If Riley was in the conspiracy for the theatre-party, Gorham realized that opposition would be futile, so he turned into his wife’s room.

“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.”