"Yes, I do. And thank you for letting me see your mother."
"If you only could have met her!" There was an intensity of regret in his words. "It was a tragedy for such a woman to die young. I have long wanted you to see her portrait; you constantly make me think of her, Alice."
She turned calmly and frankly. "It is most kind of you to say that, Mr.
Kimberly. So kind that I am going to be bold enough to ask a favor."
"I know what you are going to ask, but I wish you wouldn"t. I want very much to do what you are about to ask me not to do----"
"It is almost nothing--only not to call me Alice."
"There is no use my asking a favor, is there?" He turned with almost a boyish humor in his manner. His mother"s eyes seemed to look at her in his eyes as he spoke.
"Not, Mr. Kimberly, this time. I want you to oblige me."
"You are afraid of me." There was no resentment in the words; nothing beyond a regret.
Her answer was low but neither weak nor confused. "Is it quite generous, Mr. Kimberly--here?"
"No," he answered in the same even voice, "it is not. Unhappily, there are times when generosity is weakness. I"ve been trying ever since I have known you to think of you just as I think of myself. I believe I have tried to give you a little the best of it--yet a selfish man can"t always be sure of doing that."
"I trust you think of me," she responded, "only as one of the least important among your friends."
"You are afraid of me. And yet I want your confidence above everything in this world--and I must in some way deserve and win it."
"I do wish you would not say these things. I have to try very hard not to dislike you exceedingly when you speak in this way."
"You do dislike me exceedingly when I speak in this way. I know it perfectly."
If her voice trembled the least bit it was with indignation. "I sometimes ask myself whether I should suffer it even for my husband"s sake. You will force me to do something unpleasant, I fear."
"I never will force you to do anything. I do want to call you Alice.
But don"t hate me for that."
She heard with relief Dolly talking to her husband in the doorway. "It was almost three years before Imogene saw Charles again," Alice heard Dolly say, "and, would you believe it, he began exactly where he left off. After that Imogene decided it was of no use. So, she is Mrs.
Kimberly!"
"By Jove! He had patience," laughed MacBirney.
Dolly laughed a little, too. "That is the only exasperating thing about the Kimberly men--their patience."
CHAPTER XIX
MacBirney"s decision to spend the winter in town became very welcome to Alice; the atmosphere within a wide radius of The Towers seemed too charged with electricity for mental peace. And her husband, having tasted for the first time the excitement of the stock markets, desired to be near his brokers.
Fritzie, who was an authority in town affairs, made it easy for Alice to find acceptable quarters. In general the Second Lake people cared less and less for opening their town houses. Robert Kimberly"s house, while nominally open, never saw its master. Charles and Imogene Kimberly for several years had spent their winters cruising and now made ready to take Grace De Castro to the eastern Mediterranean. Arthur and Dolly were to winter at Biarritz and join Charles and Imogene in Sicily on their return from the Levant. Fritzie accepted Alice"s invitation to spend the season in town with her. Dora Morgan had already gone to Paris for an indefinite stay and the Nelsons, Congress being in session, were starting for Washington.
MacBirney came over to The Towers just before leaving with Alice for town to see Robert Kimberly. When Kimberly asked him what was on his mind, "I would like to know," MacBirney answered frankly, "what I can make some money in this winter." It was the second time he had brought the subject up and Kimberly who had once evaded his inquiries saw that nothing was to be gained by further effort in that direction.
Kimberly regarded him gravely. "Buy standard railway shares," he suggested, "on a four-and-a-half-per-cent average."
"But I want to do better than four-and-a-half-per-cent. It costs something to live."
"I mean, you would have your profit in the advances. But your present income ought to cover a very liberal scale of living," said Kimberly.
MacBirney squirmed in his chair. Kimberly would have preferred he should sit still. "That is true," a.s.sented MacBirney, with smiling candor, "but a poor man doesn"t want to spend all his money. Isn"t there a chance," he asked, coming to the point in his mind, "to make some money in our own stock? I have heard a rumor there would be, but I can"t run it down."
"There are always chances if you are closely enough in touch with general conditions. Charles keeps better track of those things than I do; suppose you talk with him."
"Charles sends me to you," protested MacBirney good naturedly.
"Our shares seem just now to be one of the speculative favorites,"
returned Kimberly. "That means, as you know, violent fluctuations."
MacBirney was impatient of hazards. "Put me next on any one of your own plans, Mr. Kimberly, that you might feel like trusting me with," said MacBirney, jocularly.
"I don"t often have any speculative schemes of my own," returned Kimberly. "However," he hesitated a moment; MacBirney leaned forward.
"Doane," continued Kimberly abruptly, "has a strong party interested now in putting up the common. They profess to think that on its earnings it should sell higher. In fact, they have sounded me about an extra dividend. I am opposed to that--until Congress adjourns, at any rate.
But the company is making a great deal of money. I can"t uncover Doane"s deal, but I can say this to you: I have agreed to help them as much as I safely can. By that, I mean, that their speculative interests must always come second to the investment interests of our shareholders."
"By Jove, I wish I could get in on a movement like that, Mr. Kimberly.
With you behind it----"
"I am not behind it--only not opposed to it. For my part, I never advise any one to speculate in our securities. I can"t do it. I do business with speculators, but I never speculate myself. You don"t credit that, do you? What I mean is this: I never take chances. If it is necessary, for cogent reasons, to move our securities up or down, I am in a position to do so without taking any extreme chances. That is natural, isn"t it?"
MacBirney laughed and swayed in his chair. "I"d like to be fixed that way for just one year of my life!" he exclaimed.
"If you were you would find plenty of other things to engage your attention."
"Well, can you do anything for me on this present deal?"
Kimberly reflected a moment. "Yes," he said finally, "if you will operate through the brokers I name and do exactly as I say, and run the risk of losing half the money you put up--I don"t see how you could lose more than that. But if you don"t do exactly as I tell you, without question, you might lose a great deal more. I am not supposing, of course, that you would risk more than you could afford to lose."
"Not at all. I want to play safe."
"Place your orders to-day and to-morrow then for what common you can carry. Hamilton will let you have what money you need--or he will get it for you. Then forget all about your investment until I tell you to sell. Don"t question the advice, but get out promptly at that moment no matter what you hear or what the market looks like. Can you do that?
And keep your own counsel?"
"Trust me."
"Good luck then. And if it should come bad, try not to feel incensed at me," concluded Kimberly, rising.
"Surely not!" exclaimed MacBirney.
Kimberly smiled. "But you will, just the same. At least, that is my experience."