“Would you advise me to hold the stock, sir?”
“I’d advise you to hold it for two weeks,” answered Barnes.
“Very well, sir. Thank you, sir.”
“I think there’ll be at least one more dividend,” he assured him.
“That’s very good, sir. Good luck to you, sir.”
“Thank you,” Barnes answered earnestly. “I need everyone to wish me Good Luck.”
He hurried down the path and turned into the road. It had drunk of the sun so long that it was more saffron than ever. And yet what a groveling creature it was! It licked the feet of the houses by its side. What, after all, were the houses? Mere shelters for men. What of these men with their strong legs and the arrogant pose of their heads? The eyes of the women bade them stay and they stayed; bade them go, and they went. Neither the road nor the houses nor the strong-rayed sun could countermand that order. Men went to wars, they went to sea, they pushed through forests, they dared the icy mountains of the North—for what? Gold? Bah! Where did the gold go, murmured the women who remained behind smiling to themselves? For fame? Who gave them fame questioned the deep eyes of the women? For selfish pleasure? Wherein lay the pleasure until it shone in the eyes of these same women? The road, then, was no worse than the men, and both were a convenience for the women who lived in the houses.
That was all. Barnes saw it clearly enough now.
CHAPTER XX
SO DOES HIS MOTHER
Mrs. Horatio G. Barnes was sitting in lonely grandeur in the drawing-room of her suite at the Waldemere listlessly watching the scant life which crawled along the hot macadamized road below her. She was a tall woman with a serious face which on the whole was really beautiful. Her wistful gray eyes were set between rather high cheek bones and above a nose and mouth wonderfully well formed if a trifle masculine. The warm glow of her fine skin and her abundant white hair relieved them of prominence. She was tastefully dressed in black and wore no jewels save a single large stone guarded by her wedding ring.