id="id00280">"I thought I heard voices in the hall," Mrs. Gorham greeted her husband, affectionately. "You have returned early, which will give us a little visit together before dinner-time. Has the day been satisfactory?"

Gorham did not reply at once. He held her face between his hands, looking down into the depth of her eyes with a strength of feeling which she could but sense. There was an expression of expectancy, an unspoken desire that she should recognize something which as yet she had failed to see. There was a tenseness which would have frightened her except for the tenderness which accompanied it.

"Why do you look at me like that, Robert?"

"Because I love you, Eleanor," he replied at length. "Isn't that an admission for a man of my age to make? I know it always, but there are times when I must tell you so. Don't call it weakness, dear, or sentimentality. There is a relief which I could never explain in turning from these battles with men and with events to your companionship, which demanded nothing from me except myself."

"Nothing except yourself?" Mrs. Gorham smiled, reassured. "What more could one ask or give? Now that you have confessed, I must do likewise: I simply count the moments every day until you come, but I never should have dared to tell you for fear you would laugh at me. What would this callous world say if it discovered that the great Robert Gorham and his insignificant wife were really in love with each other! But I am so thankful for it, dear. What do the years mean unless they add to one's power to love?"

"The thankfulness is mine, Eleanor," Gorham replied; "but I shan't let you speak of 'the years' at twenty-six. Wait until you add twenty-five more to them and reach my dignified estate."

"It is experience which adds the years, my Robert; and this almost gives me the right to priority."

"I know, I know," her husband replied, drawing her gently to him. "Do you never forget it?"

"You and the dear girls have softened the past into a memory which I can at least endure," she continued, "and you fill the present with so much happiness that I rarely have time to look backward."

"Alice spoke just now of how much you had been to her, and it started something moving in my own heart. That is probably what led me to speak as I did."

"Alice is a darling," Mrs. Gorham replied, happy beyond words at the double tribute received from father and daughter. "Just now she is passing through what seems to her to be a crisis, and she needs assistance from us both."

Gorham looked at her in surprise. "A crisis?" he asked.

"Yes, Robert; and the responsibility is yours: you have passed on to her, as directly as heredity can do it, that love of business which has made you what you are. You have been denied a son, but whether you wish it or not your daughter naturally possesses those very business instincts which you would have been proud to recognize in your son."

"You amaze me," Gorham replied. "Alice is forever trying to persuade me to let her help me and all that, but I have attributed it simply to an affectionate desire on her part to be of service to me."

"It is more than that—there is the reflection of yourself in the girl's soul which demands expression."

"But it would be absurd for her to do anything of that kind."

"Why so? I don't mean for her to go into a business office, of course. But could you not gratify her by explaining certain problems which she could grasp, and then give her an opportunity to work them out herself in some minor personal matter of which you have so many?"

"It seems ridiculous to me," Gorham said, after a moment's silence, "but I will think it over carefully. I am disappointed, I admit, that neither one of my children, especially Alice, should have been a son to perpetuate my name and to continue my work; but that was not to be, and my daughters are all that I could ask."

"They are indeed," she assented, feelingly. "I believe Alice realizes your disappointment and actually reproaches herself, poor child, for not being what you wished."

"Oh, no!" he protested. "I must set her right on that at once. I admit my disappointment, but that does not lessen my appreciation of my blessings. You and the girls are everything to me—and you have given me more than a son in your wonderful conception—the Consolidated Companies is your child, Eleanor, for without your suggestion of an organization founded upon an altruistic basis I should never have thought of creating this corporation which is now certain to be the greatest power the world has seen."