Robert Kimberly Part 46

"My dear, it isn't at all a question of _his_ agreeing. He will do as he is advised to do. Do you imagine he can afford breaking with the Kimberlys? A man that pursues money, dear heart, is no longer a free agent. His interests confront him at every turn. Fledgling millionaires are in no way new to us. Mercy, they pa.s.s in and out of our lives every day! A millionaire, dear, is nothing but a million meannesses and they all do exactly as they are told. Really, I am sorry for some of them. Of all unfortunates they are nowadays the worst.

They are simply ground to powder between the multi-millionaires and the laboring cla.s.ses. In this case, happily, it is only a matter of making one do what he ought to do, so give it no thought."

Dolly proved a good prophet concerning MacBirney's course in the circ.u.mstances. MacBirney, desirous of playing at once to the lake public in the affair of his domestic difficulties, made unexceptional allowances for his wife's maintenance. Yet at every dollar that came to her from his abundance she felt humiliated. She knew now why she had endured so much at his hands for so long; it was because she had realized her utter dependence on him and that her dreams of self-support were likely, if she had ever acted on them, to end in very bitter realities.

At the first sign of hot weather, Charles and Imogene put to sea with a party for a coasting cruise; Dolly sailed for the continent to bring Grace back with her. Robert Kimberly unwilling to leave for any extended period would not let Alice desert him; accordingly, Fritzie was sent for and came over to stay with her. The lake country made a delightful roaming place and Alice was shown by Kimberly's confidences how close she was to him.

He confided to her the journal of the day, whatever it might be.

Nothing was held back. His successes, failures, and worries all came to her at night. He often asked her for advice upon his affairs and her wonder grew as the inwardness of the monetary world in which he moved stood revealed to her. She spoke of it one day.

"To be sought after as you are--to have so many men running out here to find you; to be consulted by so many----"

Kimberly interrupted her. "Do you know why they seek me? Because I make money for them, Alice. They would run after anybody that could make them money. But they are wolves and if I lost for them they would try to tear me to pieces. No man is so alone as the man the public follows for a day even while it hates or fears him. And the man the bankers like is the man that can make money for them; their friends.h.i.+p is as cold and thin as autumn ice."

"But even then, to have the ability for making money and doing magnificent things; to be able to succeed where so many men fail--it seems so wonderful to me."

"Don't cherish any illusions about it. Everyone that makes money must be guilty of a thousand cold-blooded things, a thousand sharp turns, a thousand cruelties; it's a game of cruelties. Fortunately, I'm not a brilliant success in that line, anyway; people merely think I am. The ideal money-maker always is and always will be a man without a temper, without a heart, and with an infusion, in our day, of hypocrisy. He takes refuge in hypocrisy because the public hates him and he is forced to do it to keep from hating himself. When public opinion gets too strong for him he plays to it. When it isn't too strong, he plays to himself. I can't do that; I have too much vanity to play to anybody.

And the recollection of a single defeat rankles above the memory of a thousand victories. This is all wrong--far, far from the ideal of money getting; in fact, I'm not a professional in the game at all--merely an amateur. A very successful man should never be trusted anyway."

"Why not?"

"Because success comes first with him. It comes before friends.h.i.+p and he will sacrifice you to success without a pang."

She looked at him with laughing interest. "What is it?" he asked changing his tone.

"I was thinking of how I am impressed sometimes by the most unexpected things. You could never imagine what most put me in awe of you before I met you."

"There must have been a severe revulsion of feeling when you did meet me," suggested Kimberly.

"We were going up the river in your yacht and Mr. McCrea was showing us the refineries. All that I then knew of you was what I had read in newspapers about calculating and cold-blooded trust magnates. Mr.

McCrea was pointing out the different plants as we went along."

"The river is very pretty at the Narrows."

"First, we pa.s.sed the independent houses. They kept getting bigger and bigger until I couldn't imagine anything to overshadow them and I began to get frightened and wonder what your refineries would be like. Then, just as we turned at the island, Mr. McCrea pointed out a perfectly huge cl.u.s.ter of buildings and said those were the Kimberly plants. Really, they took my breath away. And in the midst of them rose that enormous oblong chimney-stack. A soft, lazy column of smoke hovered over it--such as hovers over Vesuvius." She smiled at the remembrance. "But the repose and size of that chimney seemed to me like the strength of the pyramids. When we steamed nearer I could read, near the top, the great terra-cotta plaque: KIMBERLYS AND COMPANY. Then I thought: Oh, what a tremendous personage Mr. Robert Kimberly must be!"

"The chimney is yours."

"Oh, no, keep it, pray--but it really did put me wondering just what you were like."

"It must have been an inspiration that made me build that chimney. The directors thought I would embarra.s.s the company before we got the foundations in. I didn't know then whom I was building it for, but I know now; and if you got a single thrill out of it the expenditure is justified. And I think mention of the thrill should go into the directors' minutes on the page where they objected to the bill--we will see about that. But you never expected at that moment to own the chimney, did you? You shall. I will have the trustees release it from the general mortgage and convey it to you."

"And speaking of Vesuvius, you never dreamed of a volcano lying in wait for you beneath the lazy smoke of that chimney, did you? And that before very long you would not alone own the chimney but would be carrying the volcano around in your vanity bag?"

CHAPTER x.x.xII

One afternoon in the early autumn Kimberly came to Cedar Lodge a little later than usual and asked Alice, as he often did, to walk to the lake.

He started down the path with something more than his ordinary decision and inclined for a time to reticence. They stopped at a bench near an elm overlooking the water. "You have been in town to-day," said Alice.

"Yes; a conference this morning on the market. Something extraordinary happened."

"In the market?"

"Market conditions are bad enough, but this was something personal."

"Tell me about it."

"MacBirney was present at the conference. After the meeting he came to the head of the table where I was talking with McCrea--and sat down.

When McCrea joined the others in the lunchroom, MacBirney said he wanted to speak to me a moment. I told him to go ahead.

"He began at once about his differences with you. His talk puzzled me.

I was on the defensive, naturally. But as far as I could see, he designed no attack on me; and of you he could utter nothing but praise--it was rather trying to listen to. I could not fathom his purpose in bringing the matter before me in this singular way, but he ended with an appeal----"

"An appeal!"

"He asked me to bring a message to you. I told him I would deliver any message entrusted to me. He wants you to know that he is very sorry for what has taken place. He admits that he has been in the wrong----"

"It is too late!" Alice in her emotion rose to her feet.

"And he asks you, through me," Kimberly spoke under a strain he did not wholly conceal, "if he may come back and let the past bury itself."

"It is too late."

"He said," Kimberly rose and faced Alice, "there had been differences about religion----"

"Ask him," she returned evenly, "whether I ever sought to interfere with his religious views or practices."

"These, he promises, shall not come between you again."

"Wretched man! His words are not the slightest guarantee of his conduct."

Kimberly took his hat from his head and wiped his forehead. "This was the message, Alice; is he to come back to you?"

"Whatever becomes of me, I never will live again with him."

"That is irrevocable?"

"Yes."

"I have kept my word--that you should have his message as straight as I could carry it."

"I believe you have. He certainly could not, whatever his intentions, have paid you a higher tribute than to entrust you with one for me."

"Then he does not and never can stand between you and me, Alice?"