Robert Kimberly

"Then you should advise me to cultivate myillusions in their direction."

"I should if I thought it were necessary. As Ihave a very high opinion of women, I don't thinkany illusions concerning them are necessary."

"Loftily said. And I sha'n't allow you to thinkmy own opinion any less high. When I was aboy, women were all angels to me; they are notquite that, we know."

"In spite of illusions."

"But I don't want to put them very much lowerthan the angels-and I don't. I keep them upbecause I like to."

Her comment was still keen. "Not becausethey deserve it."

"I won't quarrel with you-because, then, theydo deserve it. It is pleasant to be set right."

The shower had passed and the party was makingready to start. Alice rose. "You haven't saidwhat you think of your own kind, as you callthem-menkind."

Kimberly held her coat for her to slip into."Of course, I try not to think of them."

When they reached the summit dividing thelake country from the sea the sun was shining.To the east, the sound lay at their feet. In thewest stretched the heavy forests and the long chainof lakes. They followed the road to the sea andafter their shore luncheon relaxed for an hour atthe yacht club. Driving back by the river roadthey put the new car through some paces, andhalting at intervals to interchange passengers, they proceeded homeward.

Going through Sunbury at five o'clock the carsseparated. MacBirney, with whom RobertKimberly was again riding, had taken in FritzieVenable and Alice. Leaving the village they chose thehill road around the lake. Brice, Kimberly'schauffeur, took advantage of the long, straighthighway leading to it to let the car out a little.They were running very fast when he noticed thesparker was binding and stopped for a moment.It was just below the Roger Morgan place andKimberly, who could never for a moment abideidleness, suggested that they alight while Briceworked. He stood at the door of the tonneau andgave his hand to Alice as she stepped from thecar. In getting out, her foot slipped and sheturned her ankle. She would have fallen butthat Kimberly caught her. Alice recoveredherself immediately, yet not without an instant'sdependence on him that she would rather haveescaped.

Brice was slow in correcting the mechanicaldifficulty, and finding it at last in the magnetoannounced it would make a delay of twentyminutes. Fritzie suggested that they walk throughher park and meet the car at the lower end.MacBirney started up one of the hill paths with Alice,Kimberly and Fritzie following. They passedMorgan house and higher in the hills they reachedthe chapel. Alice took her husband in to see thebeauty of the interior. She told him Dolly's storyof the building and when Fritzie and Kimberlyjoined them, Alice was regretting that Dolly hadfailed to recollect the name of the church in Romeit was modelled after. Kimberly came to her aid."Santa Maria in Cosmedin, I think."

"Oh, do you remember? Thank you," exclaimedAlice. "Isn't it all beautiful, Walter?And those old pulpits-I'm in love with them!"

MacBirney pronounced everything admirableand prepared to move on. He walked toward thedoor with Fritzie.

Alice, with Kimberly, stood before the chancellooking at the balustrade. She stopped near thenorth ambone, and turning saw in the soft lightof the aisle the face of the boy dreaming in thesilence of the bronze.

Below it, measured words of Keats were dimlyvisible. Alice repeated them half aloud. "Whata strange inscription," she murmured almost toherself.

Kimberly stood at her elbow. "It is strange."

She was silent for a moment. "I think itis the most beautiful head of a boy I have everseen."

"Have you seen it before?"

"I was here once with Mrs. De Castro."

"She told you the story?"

"No, we remained only a moment." Aliceread aloud the words raised in the bronze: "'Robert Ten Broeck Morgan: ætat: 20.'"

"Should you like to hear it?"

"Very much."

"His father married my half-sister-Bertha;Charles and I are sons of my father's secondmarriage. 'Tennie' was Bertha's son-strangely shyand sensitive from his childhood, even morbidlysensitive. I do not mean unbalanced in any way-"

"I understand."

"A sister of his, Marie, became engaged to ayoung man of a Southern family who came hereafter the war. They were married and theirwedding was made the occasion of a great familyaffair for the Morgans, and Alices and Legares andKimberlys. Tennie was chosen for groomsman.The house that you have seen below was filledwith wedding guests. The hour came."

"And such a place for a wedding!" exclaimed Alice.

"But instead of the bridal procession that theguests were looking for, a clergyman came downthe stairs with a white face. When he couldspeak, he announced as well as he could that thewedding would not take place that night; that aterrible accident had occurred, and that TennieMorgan was lying upstairs dead."

Alice could not recall, even afterward, thatKimberly appeared under a strain; but she noticed asshe listened that he spoke with a care not quitenatural.

"You may imagine the scene," he continued."But the worst was to come-"

"Oh, you were there?"

"When you hear the rest you will think, if thereis a God, I should have been, for I might havesaved him. I was in Honolulu. I did not evenhear of it for ten days. They found him in hisbathroom where he had dressed, thrown himselfon a couch, and shot himself."

"How terrible!"

"In his bedroom they found a letter. It hadbeen sent to him within the hour by a party ofblackmailers, pressing a charge-of which hewas quite innocent-on the part of a designingwoman, and threatening that unless he compliedwith some impossible demands, his exposure andnews of an action for damages should follow inthe papers containing the account of his sister'swedding. They found with this his own letter tohis mother. He assured her the charge wasutterly false, but being a Kimberly he knew heshould not be believed because of the reputationof his uncles, one of whom he named, and afterwhom he himself was named, and to whomhe had always been closest. This, he feared, would condemn him no matter how innocent hemight be; he felt he should be unable to lift fromhis name a disgrace that would always be recalledwith his sister's wedding; and that if he gave uphis life he knew the charges would be droppedbecause he was absolutely innocent. And so he died."

For a moment Alice stood in silence. "Poor, poor boy!" she said softly. "How I pity him!"

"Do you so? Then well may I. For I amthe uncle whom he named in his letter."

Unable or unwilling to speak she pointed to thetablet as if to say: "You said the uncle he wasnamed after."

He understood. "Yes," he answered slowly,"my name is Robert Ten Broeck Kimberly."

Her eyes fell to the tessellated pavement. "Itis frightfully sad," she said haltingly. Then as ifshe must add something: "I am very sorry youfelt compelled to recall so painful a story."

"It isn't exactly that I felt compelled; yetperhaps that expresses it, too. I have expectedsometime to tell it to you."

CHAPTER XIII

The showers returned in the night. Theykept Alice company during several sleeplesshours. In the morning the sun was out. It wasSunday and when Annie brought her mistress herrolls and chocolate Alice asked the maid if she hadbeen to church.

"Kate and I went to early church," said Annie.

"And what time is late church, Annie?"

"Ten thirty, Mrs. MacBirney."

"I am going myself this morning."

"And what will you wear?"

"Anything that is cool."

Alice was thinking less of what she should wearthan of how she should tell her husband that shehad resolved upon going to church. Painfulexperience had taught her what ridicule andresource of conjugal meanness to expect whenevershe found courage to say she meant to go to church.Yet hope, consoling phantom, always suggestedthat her husband the next time might prove moreamenable to reason.