Alice became serious again after her first outburst.  “Who is going to teach him?” she asked.

“Experience will be his best master,” Gorham replied, surprised by her question.

“Don’t you think I could help him by showing him some of the things Mr. Covington has taught me?  He needs an inspiration more than any one I know.”

“No; I do not think so, young lady,” he said, shaking his finger at her playfully.  “If I am any judge of human nature, he would teach you more along certain lines than I care to have you learn just yet.”

Alice flushed.  “How absurd!” she pouted.  “Allen could never interest me in that way.  Why, he’s only a boy.  When I marry, daddy, my husband must be a man lots older than I am, just as you are older than Eleanor.  He will have to be older, to have had time to accomplish all he must have done, if I am to respect him; and there couldn’t be love without respect, could there?  How perfectly absurd!  Why, Allen is—­just Allen!”

“Of course, my dear; I was only teasing you—­and the man who wins you must have accomplished a whole lot more than you demand in order to satisfy me.  So that problem is settled, and we’ll wait for the Knight Adventurous who dares attack our citadel.”

Alice stooped and picked a gorgeous dahlia, upon which she fixed her still averted gaze.

“I only wanted to do my part,” she said, apologetically.  “Allen is dreadfully alone in the world, now that his father has gone back on him.  I think I am the only one who understands him.”

“Your father is but joking, Alice,” Eleanor reassured her.  “You and Allen are now business associates, and it will be your duty to help each other, all for the advancement of the great Consolidated Companies.”

The girl looked up brightly.  “That’s right,” she said; “business associates always do that, don’t they?  Now I’ll leave you to yourselves until dinner-time.”

With an understanding glance at Eleanor, Alice ran up the terrace steps and into the house.  Mrs. Gorham repeated to her husband the girl’s conversation and added her own interpretation of the situation, carefully avoiding any mention of Covington’s proposition, which was the one subject upon which she would have preferred to talk.

“She is growing up too fast, Robert,” she concluded.  “We must make her play more and forget the responsibilities which she insists upon assuming.”

“She’s in safe hands,” Gorham replied, smiling.  “Keep her young as long as you can, dear, and when she has to grow up, even to your mature years, help her to be just such another woman as yourself.  Covington gives me glowing accounts of her progress in the little scheme which you so cleverly suggested.  He seems to think her interest is more than a mere whim, but I can’t believe it.”

“She is a strange girl in some ways,” Eleanor replied, “and we must watch her carefully just at this crisis.”