Page:The Fruit of the Tree (Wharton 1907).djvu/30

Rh She is very young, and Westmore himself didn’t care. It was a case of inherited money. He drew the dividends, and Truscomb did the rest.”

Miss Brent reﬂected. “I don’t know much about the constitution of companies—but I suppose Mrs. Westmore doesn’t unite all the ofﬁces in her own person. Is there no one to stand between Truscomb and the operatives?”

“Oh, the company, on paper, shows the usual ofﬁcial hierarchy. Richard Westmore, of course, was president, and since his death the former treasurer—Halford Gaines—has replaced him, and his son, Westmore Gaines, has been appointed treasurer. You can see by the names that it’s all in the family. Halford Gaines married a Miss Westmore, and represents the clan at Hanaford—leads society, and keeps up the social credit of the name. As treasurer, Mr. Halford Gaines kept strictly to his special business, and always refused to interfere between Truscomb and the operatives. As president he will probably follow the same policy, the more so as it ﬁts in with his inherited respect for the status quo, and his blissful ignorance of economics.”

“And the new treasurer—young Gaines? Is there no hope of his breaking away from the family tradition?”

“Westy Gaines has a better head than his father; but he hates Hanaford and the mills, and his chief object in life is to be taken for a New Yorker. So far he [ 18 ]