The Lever | Page 3

Alice said, abruptly. "Just think
how pleased father would be."
"What ought you to be that you are not, my dear?" Mrs. Gorham
inquired, surprised.
"Why, a boy like Allen just ready to start off on a business career.
That's about the only disappointment father has ever experienced, not
having a son to succeed him. You know as I do how much it would
mean to him to 'found a house,' as he calls it. I've seen him looking at
Pat and me so many times with an expression in his eyes which I
understood, and it has hurt me all through that I couldn't have been the
son he longed for. The aggravating part of it all is that nothing interests
me so much as business. I must have inherited father's love for it. I
adore listening to him when he is discussing some great problem with
Mr. Covington. It seems to me the grandest thing in the world to be
able to influence people, and to create or expand industries and actually
to accomplish results."
Mrs. Gorham understood the girl's mood and knew that it was wiser to
let her run on without interruption.
"I don't feel the same about other things," Alice continued, pausing
from time to time as she became more introspective. "I'm fond of
poetry, of course, but I can't understand how any one can be satisfied to
do nothing else but write poems; I admire art, but with my admiration
for the artist's work there's a real pity for the man because he is
debarred from the world of action. If I were a man I would have to do
something which had a physical as well as an intellectual struggle in it,
with a reward at the end to be striven for which was not expressed
alone in the praise of the world--it would have to be power itself."

"I would rather be a damosel," Patricia put in.
"You are your father's own daughter, Alice," Mrs. Gorham said, as the
girl ceased speaking. "You could not be his child and feel otherwise."
"But that makes it all the harder," Alice rebelled. "It doesn't give me
any chance to do the things I want to do. I must
'Sigh and cry And still sit idly by.'"
The drive was coming to an end, and Mrs. Gorham was unwilling to
leave the conversation at just this point. "There is another side to all
this, Alice dear, which you mustn't overlook," she said, seriously. "It is
woman's part to inspire rather than to do, and the fact that it is often the
more difficult rôle to play perhaps makes it the nobler part, after all.
The world sings of the bravery of men who go forth to battle; we older
women know that it takes no less courage to let them go and to content
ourselves in our impotency, while they are spurred on by the
excitement which is denied to us. Those of us whom experience has
tested know this, but this realization cannot yet have come to you."
Patricia sighed, deeply, "Oh, yes, mamma Eleanor; this waiting is
awful."
"You mean that we must accept the situation as best we may and
accomplish our results by proxy?" Alice queried, still rebellious.
Mrs. Gorham smiled at the girl's interpretation. "No, dear," she insisted;
"I am not willing to admit that ours is a position of self-abnegation. We
women are denied the privilege of doing, but we mustn't be unmindful
of the blessing which is given in exchange. To me it is infinitely more
satisfying to know that we are the inspiration which urges men on to do
what they could not do without us."
"Of course that's one way of putting it," Alice admitted, interested yet
not convinced; "but, just the same, I'd rather be the one to receive the
inspiration than the one to give it."

On reaching the comfortable apartment occupied by the Gorhams at the
hotel, they found that Mr. Gorham had already returned, accompanied
by his first vice-president, John Covington, and that they were engaged
in close conversation. Mrs. Gorham took Patricia with her to her room,
but Alice immediately joined the two men.
"We have nearly finished our interview, Alice," her father said,
suggestively, after a smile of greeting.
"Please let me sit here and listen," she begged. "I am so interested in it
all."
Gorham acquiesced with a shrug of his shoulders which the girl saw
and felt.
"I don't know but that we have covered the situation, anyway," he said
to Covington. "I shall see Kenmore to-morrow, and if he can be
persuaded to join us, the Consolidated Companies will be just that
much strengthened. You had better return to New York to-night to keep
your eye on the coffee