Robert Kimberly Part 30

"What about the winter, Mr. Kimberly--are you going in town?"

"I haven't decided."

But although Kimberly had made no decision he had made vague promises to every one. With Charles he talked about putting his own yacht into commission, taking Larrie from the refineries for a breathing spell and meeting Charlie's party in February at Taormina. He discussed with Dolly a shorter vacation, one of taking pa.s.sage to Cherbourg, motoring with Arthur and herself across France and meeting Charles at Nice, whence all could come home together.

The Nelsons left the lake last. Lottie gave Kimberly a parting thrust as she said good-by, delivering it in such a way that she hoped to upset him. "So you are in love with Alice MacBirney?" she said smilingly.

Kimberly looked frankly into her clear, sensuous eyes. "What put that into your head, Lottie?"

She laughed unsympathetically. "I'm glad you've got some one this time that will make you do the walking--not one like the rest of us poor creatures."

"Why do you talk about 'this time,' and 'us poor creatures'? Let me tell you something."

"Do, so I can tell it to Alice."

"You may at any time tell Mrs. MacBirney anything I say. It is this: if I should ever find a woman to love, I expect to do the walking. Tell her that, will you? I respect Mrs. MacBirney very highly and admire her very much--is that clear? But that is far from outraging her feelings by coupling her name with mine or mine with hers. Don't do that. I will never forgive it." She had never seen him so angry.

He realized more than once during the long winter that the slighted woman had told him only the truth. But from her it was an impertinent truth. And it galled him to be forced to admit to the loose-thinking members of his own set what he felt toward Alice.

Meantime, he spent the whole winter at The Towers with Uncle John, the tireless Francis, and his own unruly thoughts. His time went to conferences with his city a.s.sociates, infrequent inspections of the refineries, horseback rides over the winter landscape, and to winter sunsets watched alone from the great western windows.

In town Alice found Fritzie an admirable guide.

"I try," said Fritzie calmly, answering one of Alice's jests at her wide acquaintance, "to move with the best. I suppose in heaven we shall encounter all sorts. And if we don't cultivate the elect here we may never have another chance to."

"You are far-sighted, Fritzie dear," smiled Alice. "What I can't understand is, why you don't marry."

"I have too many rich relations. I couldn't marry anybody in their cla.s.s. I should have to pick up with some wretched millionaire and be reduced to misery. The Lord deliver us from people that watch their incomes--they are the limit. And it must, I have always thought, be terrible, Alice, to live with a man that has made a million honestly.

He would be so mean. Of course, we are mean, too; but happily a good part of our meannesses are underground--buried with our ancestors."

Fritzie's light words struck home with an unsuspected force. Alice knew Fritzie had no thought of painting MacBirney; it was only Alice herself who recognized her husband's portrait.

Fritzie certainly had, as she admitted, an appet.i.te for the luxurious and even MacBirney liked her novel extravagances. In their few resting hours the two women talked of Second Lake. "Fritzie," said Alice one night when they were together before the fire, "the first time I met you, you said every one at Second Lake was contented, with two exceptions. You were one; who was the other?"

"Robert, dear. He is the most discontented mortal alive. Isn't it all a strange world?"

Alice, too, had thoughts that winter, but they were confused thoughts and not always to be tolerated. She, likewise, was beginning to think it a strange world.

MacBirney, guided by McCrea, followed the pool operations with sleepless vigilance. They reached their height when Congress adjourned early without disturbing the tariff. The street saw enormous gains ahead for the crowd operating in the Kimberly stocks and with public buying underway the upward movement in the shares took on renewed strength.

It was just at this moment of the adjournment of Congress that Kimberly sent McCrea to MacBirney with directions to sell, and explicitly as to how and through whom to sell. MacBirney, to McCrea's surprise, demurred at the advice and argued that if he dropped out now he should lose the best profits of the venture.

McCrea consented to talk to Kimberly again. Doane, the Hamilton banking interests and their a.s.sociates were still ostensibly buying and were talking even higher prices. It did not look right to MacBirney to sell under such circ.u.mstances but McCrea came back the very next day with one word: "Sell." No reasons, no explanations were given, nothing vouchsafed but a curt command.

MacBirney, doubtful and excited, consulted Alice, to whom indeed, in serious perplexity, he often turned. Knowing nothing about the situation, she advised him to do precisely as Kimberly directed and to do so without loss of time. He was still stubborn. No one but himself knew that he was carrying twice the load of stock he had any right to a.s.sume, and battling thus between greed and prudence he reluctantly placed the selling orders.

Just as he had gotten fairly out of it, the market, to his mortification, advanced. A few days later it ran quite away. Huge blocks of stock thrown into it made hardly any impression. The market, as MacBirney had predicted, continued strong. At the end of the week he felt sure that Kimberly had tricked him, and in spite of winning more money than he had ever made in his life he was in bad humor. Kimberly himself deigned no word of enlightenment. McCrea tried to explain to MacBirney that the public had run away with the market--as it sometimes did. But MacBirney nursed resentment.

