"I have asked you not to call me Alice."
"But wish me the success, won"t you? It"s awfully up-hill work fighting alone. Two together can do so much better. With two the power is raised almost to the infinite. Together we could be G.o.ds--or at least make the G.o.ds envy us."
She looked at him an instant without a word, and rising, walked to an anteroom whither MacBirney, Lottie Nelson, De Castro, and Fritzie had gone to play at cards.
CHAPTER XXV
When the season was fairly open the Kimberlys made Alice the recipient of every attention. A solidarity had always seemed, in an unusual degree, to animate the family. They were happy in their common interests and their efforts united happily now to make Alice a favored one in their activities.
In everything proposed by Dolly or Imogene, Alice was consulted. When functions were arranged, guests lists were submitted to her.
Entertainment was decided upon after Alice had been called in. The result was a gay season even for Second Lake. And Dolly said it was the influx of Alice"s new blood into the attenuated strain at the lake that accounted for the successful summer. Alice herself grew light-hearted.
In social affairs the battalions inclined to her side. Even Lottie Nelson could not stand out and was fain to make such peace as she could.
In all of this Alice found consolation for the neglect of her husband.
She had begun to realize that this neglect was not so much a slight, personal to her, as a subordination of everything to the pa.s.sion for money-getting. It is impossible to remain always angry and Alice"s anger subsided in the end into indifference as to what her husband said or did.
She had, moreover--if it were a stimulus--the continual stimulus of Kimberly"s att.i.tude. Without insincerity or indifference he accommodated his interest in her to satisfactory restraint. This gave Alice the pleasure of realizing that her firmness had in nowise estranged him and that without being turbulent he was always very fond of her. She knew he could look to many other women for whatever he chose to ask of favor, yet apparently he looked to her alone for his pleasure in womankind; and in a hundred delicate ways he allowed her to feel this.
A handsome young Harvard man came to her at the lake seeking an opening in the refineries. His people were former Colorado acquaintances whom Alice was extremely desirous of obliging. She entertained her visitor and tried vainly to interest her husband in him. MacBirney promised but did nothing, and one day Dolly calling at Cedar Lodge found Alice writing a note to the college boy, still waiting in town on MacBirney"s empty promises, telling him of the failure of her efforts and advising him not to wait longer.
"But why worry?" asked Dolly, when Alice told her. "Speak to Robert about it. He will place him within twenty-four hours."
"I can"t very well ask a favor of that kind from Mr. Kimberly, Dolly."
"What nonsense! Why not?"
Alice could not say precisely why. "After my own husband hasn"t found a way to place him!" she exclaimed.
Dolly did not hesitate. "I will attend to it. Give me his address.
Football, did you say? Very good."
Within a week the young man wrote Alice--from the Orange River refineries, where he was, he picturesquely said, knee-deep in sugar--that he had actually been before the sugar magnate, Robert Kimberly himself, adding with the impetuous spelling of a football man, that the interview had been so gracious and lasted so long he had grown nervous about the time Mr. Kimberly was giving him.
Kimberly never referred to the matter nor did Alice ever mention it to him. It was merely pleasant to think of. And in such evidences as the frequent letters from her protege she read her influence over the man who, even the chronicle of the day could have told her, had she needed the confirmation, extorted the interest of the world in which he moved; and over whom, apparently, no woman other than herself could claim influence.
She came tacitly to accept this position toward Kimberly. Its nature did not compromise her conscience and it seemed in this way possible both to have and not have. She grew to lean upon the thought of him as one of the consoling supports in her whirling life--the life in which reflection never reached conclusion, action never looked forward to result, and denial had neither time nor place.
The pursuit of pleasure, sweetened by that philanthropy and the munificent almsgiving which was so esteemed by those about her, made up her life. Alice concluded that those of her circle severely criticised by many who did not know them, did much good. Their failings, naturally, would not condemn them with critics who, like herself, came in contact with them at their best.
Some time after the placing of the young college man, Alice, running in one morning on Dolly found her in tears. She had never before seen Dolly even worried and was at once all solicitude. For one of the very few times in her life, it appeared, Dolly had clashed with her brother Robert. Nor could Alice get clearly from her what the difference had been about. All that was evident to Alice was that Dolly was very much grieved and mortified over something Kimberly had said or done, or refused to say or do, concerning a distinguished actress who upon finishing an American tour was to be entertained by Dolly.
Alice in the afternoon was over at Imogene"s. Robert Kimberly was there with his brother. Afterward he joined Imogene and Alice under the elms and asked them to drive. While Imogene went in to make ready Alice poured a cup of tea for Kimberly. "I suppose you know you have made Dolly feel very bad," she said with a color of reproach.
Kimberly responded with the family prudence. "Have I?" Alice handed him the tea and he asked another question. "What, pray, do you know about it?"
"Nothing at all except that she is hurt, and that I am sorry."
"She didn"t tell you what the difference was?"
"Except that it concerned her coming guest."
"I offered Dolly my yacht for her week. She wanted me to go with the party. Because I declined, she became greatly incensed."
"She thought, naturally, you ought to have obliged her."
"I pleaded I could not spare the time. She has the Nelsons and enough others, anyway."
"Her answer, of course, is that your time is your own."
"But the fact is, her guest made the request. Dolly without consulting me promised I would go, and now that I will not she is angry."
"I should think a week at sea would be a diversion for you."
"To tag around a week in heavy seas with wraps after a person of distinction? And pace the deck with her on damp nights?"
"That is unamiable. She is a very great actress."
Kimberly continued to object. "Suppose she should be seasick. I once went out with her and she professed to be ill every morning. I had to sit in her cabin--it was a stuffy yacht of De Castro"s--and hold her hand."
"But you are so patient. You would not mind that."
"Oh, no; I am not in the least patient. The Kimberlys are described as patient when they are merely persistent. If I am even amiable, amiability is something quite other than patience. Patience is almost mysterious to me. Francis is the only patient man I ever have known."
"In this case you are not even amiable. We all have to do things we don"t want to do, to oblige others. And Dolly ought to be obliged."
"Very well. If you will go, I will. What do you say?"
"You need not drag me in. I shall have guests of my own next week. If Dolly made a mistake about your inclination in the affair it would be only generous to help her out."
"Very well, I will go."
"Now you are amiable."
"They can put in at Bar Point and I will join them for the last two days. I will urge McEntee, the captain, to see that they are all sick, if possible, before I come aboard. Then they will not need very much entertaining."
"How malicious!"
"Not a bit. Dolly is a good sailor. Her guest cares nothing for me.
It is only to have an American at her heels."
"They say that no one can resist her charm. You may not escape it this time."
A fortnight pa.s.sed before any news came to Alice from the yachting party. Then Fritzie came home from Nelsons" one day with an interesting account of the trip. Until the story was all told, Alice felt gratified at having smoothed over Dolly"s difficulty.