Page:Stanwood Pier--The ancient grudge.djvu/87

76 was something in this grotesque even to the verge of mania. Yet now, when he thought of the establishment which he had seen that afternoon, created, mills and town, out of nothing by this one man, carrying with it the hopes and fears and destinies of ten thousand souls, dominated still as it had been developed by one man, who had in his grasp every detail of its workings, every detail of its life, down even to the condition of its pensioners, it seemed then fitting, if it pleased him, that Colonel Halket should bear himself imperially and conduct his household on as stately principles as if it were a royal court. And Floyd had a glimmering perception that just as his grandfather had turned with more and more favor to this mode of life, by so much the more might Avalon feel that he was honoring it and be glad to exhibit him as its first citizen.

So the boy returned to the book that records the disaster of an attempt to build and guide a life by a system.

At half-past ten o'clock, chimes sounded remotely from the dining-room. Floyd laid aside his book; Colonel Halket took up the Bible and sat waiting. Presently the servants, men and women, fifteen or twenty in number, entered the room and stood in line across one end of it. Colonel Halket put on his glasses and read a chapter from Job; then, closing the Bible, he took the Prayer-Book and rose. Floyd and Mrs. Halket rose with him; they and the servants stood with bowed heads while he read the prayer. After the general mumbled Amen, the servants marched out in single file.

Usually Mrs. Halket went to her room after prayers, leaving her husband to sit reading or writing till midnight; these late evening hours he gave with a methodical regularity to what he had not yet advanced beyond terming "self-culture." Since his attainment of eminence, he found himself called upon frequently and often unexpectedly to preside at meetings, to introduce speakers, to present prizes, to address assemblages of all kinds. With