Robert Kimberly

"Always the same. It is an astonishing vitalityin your family, Robert."

"They need all they have."

"But all that need strength do not have it.How is your market to-day?"

"Bad," muttered Kimberly absently.

"I am sorry that you are worried."

"More than the market worries me, Francis.But the market is getting worse and worse. Wemet again to-day and reduced prices. Theoutsiders are cutting. We retaliate to protect ourcustomers. When we cut, the cut is universal.Their warfare is guerilla. They are here to-day, there to-morrow."

"I have thought of what you said last night.Cutting you say, has failed. Try something else.To-morrow advance all of your standard brandsone quarter. Be bold; cut with your own outsiderefineries. The profit from the one hand paysthe cost of the war on the other."

Kimberly stopped. "How childish of you towaste your life in a shabby black gown, nursingpeople! Absolutely childish! If you will go intothe sugar business, I tell you again, Francis, Iwill pay you twenty thousand dollars a year forten years and set aside as much more preferredstock for you."

"Nonsense, Robert."

"You are a merchant. You could make aname for yourself. The world would respect you.There are enough to do the nursing, and too fewbrains in the sugar business. To-night I willgive the orders and the advance shall be madewhen the market opens."

"But your directors?"

"We will direct the directors. They have hadtwo months to figure how to fight the scalpers; you show me in twenty-four hours. Some monkswere in to see me this morning; I was too busy.They told my secretary they were building anasylum for old men. I told him to say, not adollar for old men; to come to me when theywere building an asylum for old women. Whatdo you say to my offer, Francis?"

"What do I say? Ah, Robert, although youare a very big paymaster, I am working for aPaymaster much bigger than you. What do I say?I say to you, give up this sugar business and comewith me to the nursing. I will give you rags inplace of riches, fasting in place of fine dinners, toil in place of repose, but my Paymaster-Hewill reward you there for all you endure here."

"Always deferred dividends. Besides, I shouldmake a poor nurse, Francis, and you would makea good sugar man. And you seem to imply I ama bad man in the sugar business. I am not; Iam a very excellent man, but you don't seem toknow it."

"I hope so; I hope you are. God has givenyou splendid talents-he has given you morereason, more heart, more judgment than he has givento these men around you. If you waste, you arein danger of the greater punishment."

"But I don't waste. I build up. What can aman do in this world without power? He musthave the sinews of empire to make himself felt.Francis, what would Cromwell, Frederick,Napoleon have been without power?"

"Ah! These are your heroes; they are notmine. I give glory to no man that overcomes byforce, violence, and worse-fraud, broken faith, misrule, falsehood. What is more detestablethan the triumph of mere brains? Your heroes,do they not tax, extort, pillage, slaughter, andburn for their own glory? Do they not ride overlaw, morality, and justice, your world's heroes?They are not my heroes. When men shrink atnothing to gain their success-what shall we say ofthem? But to hold law, morality, and justiceinviolable; to conquer strength but only byweakness, to vanquish with pity, to crush withmercy-that alone is moving greatness."

"Where do you find it?" demanded Kimberly sharply.

"Never where you look for your heroes; oftenwhere I look for mine-among the saints of God.Not in men of bronze but in men of clay. It isonly Christ who puts the souls of heroes intohearts of flesh and blood."

"But you have, along with your saints, somevery foolish rules in your church, Francis. Takethe case of Mrs. MacBirney. There is a womanwho has done evil to no one and good to every one.She finds herself married to a man who thenceforthdevotes himself to but one object in life-thepiling up of money. She is forgotten andneglected. That is not the worst; he, with noreligion of his own, makes it his business to harassand worry her in the practice of hers. He is filledwith insane jealousies, and moved by equallyinsane hatreds of whatever she desires. I comeinto their lives. I see this proud and unhappywoman struggling to keep her trials hidden. Ibreak down the barriers of her reserve-not easily, not without being repulsed and humiliated as Inever before have been by a woman-and at lastmake her, unwillingly, tell me the truth.Meantime her husband, after a scene-of which I havenever yet learned the real facts-has left her.I say such a woman has the right to free herselffrom a brute such as this; your church says 'no.'"

"Robert, I see what you are coming to. Butdo not make the case harder than it is. She mayfree herself from him if she cannot live in peacewith him; she may leave him under intolerableconditions. But not marry again."

"Precisely. And I offer her my devotion anda home and only ask to make her truly my wifeand restore to her the religion he has robbed herof. And this very religion that he has trampledon and throttled, what does it say? 'No.'"

