Robert Kimberly Part 37

"Nonsense."

"I'm asking purely out of curiosity," persisted Lottie. "I have failed.

I realize it and I shall never try again. But at the end--I'd like to know."

"You probably would not agree with me," answered Kimberly after a silence, "most women would not. Perhaps it would fail with most men--but as I say, most men wouldn't interest me, anyway. If I had it to try, I would appeal to a man's highest nature."

"What is his highest nature?"

"Whatever his best instincts are,"

"And then?"

"That's all."

"Oh, nonsense!"

"No, it isn't nonsense. Only I am not good at a.n.a.lyzing. If I once caught a man in that way I should know I had him fast forever. There is absolutely no use in flinging your mere temptations at him. Keep those quietly in the background. He will go after them fast enough when you have made sure of him on the higher plane. If you are compelled to display your temptations at the start, the case is hopeless. You have surrendered your advantage of the high appeal. Trust him to think about the other side of it, Lottie. You can't suggest to him anything he doesn't know, and perhaps--I'm not sure--he prefers to turn to that side when he thinks you are not looking. The difficulty is," he concluded, speaking slowly, "even if you get him from the lower side, he won't stay hooked. You know how a salmon strikes at a fly? All human experience shows that a man hooked from the side of his lower instincts, will sooner or later shake the bait."

"It must be something even to have him on the hook for a while, Robert."

"But you don't agree with me."

"No."

"No doubt, I'm wrong. And it isn't, I suppose, of much consequence whether the men stay caught or not. I look at it, probably, with a business instinct. When I do anything, I want it to stay done forever.

When I make a deal or fasten a point I want it to stay fastened for all time. That is my nature. Now, that may not be a woman's nature. You shouldn't have asked me, don't you see, because we 'begin' differently."

"I fancy that's it, Robert. We 'begin' differently."

"Try another seer--there is De Castro. Here is Mrs. MacBirney. Mrs.

MacBirney," Kimberly moved so he could command Alice's attention, "Mrs.

Nelson is trying to find out what a man likes in a woman. I haven't been able to tell her----"

"It isn't that at all," smiled Lottie, wearily. "Mr. Kimberly can tell.

He won't."

Kimberly appealed to Alice. "It is a great mistake not to trust your oracle when he is doing his best--don't you think so, Mrs. MacBirney?"

"I suppose an oracle is consulted on his reputation--and it is on his reputation that his clients should rely," suggested Alice.

"Anyway," declared Lottie, rising, "I am going to try another."

Kimberly turned his chair as she walked away so that he could speak to Alice. "Giving advice is not my forte. Whenever I attempt it I disappoint somebody; and this time I had a difficult subject. Mrs.

Nelson wants to know what men like in women. A much more interesting subject would be, what women like in men. I should suppose, in my blundering way, that sincerity would come before everything else, Mrs.

MacBirney. What do you think?"

"Sincerity ought to be of value."

"But there is a great deal else, you imply."

"Necessarily, I should think."

"As, for instance?"

"Unselfishness among other things," said Alice.

He objected frankly to her suggestion. "I don't know about unselfishness. I have my doubts about unselfishness. Are you sure?"

"Most ideals include it, I believe."

"I don't know that I have any ideals--abstract ideals, that is. Though I once took quite an interest in the Catholic Church."

"An academic interest."

"No, no; a real and concrete interest. I admire it greatly. I tried once to look into its claims. What in part discouraged me was the unpleasant things Catholics themselves told me about their church."

"They must have been bad Catholics."

"I don't know enough about them to discriminate between the good and the bad. What, by the way," he asked bluntly, "are you--a good Catholic or a bad one?"

She was taken for an instant aback; then she regarded him with an expression he did not often see in her eyes. "I am a bad one, I am ashamed to say."

"Then these I speak of must have been good ones," he remarked at once, "because they were not in the least like you."

If he thought he had perplexed her he was soon undeceived. "There are varying degrees even of badness," she returned steadily. "I hope I shall never fall low enough to speak slightingly of my faith."

"I don't understand," he persisted, musing, "why you should fall at all.

Now, if I were a Catholic I should be a good one."

"Suppose you become one."

He disregarded her irony. "I may sometime. To be perfectly frank, what I found most lacking when I looked into the question was some sufficient inducement. Of what use? I asked myself. If by following Christianity and its precepts a man could make himself anything more than he is--prolong his years, or recall his youth. If he could achieve the t.i.tanic, raise himself to the power of a demiG.o.d!" Kimberly's eyes shone wide at the thought, then they closed to a contrasting torpor.

"Will religion do this for any one? I think not. But fancy what that would mean; never to grow old, never to fall ill, never to long for without possessing!" A disdainful pride was manifest in every word of his utterance, but he spoke with the easy-mannered good-nature that was his characteristic.

"A man that follows the dreams of religion," he resumed but with lessening a.s.surance, for Alice maintained a silence almost contemptuous and he began to feel it, "is he not subject to the same failures, the same pains, the same misfortunes that we are subject to? Even as the rest of us, he must grow old and fail and die."

"Some men, of course," she suggested with scant patience, "should have a different dispensation from the average mortal."

Kimberly squirmed dissentingly. "I don't like that phrase, 'the average mortal.' It has a villainously hackneyed sound, don't you think? No, for my part I should be willing to let everybody in on the greater, the splendid dispensation."

"You might be sorry if you did."

"You mean, there are men that should die--some that should die early?"

"There are many reasons why it might not work."

He stopped. "That is true--it might not work, if universally applied.

It would do better restricted to a few of us. But no matter; since we can't have it at all, we must do the best we can. And the way to beat the game as it must be played in this world at present," he continued with contained energy, "is to fight for what we want and defend it when won, against all comers. Won't you wish me success in such an effort, Alice?"