Robert Kimberly

by Frank H. Spearman

Alice, too, had thoughts that winter, but they were confused thoughts and not always to be tolerated. She, likewise, was beginning to think it a strange world.

MacBirney, guided by McCrea, followed the pool operations with sleepless vigilance. They reached their height when Congress adjourned early without disturbing the tariff. The street saw enormous gains ahead for the crowd operating in the Kimberly stocks and with public buying underway the upward movement in the shares took on renewed strength.

It was just at this moment of the adjournment of Congress that Kimberly sent McCrea to MacBirney with directions to sell, and explicitly as to how and through whom to sell. MacBirney, to McCrea's surprise, demurred at the advice and argued that if he dropped out now he should lose the best profits of the venture.

McCrea consented to talk to Kimberly again. Doane, the Hamilton banking interests and their associates were still ostensibly buying and were talking even higher prices. It did not look right to MacBirney to sell under such circumstances but McCrea came back the very next day with one word: "Sell." No reasons, no explanations were given, nothing vouchsafed but a curt command.

MacBirney, doubtful and excited, consulted Alice, to whom indeed, in serious perplexity, he often turned. Knowing nothing about the situation, she advised him to do precisely as Kimberly directed and to do so without loss of time. He was still stubborn. No one but himself knew that he was carrying twice the load of stock he had any right to assume, and battling thus between greed and prudence he reluctantly placed the selling orders.

Just as he had gotten fairly out of it, the market, to his mortification, advanced. A few days later it ran quite away. Huge blocks of stock thrown into it made hardly any impression. The market, as MacBirney had predicted, continued strong. At the end of the week he felt sure that Kimberly had tricked him, and in spite of winning more money than he had ever made in his life he was in bad humor. Kimberly himself deigned no word of enlightenment. McCrea tried to explain to MacBirney that the public had run away with the market--as it sometimes did. But MacBirney nursed resentment.

The Nelsons came over from Washington that week--it was Holy Week--for the opera and the week-end, and MacBirney asked his wife to entertain them, together with Lambert, at dinner on Friday night.

Alice fought the proposal, but MacBirney could not be moved. She endeavored to have the date changed to Easter Sunday; MacBirney was relentless. He knew it was Good Friday and that his wife was trying to avoid entertaining during the evening. But he thought it an opportunity to discipline her. Alice sent out her invitations and they were accepted. No such luck, she knew, as a declination would be hers.

Lottie, amusing herself for the winter with Lambert, was in excellent humor. But Alice was nervous and everything went wrong. They rose from the table to go to the opera, where Nelson had the Robert Kimberly box. Alice seeking the retirement of an easy-chair gave her attention to the stage and to her own thoughts. In neither did she find anything satisfying. Mrs. Nelson, too talkative with the men, was a mild irritation to her, and of all nights in the year this was the last on which Alice would have wished to be at the opera. It was only one more link in the long chain of sacrifices she wore for domestic peace, but to-night her gyves lay heavy on her wrists. She realized that she was hardly amiable. This box she was enjoying the seclusion of, brought Kimberly close to her. The difference there would be within it if he himself were present, suggested itself indolently to her in her depression. How loath, she reflected, Kimberly would have been to drag her out when she wished to be at home. It was not the first time that she had compared him with her husband, but this was the first time she was conscious of having done so. All they were enjoying was his; yet she knew he would have been indifferent to everything except what she preferred.

And it was not alone what he had indicated in deferring to her wishes; it was what he often did in deferring in indifferent things to the wishes of others that had impressed itself upon her more than any trait in his character. How much happier she should be if her own husband were to show a mere trace of such a disposition, she felt past even the possibility of telling him; it seemed too useless. He could not be made to understand.