"No sicker of it than I am," he returned. "But I'm a part of the machine; I can't get out. I suppose you are, and you can't get out. But you are too young to talk like that; wait till the new home is finished.

Then you will shine."

She uttered a contemptuous exclamation, not quite loud enough for the others to hear, as she reentered the room. The others, in fact, scarcely would have heard. Fritzie, Doane, and Dora Morgan were laughing immoderately. Imogene at the piano was playing softly.

Kimberly stopped to speak to her.

"I forgot, by the way, to ask you when you sail, Imogene," he said.

She answered with one hand running over the keys: "That depends on you, doesn't it, Robert? I do hope you'll get through soon."

"Anxious to get away, are you?"

"You know I always am."

"Where are you going this time?"

"To the Mediterranean, I suppose."

"You are fond of the Mediterranean."

"Every place else seems so savage after it."

"Lottie says you have been talking with MacBirney."

"Just a few minutes."

"How do you like him?" asked her brother-in-law.

Imogene laughed a little: "He is very intelligent. He confuses me a little, though; he is so brisk."

"Is he entertaining?"

Imogene shrugged her shoulders: "Yes. Only, he rather makes you feel as if he were selling you something, don't you know. I suppose it's hardly fair to judge of one from the first interview. His views are broad,"

smiled Imogene in retrospect. "'I can't understand,' he said 'why our American men should so unceasingly pursue money. What can more than a million or two possibly be good for--unless to give away?'" Imogene looked with a droll smile into Kimberly's stolid face. "When he said, 'a million or two,' I thought of my wretched brother-in-law struggling along with thirty or forty that he hasn't yet managed to get rid of!"

"You don't think, then, he would accept a few of them?" suggested Kimberly.

"Suppose you try him some time," smiled Imogene as she walked with Kimberly to the card-table where Fritzie and Dora Morgan sat with Doane.

"Travelling agrees with you, Robert," observed Doane.

"The country agrees with you," returned Kimberly. "Good company, I suppose, George, is the secret."

"How is the consolidation getting along?"

"There isn't any consolidation."

"Combination, then?"

"Slowly. How is the market?"

"Our end of it is waiting on you. When shall you have some news for us?"

"You don't need news to make a market," returned Kimberly indifferently, as he sat down. He looked at those around the table. "What are you doing?"

"Tell your story again, Dora," suggested Doane.

Dora Morgan looked at Kimberly defiantly. "No," she said briefly.

"Pshaw, tell it," urged Doane. "It's about the Virgin Mary, Robert."

Dora was firm: "It's not a bachelor's story," she insisted.

"Most of your stories are bachelors' stories, Dora," said Kimberly.

Dora threw away her cigarette. "Listen to that! Didn't I tell you?"

she asked appealing to Doane. "Robert is getting to be a real nice man."

In an effort to appease both sides, Doane laughed, but somewhat carefully.

"I got into trouble only the other day in telling that story," continued Dora, with the same undercurrent of defiance.

Effectively dressed, though with a tendency to color, and with dark, regular features, flushed a little at night, Dora Morgan had a promise of manner that contrasted peculiarly with her freedom of tongue.

"Tell us about it, Dora?" said Lottie Nelson.

"It was over at The Towers. I was telling the story to Uncle John. His blood is red, yet," she added without looking at Robert Kimberly to emphasize her implication.

"Uncle John!" echoed Fritzie, at fault. "Did Uncle John object?"

"Oh, no, you misunderstand. It wasn't Uncle John." Every one but Kimberly laughed. "I was telling Uncle John the story, and his nurse--your protege, what's his name? I never can remember--Lazarus?

the queer little Italian," she said, appealing to Kimberly.

"Brother Francis," he answered.

"He's not so awfully little," interposed Fritzie.

"Well, he was in the room," continued Dora, "and he got perfectly furious the moment he heard it."

"Furious, Dora? Why, how funny!" exclaimed Lottie Nelson, languidly.

"He turned on me like a thunder-cloud. Poor Uncle John was still laughing--he laughs on one side of his face since his stroke, and looks so fiendish, you know--when Lazarus began to glower at me. He was really insulting in his manner. 'Oh, I didn't know you were here,' I said to hush him up. 'What difference should that make?' he asked, and his eyes were flashing, I can tell you."

"'The Virgin Mary is no relation of yours, is she?' I demanded frigidly.

You ought to have seen the man. You know how sallow he is; he flushed to the roots of his hair and his lips snapped like a trap. Then he became ashamed of himself, I dare say, and his eyes fell; he put his hand on his breast and bowed to me as if I had been a queen--they certainly have the prettiest manners, these poor Italians--haven't they, Imogene?"

"But what did he say?" asked Fritzie.

"'Madame,' he exclaimed, as if I had stabbed him to the heart, 'the Blessed Virgin is my mother.' You really would have thought I had insulted his own mother. They have such queer ideas, these foreigners.

My, but he was mad! Then, what do you think? The next day I pa.s.sed him walking up from the lake and he came over with such apologies! He prayed I would overlook his anger--he professed to have been so shocked that he had forgotten himself--no doubt he was afraid he would lose his job."