The Lever

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The Lever

The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Lever, by William Dana Orcutt This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net
Title: The Lever A Novel
Author: William Dana Orcutt
Release Date: March 21, 2005 [EBook #15430]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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THE LEVER
BY WILLIAM DANA ORCUTT
AUTHOR OF "THE SPELL," "THE FLOWER OF DESTINY," "ROBERT CAVELIER," ETC.
1911
"_Give me where I may stand, a lever long enough, and a fulcrum strong enough, and I will move the world_."--ARCHIMEDES.

TO MY MOTHER
ELLEN DANA ORCUTT
"SUPREME IN THE STRENGTH OF ASSERTING THAT WHICH IS EVER WOMAN'S CREED--JUSTICE AND RIGHT," THIS VOLUME IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED

THE LEVER

I
The girl leaned forward impulsively from the leisurely moving victoria and looked back at the automobile which whizzed by the carriage, along the maple-lined road leading from Washington to Chevy Chase; then she as suddenly resumed her former position when she discovered that the young man, who was the only occupant of the motor-car, had slowed down and was gazing back at her.
"How impertinent!" she exclaimed, flushing, addressing herself rather than the older woman beside her. "Of course, it couldn't be Allen; but if it wasn't, why was he looking back at me? Did you recognize him, Eleanor?"
"Who's impertinent?" queried Patricia, who sat between them and exercised a ten-year-old sister's prerogative.
Mrs. Gorham was quietly amused. "Which question shall I answer first, Alice--and who is 'Allen' supposed to be?"
It was the girl's turn to sense the situation. "How ridiculous!" she laughed. "Of course you wouldn't know. Allen Sanford and I used to play together when we were children in Pittsburgh. I haven't seen him since we moved away after mamma died; but that really looked like him. I wonder if by any chance it could be?"
"Oh, Alice, he's coming back," announced Patricia from her point of vantage on her knees, and a moment later the same automobile, driven at a speed at which the most conscientious of traffic guardians could not complain, passed them slowly at the left. The young man made an effort to conceal the fact that he was surveying the girl in the victoria, but Alice cut short his suspense.
"It is! it is!" she cried, eagerly; and with the recognition made certain the boy shut off his power, and, springing out of the car, was beside her before even the discreet coachman could draw up to the curb.
"I thought I couldn't be mistaken--" he began.
"But you weren't sure," Alice finished for him. "You were trying to remember a little girl with a pigtail down her back and horrid freckles all over her face--now, weren't you?"
"If that's the way you really looked, I evidently wasn't as fussy about such things then as I am now," he laughed. "All I remember is that you were the dandiest little playmate I ever had."
The unexpected compliment caused Alice to turn quickly to Mrs. Gorham.
"This is Allen Sanford, Eleanor; and this, Allen, is my mother, sister, and dearest friend all in one."
"And my name's Pat," added the child, refusing to be ignored and holding out her hand cordially.
The boy was even more embarrassed by the unexpected meeting with the second Mrs. Gorham than to find Alice developed into so lovely and fascinating a young woman. He had always thought of Alice's step-mother, when he had thought of her at all, as of a type entirely different from this slender, attractive woman only a few years older than Alice herself. There was a self-possession about Mrs. Gorham, a quiet dignity, which made the difference in their ages seem greater than it really was; yet, had he not known, Allen would have thought them sisters. His father was sceptical when he heard of Gorham's second marriage: "It's bigamy, that's what it is," were Stephen Sanford's words. "Gorham is married to his business. Everything he touches turns into gold. Business to him is what a great passion for a woman would be to one man, or a supreme friendship to another; but the lever which moves Robert Gorham is neither love nor steel; it is cold, hard cash."
All this flashed through Allen's mind in that brief moment of silence after the introduction, but the thoughts of at least one of the two women had been equally active. To Alice this chance meeting recalled a time in her life sanctified by the loss of her mother, later made easier to look back upon by the rare sympathy which had existed from the first between herself and the sweet, tactful woman who