"You state a hard case. Your reasoning is veryplausible; you plead for the individual. Thereis no law, human or divine, against which theindividual might not show a case of hardship. Thelaw that you find a hardship protects society.But to-day, society is nothing, the individualeverything. And while society perishes we praise thetolerant anarchism that destroys it."

"Francis, you invoke cruelty. What do I carefor society? What has society done for me?"

"No, I invoke responsibility, which none of uscan forever escape. You seek remarriage. Yourcare is for the body; but there is also the soul."

"Your law is intolerant."

"Yours is fatal. How often have you said tome-for you have seen it, as all thoughtful men seeit-that woman is sinking every day from the highestate to which marriage once lifted her. Andthe law that safeguards this marriage and againstwhich you protest is the law of God. I cannotapologize for it if I would; I would not if I could.Think what you do when you break down thebarrier that He has placed about a woman. It isnot alone that the Giver of this law died a shamefuldeath for the souls of men. You do not believethat Christ was God, and Calvary means nothing to you.

"But, Robert, to place woman in that highposition, millions of men like you and me, menwith the same instincts, the same appetites, thesame passions as yours and mine, have crucifiedtheir desires, curbed their appetites, and masteredtheir passions-and this sacrifice has been goingon for nineteen hundred years and goes on aboutus every day. Who realizes it?

"Faith is ridiculed, fasting is despised, the veryidea of self-denial is as absurd to pagan to-day asit was nineteen hundred years ago to pagan Rome.And with its frivolous marriages and easy divorcesthe world again drags woman back to the couchof the concubine from which Christianity with somuch blood and tears lifted her up nineteenhundred years ago."

"Francis, you are a dreamer. Society is gone; you can't restore it. I see only a lovely womanits victim. I am not responsible for the conditionthat made her one and I certainly shall not standby and see her suffer because the world isrotten-nor would you-don't protest, I know you, too.So I am going to raise her as high as man canraise a woman. She deserves it. She deservesinfinitely more. I am only sorry I can't raise herhigher. I am going to make her my wife; andyou, Francis, shall dance at the wedding. Oh, you needn't throw up your hands-you are goingto dance at the wedding."

"Non posso, non posso. I cannot dance, Robert."

"You don't mean, Francis," demanded Kimberlyseverely suspicious, "to tell me you wouldlike me the less-that you would be other thanyou have been to me-if you saw me happilymarried?"

"How could I ever be different to you fromwhat I have been? Every day, Robert, I prayfor you."

Kimberly's brows contracted. "Don't do it."

Francis's face fell. "Not?"

"For the present let me alone. I'm doing verywell. The situation is delicate."

Francis's distress was apparent, and Kimberlycontinued good-naturedly to explain. "Don't stirGod up, Francis; don't you see? Don't attracthis attention to me. I'm doing very well. All Iwant is to be let alone."

CHAPTER XXXIV

"By the way, how does it seem to be quite afree woman?" said Kimberly one eveningto Alice.

"What do you mean?"

"Your decree was granted to-day."

She steeled herself with an exclamation. "Thatnightmare! Is it really over?"

He nodded. "Now, pray forget it. You see, you were called to the city but once. You spentonly ten minutes in the judge's chambers, andanswered hardly half a dozen questions. Youhave suffered over it because you are toosensitive-you are as delicate as Dresden. And this iswhy I try to stand between you and everythingunpleasant."

"But sha'n't you be tired of always standingbetween me and everything unpleasant?"

He gazed into her eyes and they returned hissearching look with the simplicity of faith. Intheir expression he felt the measure of hishappiness. "No," he answered, "I like it. It is mypart of the job. And when I look upon you, when I am near you, even when I breathe thefragrance of your belongings-of a glove, a fan,a handkerchief-I have my reward. Every trifleof yours takes your charm upon itself."

He laid a bulky package in her lap. "Hereare the maps and photographs."

"Oh, this is the villa." Alice's eye ran withdelight over the views as she spread them beforeher. "Tell me everything about it."

"I have not seen it since I was a boy. Butabove Stresa a pebbled Roman highway winds intothe northern hills. It is flanked with low walls ofrotten stone and shaded with plane trees. Halfan hour above the town an ilex grove marks avilla entrance."

He handed her a photograph. "This is the grove, these are the gates-they are by Krupp, and youwill like them. Above them are the DutchKimberly arms-to which we have no right whateverthat I can discover. But wasn't it delightfullyAmerican for Dolly to appropriate them?

"The roadway grows narrower as it climbs.Again and again it sinks into the red hill-side, leaving a wall tapestried with ivy. Indeed, it windsabout with hardly any regard for a fixed destination, but the air is so bland and the skies at everyturn are so soft, that pretty soon you don't carewhether you ever get anywhere or not. The hillsare studded with olives and oranges.