The Nelsons came over from Was.h.i.+ngton that week--it was Holy Week--for the opera and the week-end, and MacBirney asked his wife to entertain them, together with Lambert, at dinner on Friday night.

Alice fought the proposal, but MacBirney could not be moved. She endeavored to have the date changed to Easter Sunday; MacBirney was relentless. He knew it was Good Friday and that his wife was trying to avoid entertaining during the evening. But he thought it an opportunity to discipline her. Alice sent out her invitations and they were accepted. No such luck, she knew, as a declination would be hers.

Lottie, amusing herself for the winter with Lambert, was in excellent humor. But Alice was nervous and everything went wrong. They rose from the table to go to the opera, where Nelson had the Robert Kimberly box.

Alice seeking the retirement of an easy-chair gave her attention to the stage and to her own thoughts. In neither did she find anything satisfying. Mrs. Nelson, too talkative with the men, was a mild irritation to her, and of all nights in the year this was the last on which Alice would have wished to be at the opera. It was only one more link in the long chain of sacrifices she wore for domestic peace, but to-night her gyves lay heavy on her wrists. She realized that she was hardly amiable. This box she was enjoying the seclusion of, brought Kimberly close to her. The difference there would be within it if he himself were present, suggested itself indolently to her in her depression. How loath, she reflected, Kimberly would have been to drag her out when she wished to be at home. It was not the first time that she had compared him with her husband, but this was the first time she was conscious of having done so. All they were enjoying was his; yet she knew he would have been indifferent to everything except what she preferred.

And it was not alone what he had indicated in deferring to her wishes; it was what he often did in deferring in indifferent things to the wishes of others that had impressed itself upon her more than any trait in his character. How much happier she should be if her own husband were to show a mere trace of such a disposition, she felt past even the possibility of telling him; it seemed too useless. He could not be made to understand.

For supper the party went with Nelson. The gayety of the others left Alice cold. Nelson, with the art of the practised entertainer, urged the eating and drinking, and when the party left the buzzing cafe some of them were heated and unrestrained. At two o'clock, Alice with her husband and Fritzie reached their apartment, and Alice, very tired, went directly to her own rooms. MacBirney came in, somewhat out of humor.

"What's the matter with you to-night?" he demanded. Alice had dismissed Annie and her husband sat down beside her table.

"With me? Nothing, Walter; why?"

"You acted so cattish all the evening," he complained, with an irritating little oath.

Alice was in no mood to help him along. "How so?" she asked tying her hair as she turned to look at him.

An inelegant exclamation annoyed her further. "You know what I mean just as well as I do," he went on curtly. "You never opened your mouth the whole evening. Lottie asked me what the matter was with you----"

Alice repeated but one word of the complaining sentence. "Lottie!" she echoed. Her husband's anger grew. "If Lottie would talk less,"

continued Alice quietly, "and drink less, I should be less ashamed to be seen with her. And perhaps I could talk more myself."

"You never did like anybody that liked me. So it is Lottie you're jealous of?"

"No, not 'jealous of,' only ashamed of. Even at the dinner she was scandalous, I thought."

Her husband regarded her with stubborn contempt, and it hurt. "You are very high and mighty to-night. I wonder," he said with a scarcely concealed sneer, "whether prosperity has turned your head."

"You need not look at me in that way, Walter, and you need not taunt me."

"You have been abusing Lottie Nelson a good deal lately. I wish you would stop it." He rose and stood with one hand on the table. Alice was slipping her rings into the cup in front of her and she dropped in the last with some spirit.

"I will stop it. And I hope you will never speak of her again. I certainly never will entertain her again under any circ.u.mstances," she exclaimed.

"You will entertain her the next time I tell you to."

Alice turned quite white. "Have you anything else to say to me?"

Her very restraint enraged him. "Only that if you try to ride your high horse with me," he replied, "I will send you back to St. Louis some fine day."

"Is that all?"

"That is all. And if you think I don't mean what I say, try it sometime." As he spoke he pushed the chair in which he had been sitting roughly aside.

Alice rose to her feet. "I despise your threats," she said, choking with her own words. "I despise you. I can't tell you how I despise you." Her heart beat rebelliously and she shook in every limb; expressions that she would not have known for her own fell stinging from her lips. "You have bullied me for the last time. I have stood your abuse for five years. It will stop now. You will do the cringing and creeping from now on. That woman never shall sit down at a table with me again, not if you beg it of me on your knees. You are a cowardly wretch; I know you perfectly; you never were anything else. I have paid dearly for ever believing you a man." Her contempt burned the words she uttered. "Now drive me one step further," she sobbed wildly, "if you dare!"

She snapped out the light above her head with an angry twist. Another light shone through the open door of her sleeping-room and through this door she swiftly pa.s.sed, slamming it shut and locking it sharply behind her.

MacBirney had never seen his wife in such a state. He was surprised; but there could be no mistake. Her blood was certainly up.