“Oh, Margaret’s fine.”
“And the children?”
“We don’t see much of Ralph and Berenice since they married, but the others are around more or less. I suppose your wife is all right,” he said hesitatingly. It was difficult ground for Robert.
Lester eyed him without a change of expression.
“Yes,” he replied. “She enjoys pretty fair health. She’s quite well at present.”
They drifted mentally for a few moments, while Lester inquired after the business, and Amy, Louise, and Imogene. He admitted frankly that he neither saw nor heard from them nowadays. Robert told him what he could.
“The thing that I was thinking of in connection with you, Lester,” said Robert finally, “is this matter of the Western Crucible Steel Company. You haven’t been sitting there as a director in person I notice, but your attorney, Watson, has been acting for you. Clever man, that. The management isn’t right—we all know that. We need a practical steel man at the head of it, if the thing is ever going to pay properly. I have voted my stock with yours right along because the propositions made by Watson have been right. He agrees with me that things ought to be changed. Now I have a chance to buy seventy shares held by Rossiter’s widow. That with yours and mine would give us control of the company. I would like to have you take them, though it doesn’t make a bit of difference so long as it’s in the family. You can put any one you please in for president, and we’ll make the thing come out right.”
Lester smiled. It was a pleasant proposition. Watson had told him that Robert’s interests were co-operating with him. Lester had long suspected that Robert would like to make up. This was the olive branch—the control of a property worth in the neighborhood of a million and a half.
“That’s very nice of you,” said Lester solemnly. “It’s a rather liberal thing to do. What makes you want to do it now?”
“Well, to tell you the honest truth, Lester,” replied Robert, “I never did feel right about that will business. I never did feel right about that secretary-treasurership and some other things that have happened. I don’t want to rake up the past—you smile at that—but I can’t help telling you how I feel. I’ve been pretty ambitious in the past. I was pretty ambitious just about the time that father died to get this United Carriage scheme under way, and I was afraid you might not like it. I have thought since that I ought not to have done it, but I did. I suppose you’re not anxious to hear any more about that old affair. This other thing though—”