VI
Mr. Gorham studied Allen carefully during dinner. What Eleanor had told him of the boy interested him, and his intimate knowledge of Stephen Sanford's personality made him a more sympathetic adviser than might otherwise have been the case. Allen, too, was distinctly attracted by Gorham, though his eyes rested more often on the girl facing him across the small table, who seemed even more lovely to him now, in a soft, clinging gown of exquisite texture. His memory of Gorham had been indistinct, but he had heard so much of him through his father and others during these intervening years that he was prepared to see a man who would intimidate him by his severity and awe him by the manifestation of his greatness. In fact, associating business success with his father's manners and methods, Allen had come to believe that force meant noise and bluster, and that firmness stood for an intolerance of discussion. But here, in the midst of his family, Robert Gorham displayed a side of his nature which Stephen Sanford had never seen; yet Allen was no less conscious of the man's power. The boy was more quick to sense than he was to analyze, and it was not until he had left the Gorhams, some hours later, that he was able to satisfy his silent query as to what was reminiscent in the strength behind Gorham's genial face and cordial bearing. The thought took him back to his college days, and the course in ancient history which, strange to say, he had enjoyed most of all—to the old-time Roman emperors, born to command, and indifferent to the criticism or the commendation of the world in which they labored, made up of the lesser men they dominated.
The conversation at the dinner-table soon turned to Allen's experiences in Europe, and his naive manner of telling about them afforded no little amusement.
"I like everything in London except the telephone," he explained. "It's easy enough to blow in the hot air, but it takes a whole lot of experience on the flute to make the proper connections with your fingers. And to get a number—well, it's a joke, that's what it is."
"Is it really worse than our service?" asked Alice.
"Worse? Why, ours is a direct line without a switchboard compared with theirs. I gave it up altogether after my experience trying to get Crecy & Brown—you know them, Mr. Gorham. I dropped into the office of one of the pater's correspondents and asked to use their telephone. One of the clerks offered to help me out, and I let him.
"'I say, miss,' began the clerk, 'put me through to Crecy & Brown, will you?' Then a few moments went by. 'Oh! thank you very much,' was his reply, and he restored the receiver noisily to its position on the rack. 'They have no telephone,' he said.
"I looked at him a moment, then I said as calmly as I could, 'and yet they say the English are slow.'
"'Do they?' he replied, good-naturedly. 'I don't think I quite follow you.'
"'Why, they have taken that telephone out since four o'clock yesterday afternoon. In America it would have required several days.'