Part 3 (1/2)
”I sent for you when I sent for d.i.c.k, and for the same reason. I have tried three times to rear one of my name to fitness to bear it, and each one has failed except you. I wish you were a man, Emily; there is work for a Ffrench to do.”
”When you say that, I wish I were. But--I'm not, I'm not.” She flung out her slender, round arms in a gesture of helpless resignation. ”I'm not even a strong-minded woman who might do instead. Uncle Ethan, may I ask--it was Mr. Bailey who made me think--my cousin whom I never saw, will he never come home?”
Her voice faltered on the last words, frightened at her own daring.
But her uncle answered evenly, if coldly:
”Never.”
”He offended you so?”
”His whole life was an offense. School, college, at home, in each he went wrong. At twenty-one he left me and married a woman from the vaudeville stage. It is not of him you are to think, Emily, but of a subst.i.tute for him. For that I designed d.i.c.k; once I hoped you would marry him and sober his idleness.”
”Please, no,” she refused gently. ”I am fond of d.i.c.k, but--please, no.”
”I am not asking it of you. He is well enough, a good boy, not overwise, but not what is needed here. Failed, again; I am not fortunate. There is left only you.”
”Me?”
Her startled dark eyes and his determined gray ones met, and so remained.
”You, and your husband. Are you going to marry a man who can take my place in this business, in the factory and the model village my brother and I built around it; a man whose name will be fit to join with ours and so in a fas.h.i.+on preserve it here? Will you wait until such a one is found and will you aid me to find him? Or will you too follow selfish, idle fancies of your own?”
”No!” she answered, quite pale. ”I would not do that! I will try to help.”
”You will take up the work the men of your name refuse, you will provide a subst.i.tute for them?”
Her earnestness sprang to meet his strength of will, she leaned nearer in her enthusiasm of self-abnegation, scarcely understood.
”I will find a subst.i.tute or accept yours. I, indeed I will try not to fail.”
It was characteristic that he offered neither praise nor caress.
”You have relieved my mind,” said Ethan Ffrench, and turned his face once more to the fire.
III
It was October when the consultation was held in the library of the old Ffrench house on the Hudson; December was very near on the sunny morning that Emily drove out to the factory and sought Bailey in his office.
”I wanted to talk with you,” she explained, as that gentleman rose to receive her. ”We have known each other for a long time, Mr. Bailey; ever since I came from the Sacred Heart to live with Uncle Ethan. That is a _very_ long time.”
”It's a matter of five or six years,” agreed the charmed Bailey, contemplating her with affectionate pride in her prettiness and grace.
”You used to drive out here with your pony and spend many an hour looking on and asking questions. You'll excuse me, Miss Emily, but there was many a man pa.s.sed the whisper that you'd have made a fine master of the works.”
She shook her head, folding her small gloved hands upon the edge of the desk at the opposite sides of which they were seated.
”At least I would have tried. I am quite sure I would have tried. But I am only a girl. I came to ask you something regarding that,” she lifted her candid eyes to his, her soft color rising. ”Do you know--have you ever met any men who cared and understood about such factories as this? Men who could take charge of a business, the manufacturing and racing and selling, like my uncles? I have a reason for asking.”
”Sure thing,” said Bailey, unexpectedly prompt. ”I've met one man who knows how to handle this factory better than I do, and I've been at it twelve years. And there he is--” he turned in his revolving chair and rolled up the shade covering the gla.s.s-set door into the next room, ”my manager, Lestrange.”