"You had better go slowly, dear, and let her work out her own future, guiding her quietly without her realizing it. Allen will have to win her respect before you need to consider him as a possible obstacle. Their interest in each other just now is so natural and unaffected that I should be sorry to disturb it. Each one can be a real help to the other without any danger of the complication which you fear."

"They are both at the inflammable age," persisted Gorham; "it is just as well to guard against uncertainties."

Eleanor smiled. "We are all inconsistent, aren't we, dear? We were so exasperated with Stephen Sanford because he would not allow Allen to express his own individuality, yet we are almost ready to interfere with the development of Alice's. All seems to be progressing exactly as you wish it. The child's admiration for Mr. Covington is supreme, and with Alice that is the first step. Then their daily intercourse ought to give ample opportunity for settling the question your way. But if it proved finally that her happiness was dependent upon her marrying Allen, or any other one of her admirers, you would be the first to urge it--wouldn't you, dear?"

"Of course I should," Gorham admitted; "but I can't consider any alternative. Admiration and respect are all very well as far as they go, but they are no guarantee when a good-looking, impulsive youngster is concerned."

"I know, dear," Eleanor continued, quietly. "A man came into my life once whom I admired and respected with all my strength, yet I never loved him."

Gorham paused abruptly and looked at his wife with the same strange expression which she occasionally noted upon his face.

"You never loved him?" he repeated.

"No, dear. He was a n.o.ble character, and he once did me a great service, but I never loved him. With Alice my one fear is that she may mistake respect for affection, and with her nature such an error would ruin her life."

"Some time you must tell me about him," Gorham insisted, still reverting to her chance remark.

Eleanor's face sobered. "Some time I will, but not now. It is all a part of that memory I am ever trying to forget--a bright lining to that heavy cloud. Some time, dear, but not now."

"Suppose I have a little chat with Alice before dinner," Gorham said, changing the subject abruptly. "The child must not think that I am neglecting her. I must make her realize how proud I am of her."

"Do," Eleanor replied. "I will follow you in a few moments." She sank upon a convenient seat as her husband disappeared indoors. Here, half an hour later, still communing with the early twilight as it deepened into dusk, Alice and her father found her, when they came out from the house, arm in arm. Who shall say what spring the words unconsciously released, conjuring up before her unwilling mental vision a picture of the years gone by? Who shall explain the apprehensiveness which came unbidden, causing known certainties to be forgotten because of the disquieting questionings which demanded an unanswerable reply.

"I have dropped my flower!" Alice exclaimed, as she searched up and down the walk.

"There are plenty more right beside you," suggested her father, surprised.

"I must find this very one," she insisted, with an expression on her face which Eleanor understood. "Flowers have personalities just as we have--and perhaps their joy in life is in giving inspiration, too."

XII

Whenever a full realization of the fact that he had actually embarked upon a business career came to him, Allen was completely overpowered by his sense of its importance. He blessed books and book agents, since they had been the indirect means to this much-desired end. His chance had come to him just when his optimism had begun to waver, with the hydra's heads multiplying beyond belief; and he proposed to show Alice especially, and Mr. Gorham incidentally, that he was no mere callow youth idly waiting by the wayside. There could be no doubt whatever regarding his intentions, but a captious critic might have suggested that it would have been the part of wisdom to allow himself ample time for demonstration. Rome was not built in a day, nor does history record that youth ever acquired the experience of ripe middle age in a like s.p.a.ce of time; but Allen's instructors at college would have given testimony that he was not strong in history. So it was that he bruised his head frequently at first against the stone wall of precedent and practice, in this particular instance made less yielding by the fact that the vice-president of the Consolidated Companies distinctly resented his addition to the office force.

These first busy weeks were giving Allen ample opportunity to gain experience. The impetuosity of youth would require time before it became tempered to the degree which would make it wholly reliable; but his enthusiasm, his indefatigable energy, and, above all, his absolute belief in and loyalty to the head of the Companies and the corporation itself were elements of genuine promise. There were moments which tried the patience, but Allen's mistakes were so much the result of over-eagerness and consequent over-reaching that Gorham's annoyance was always short-lived. Even the errors gave evidence that underneath the boyish irresponsibility lay excellent material for the elder man to mould.

"Once upon a time"--Gorham put the words in the form of a parable--"there was a boy who was ambitious to jump a very long distance. On the day of the contest, in order to make sure of accomplishing his purpose, he took an extra long start, and ran so hard that when he reached the mark from which he was to jump he had spent his strength."

