission of self-consciousness. She avoided the latter by confessing. "I am sure I don't know at all what you are talking about----"

"I am sure you do, but you are privileged not to tell if you don't want to."

"Then--our dinner card was mislaid and until to-night we didn't know whether----"

"There was going to be any dinner."

"Oh, I knew that. I was at the Casino this afternoon----"

"I saw you."

"And when I was asked whether I was going to the dinner at The Towers I couldn't, of course, say."

"Who asked you, Mrs. Nelson?"

"No, indeed. What made you think it was she?"

"Because she asked me if you were to be there. When I said you were, she laughed in such a way I grew suspicious. I thought, perhaps, for some reason you could not come, and now _I_ am confessing--I ran over to-night expressly to find out."

"How ridiculous!"

"Rather ridiculous of me not to know before-hand."

"I don't mean that--just queer little complications."

"A mislaid dinner-card might be answerable for more than that."

"It was Miss Venable who asked, quite innocently. And had I known all I know now, I could have taken a chance, perhaps, and said yes."

"You would have been taking no chance where my hospitality is concerned."

"Thank you, Mr. Kimberly, for my husband and myself."

"And you might have added in this instance that if you did not go there would be no dinner."

Alice concealed an embarra.s.sment under a little laugh. "My husband told me of your kindness in placing your yacht at our disposal for the races."

"At his disposal."

"Oh, wasn't I included in that?"

"Certainly, if you would like to be. But tastes differ, and you and Mr.

MacBirney being two----"

"Oh, no, Mr. Kimberly; my husband and I are one."

"--and possibly of different tastes," continued Kimberly, "I thought only of him. I hope it wasn't ungracious, but some women, you know, hate the water. And I had no means of knowing whether you liked it. If you do----"

"And you are not going to the races, yourself?"

"If you do, I shall know better the next time how to arrange."

"And you are not going to the races?"

"Probably not. Do you like the water?"

"To be quite frank, I don't know."

"How so?"

"I like the ocean immensely, but I don't know how good a sailor I should be on a yacht."

Imogene was ready to go home. Kimberly rose. "I understand," he said, in the frank and rea.s.suring manner that was convincing because quite natural. "We will try you some time, up the coast," he suggested, extending his hand. "Good-night, Mrs. MacBirney."

"I believe Kimberly is coming to our side," declared MacBirney after he had gone upstairs with Alice.

Annie had been dismissed and Alice was braiding her hair. "I hope so; I begin to feel like a conspirator."

MacBirney was in high spirits. "You don't look like one. You look just now like Marguerite." He put his hands around her shoulders, and bending over her chair, kissed her. The caress left her cold.

"Poor Marguerite," she said softly.

"When is the dinner to be?"

"A week from Thursday. Mr. Kimberly says the yacht is for you, but the dinner is for me," continued Alice as she lifted her eyes toward her husband.

"Good for you."

"He is the oddest combination," she mused with a smile, and lingering for an instant on the adjective. "Blunt, and seemingly kind-hearted----"

"Not kind-hearted," MacBirney echoed, incredulously. "Why, even Nelson, and he's supposed to think the world and all of him, calls him as cold as the grave when he _wants_ anything."

Alice stuck to her verdict. "I can't help what Nelson says; and I don't pretend to know how Mr. Kimberly would act when he wants anything. A kind-hearted man is kind to those he likes, and a cold-blooded man is just the same to those he likes and those he doesn't like. There is always something that stands between a cold-blooded man and real consideration for those he likes--and that something is himself."

Alice was quite willing her husband should apply her words as he pleased. She thought he had given her ample reason for her reflection on the subject.

But MacBirney was too self-satisfied to perceive what her words meant and too pleased with the situation to argue. "Whatever he is," he responded, "he is the wheel-horse in this combination--everybody agrees on that--and the friends.h.i.+p of these people is an a.s.set the world over.

If we can get it and keep it, we are the gainers."