"George, you look sleepy," Lottie Nelson complained, looking at Doane.

"You need something to wake you up. Suppose we adjourn to the dining-room?"

Imogene returned to the piano. Kimberly walked to the door of the dining-room with the others. "I will go upstairs," he said to Lottie Nelson.

"Don't stay all night," she returned peremptorily. "And come have something before you go up."

"Perhaps when I come down."

Fritzie caught his arm, and walked with him into the hall. They talked for a moment. "You must meet her," declared Fritzie at length, "she is perfectly lovely and will be over after a while with Dolly." Then she looked at him suddenly: "I declare, I don't believe you've heard a word of what I've been saying."

"I'm afraid not, Fritzie, but no matter, listen to what I say. Don't go in there and drink with that bunch."

"I won't."

"Whiskey makes a fool of you."

Fritzie put up her hand: "Now don't scold."

Upstairs, Nelson and Charles Kimberly, facing each other, were seated at a big table on which lay a number of type-written sheets, beautifully clear and distinct. These they were examining.

"What are you going over?" asked Robert, taking the chair Nelson drew up for him.

"The Colorado plants."

"Our own or the MacBirney?"

"Both."

Charles Kimberly with one hand in his pocket, and supporting his head with the other as his elbow rested on the table, turned to Robert with a question.

"You've seen the MacBirney figures. What do you think of them?"

"They are high. But I expected that."

"Do you really need the MacBirney plants to control the Western market?"

asked Charles Kimberly. With eyes half closed behind his gla.s.ses he studied his brother's face, quite as occupied with his thoughts as with his words.

Robert did not answer at once. "I should hate to say so, personally,"

he remarked at length.

"McCrea," continued Charles, "contends that we do need them to forestall compet.i.tion. That is, he thinks with the MacBirney crowd out of the field we can have peace for ten years out there."

Nelson asked a question. "What kind of factories have they got?"

"Old-fashioned," answered Robert Kimberly.

"What kind of influence?"

"In public affairs, I don't know. In trade they are not dangerous, though MacBirney is ambitious and full of energy. The father-in-law was a fine old fellow. But he died just before the reorganization. I don't know how much money they've got now."

"They haven't much," remarked Nelson.

"We bother them a good deal from San Francisco," continued Robert Kimberly, reflecting, "but that is expensive. Ultimately we must own more factories in Colorado. Of course, as far as that goes, I would rather build new plants than remodel rat-hospitals."

Charles Kimberly straightened up and turned himself in his chair. "Ten years of peace is worth a good deal to us. And if MacBirney can insure that, we ought to have it. All of this," he appealed to Robert, as he spoke, "is supposing that you are willing to a.s.sent."

"I do not a.s.sent, chiefly because I distrust MacBirney. If the rest of you are satisfied to take him in, go ahead."

"The others seem to be, Robert."

"Then there is nothing more to be said. Let's get at the depreciation charges and the estimates for next year's betterments, so we can go over the new capitalization."

While the conference went on, the m.u.f.fled hum of gathering motor-cars came through the open windows.

Robert Kimberly leaving the two men, walked downstairs again. The rooms were filling with the overflow from the dance. They who had come were chiefly of the married set, though boys and girls were among them.

After the manner of those quite at home, the dancers, still wearing their flower leis, were scattered in familiar fashion about small tables where refreshment was being served.

At one end of the music room a group applauded a clever young man, who, with his coat cuffs rolled back, was entertaining with amateur sleight-of-hand.

At the other end of the room, surrounded by a second group, Fritzie Venable played smashing rag-time. About the tables pretty, overfed married women, of the plump, childless type, with little feet, fattening hands, and rounding shoulders, carried on a running chatter with men younger than their husbands.

A young girl, attended at her table by married men, was trying to tell a story, and to overcome un.o.bserved, her physical repugnance to the whiskey she was drinking.

In the dining-room Lottie Nelson was the centre of a lively company, and her familiar pallor, which indulgence seemed to leave untouched, contrasted with the heightened color in Dora Morgan's face.

Robert Kimberly had paused to speak to some one, when Fritzie Venable came up to ask a question. At that moment Arthur and Dolly De Castro, with Alice on Dolly's left, entered from the other end of the room.

Kimberly saw again the attractive face of a woman he had noticed dancing with Arthur at the Casino. The three pa.s.sed on and into the hall.

Kimberly, listening to Fritzie's question, looked after them.

"Fritzie, who is that with Dolly?" he asked suddenly.

"That is Mrs. MacBirney."

"Mrs. MacBirney?" he echoed. "Who is Mrs. MacBirney?"

"Why, Mr. MacBirney's wife, of course. How stupid of you! I told you all about her before you went upstairs. He has brought his wife on with him. Dolly knew her mother and has been entertaining Alice for a week."

"Alice! Oh, yes. I've been away, you know. MacBirney's wife? Of course. I was thinking of something else. Well--I suppose I ought to meet her. Come, Fritzie."

CHAPTER III

They found Alice with the De Castros in the hall. Dolly looked pleased as her brother came forward. Alice collected herself. She felt a momentary trepidation at meeting this man, from whom, she was already aware, much of what she had seen and most of the people whom she had met at Second Lake in some degree derived.