Stephen Sanford had not disappointed Gorham in the att.i.tude he took when he first learned that Allen had been given a position with the Consolidated Companies. The letter which he wrote to his old friend contained accusations of the basest treachery which one man could show toward another: Gorham had deliberately planned to separate father and son; he had discovered the boy's rare business qualifications and taken advantage of them for his own personal ends. The act was in keeping with the basis upon which his whole company was founded. Gorham's good-nature was taxed to its utmost, but he fully realized how deeply his old friend was wounded; and the knowledge that his own interest in Allen was in reality a genuine service to Sanford himself served to blunt the force of the attack.

Allen, oblivious to everything except the present opportunity to prove himself to Alice and to be near Alice, plunged ahead until Gorham was forced to change his words of caution into actual commands.

"You are trying to put the head of the wedge in first, my boy," the older man told him. "You are using twenty pounds of steam to do the work of two, and that does no credit to your judgment."

Covington was negatively antagonistic from the start in that quiet, skilful way which kept his animosity from any specific expression. Allen felt it, and reciprocated the feeling with an intensity not lessened by the knowledge that Covington and Alice were thrown together almost daily by this business arrangement which seemed to him the height of absurdity. He did not approve of the business manners which the girl delighted to a.s.sume with him when they chanced to meet, and he watched for an opportunity to tell her so.

As the opportunity seemed slow in coming, with characteristic energy he made one to order. Gorham required some important papers which he had left at his house the night before, and the boy so arranged his arrival that he had the pleasure of seeing Covington depart, although he himself was un.o.bserved. He found Alice deep in the mysterious detail of her growing responsibility, but not at all disturbed to be discovered at her work. The desk which had been placed in her father's library was as near a duplicate of his in reduced size as could be found. A bunch of letters covered one end of it, while a neatly arranged pile of checks directly in front of her showed that the contents of her mail had proved profitable. She told Riley to bring Allen here, and the boy stood regarding her for a moment before she looked up.

"Don't let me disturb you, Miss--Manager," he said, loftily, as he caught her eye. "We magnates become peeved by interruptions--I always do myself."

Alice laughed as Allen unlocked the drawer in Gorham's desk and placed the desired papers in his pocket.

"Isn't it fun?" she asked, merrily.

"Isn't what fun?" was the unresponsive reply. "I haven't burst any b.u.t.tons off my waistcoat watching you and Mr. Covington do the turtle-dove act while I drag out a tabloid existence in a two by twice hall bedroom, and stay tied down to my desk all day. Where does the fun come in?"

The girl looked at him in complete surprise. "What in the world--" she began.

"Oh, I mean it--every word!" he insisted. Now that he had plunged in there was no retreating. "I say, are you going to marry him?"

"I'd be angry with you if you weren't so terribly amusing, Allen," she replied, smiling again after the first shock of his outburst. "Truly, you don't know how funny you are when you try to be serious. It doesn't fit."

Allen bit his lip. "I'm a joke still, am I?" he asked, without looking at her. "I thought it was the pater's prerogative to consider me that, but I see he didn't get it patented."

"Is it being a 'joke' when you ask questions which you have no right to ask?"

"If you knew how I feel inside you'd think I had a right."

The girl relented a little. "You know as well as I do that Mr. Covington comes here simply to help me in my business education."

"Business fiddlesticks!" he interrupted, crossly. "You're not engaged to him yet, are you?"

There was so pathetic a tone of entreaty in Allen's voice that Alice could not deny herself the pleasure of being mischievous.

"Not to him alone," she answered, demurely.

"What do you mean?" Allen demanded, now thoroughly alarmed.

"Don't you think it is better for a girl to make a number of men comparatively happy by being engaged to them than one man supremely miserable by marrying him?"

He looked at her aghast. "Who are some of the others?" he asked, with despair written on every feature. "Is Joe Whitney one of them?"

"Joe Whitney!" Alice laughed merrily. "Mercy, no! Joe is entirely without resources. If it wasn't for his family troubles, I shouldn't know what in the world to talk to him about."

Allen began to be suspicious. The girl's manner was far too flippant to be genuine, but he would not for the world give her the satisfaction of knowing that she had worried him.

"If you have so many, why can't you add me to the list?"

"You? Oh, that would never do! You would be sure to think I meant it, and the first thing I knew you would try to make me marry you."

"Of course I should. Don't you want to be married?"

"Marriage is an inst.i.tution for the blind," she laughed back at him.

"Then that's where I want to be confined."