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diff --git a/49757.txt b/49757.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 701c443..0000000 --- a/49757.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,11731 +0,0 @@ - THE MAN WHO LIVED IN A SHOE - - - - -This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world 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 -http://www.gutenberg.org/license. If you are not located in the United -States, you'll have to check the laws of the country where you are -located before using this ebook. - - - -Title: The Man Who Lived in a Shoe -Author: Henry James Forman -Release Date: August 21, 2015 [EBook #49757] -Language: English -Character set encoding: US-ASCII - - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MAN WHO LIVED IN A SHOE -*** - - - - -Produced by Al Haines. - - - - - - *THE MAN WHO LIVED - IN A SHOE* - - - BY - - *HENRY JAMES FORMAN* - - - - BOSTON - LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY - 1922 - - - - - _Copyright, 1922,_ - By LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY. - - _All rights reserved_ - - Published September, 1922 - Reprinted September, 1922 - Reprinted October, 1922 - - - - PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA - - - - - TO - MY WIFE - - - - - *BOOK ONE* - - - *THE MAN WHO LIVED - IN A SHOE* - - - *CHAPTER I* - - -Are there any women today, I wonder, like the girl wife of Jacopone da -Todi, who are found in the midst of worldly brilliance wearing the hair -shirt of piety and devotion over their spotless hearts? - -I doubt it. - -It is no wonder that Jacopone, that "smart" thirteenth-century Italian -lawyer, became a great saint when he made that discovery, after his -beautiful young wife's accidental death. It would make a saint of -anybody. - -I am quite sure Gertrude is not like that. But then Gertrude is not my -wife--as yet. Nor am I Jacopone. I am nothing more, I fear, than a -contented voluptuary of a bookworm. Like King James, I feel that were -it my fate to be a captive, I should wish to be shut up in a great -library consuming my days among my fellow-prisoners, the blessed books. - -To distil the reading of a lifetime into a little wisdom for my poor -wits, that has been all my aim and my ambition, if by any name so -dynamic as ambition I may call it. An old young man is what I have been -called, and Gertrude seems propelled by some potent urge to change -me--God knows why. - -I have just been talking with--I mean listening to--Gertrude. - -We are to be married, she says, in three weeks. - - -Time out of mind we have been friends, Gertrude and I, as our mothers -had been before us. She, the highly modern spinster and I, such as I -am, have been linked for years by an engagement which is not an -engagement in the old sense at all. It is a sort of _entente cordiale_. -An engagement in the conventional meaning of the word would be as -abhorrent to Gertrude as the old-fashioned marriage. As soon would she -think of "being given in marriage" with bell, book and orange blossoms -as of calling herself "Mrs. Randolph Byrd"--or anything but Miss Bayard. - -That is what we have been discussing this gloomy afternoon in my snug -little apartment before a garrulous fire. For Gertrude is not so absurd -as to hesitate to call on me at my apartment any more than I would -hesitate to call on her in Gramercy Park. - -"But won't it be awkward," I ventured in mild speculation, "if after we -are married we have to stay at an hotel together, or share a cabin on a -ship--to be Miss Bayard and Mr. Byrd?" - -"Don't be absurd, Ranny," retorted Gertrude, with her usual introductory -phrase. "Awkward or not, do you think I should give up my name that I -have lived under all my life, fought for and established?" - -"Of course not," I hastily apologized. "I hadn't thought of that." I -could not help wondering what she meant by having established her name. -Except as regards one or two committees and vacation funds Gertrude's -name is unknown to celebrity. - -"You with your H.H.," she ran on briskly, with the triumph of having -scored. "Surely you don't want to cling to the musty old formulas?" - -"No, certainly not," I answered her readily. I am no match for Gertrude -in argument. Of a sudden I became aware that despite the hissing fire -in the grate there was no sparkle in the air this chill November -afternoon. The H.H. to which Gertrude had alluded was the only thing -resembling an emotion that betrayed any sign of smoldering life within -me in that discussion of ours touching matrimony. - -The H.H., I would better explain, stands for Horror of Home--for my -profound repugnance toward anything resembling the fettering bonds of -domesticity. A man, I feel, should be as free to do what he pleases and -to go where he likes when and if married as when single. Otherwise who -would assume the chains and slavery of that shadowed prison-house? -To-morrow, my heart suddenly tells me, I must be off upon a journey of -unknown duration. - -Once again I would see the estraded gardens of the Riviera, the olive -groves of Italy, the sacred parchments and incunabula of the Laurentian -Library in Florence. I would wander anew in the wilderness of the -Bibliotheque Nationale of Paris and on the left bank of the Seine, where -once I collected the lore of Balzac and of Sainte-Beuve. And who dare -prevent my setting off at a moment's notice for the ill-lighted rotunda -of the British Museum or the cloister precincts of the Bodleian at -Oxford? Even as Gertrude was speaking, I experienced an irresistible -longing for all those places, for the turf walks and pleached alleys of -Oxford and the beautiful "Backs" of the Cambridge Colleges. There is a -manuscript at Trinity that I must see again, and I have long promised -myself a month in Pepys's old library at Magdelene in Cambridge. - -But Gertrude is not like other women. - -"What I like about you, Ranny," she remarked, flicking the ash from her -cigarette with unerring aim into the hearth, "is your reasonableness. -You hate as I do to see two people handcuffed together like a pair of -convicts for life. Might as well go back to the Stone Age or to the -times of a dozen children in the house and the mother grilling herself -all day before the kitchen fire. Ugh!" and she gave a shudder. - -"No fear of that with you," I laughed. - -"No, I should hope not," she puffed energetically. - -"Well, anyway," I found myself reassuring her quickly, "even as it is, -you have three weeks to think it over--to back out in. Three weeks is a -good long time, Gertrude. Much can happen in three weeks." - -On the table before me lay a new life of Leonardo da Vinci, just arrived -from Paris that day. My fingers itched to open it and turn the pages. -But that would have been rude, so I forebore. - -"I am not like that," Gertrude murmured reflectively, "and you know it, -Ranny." - -"Of course not," I guiltily assented. - -"I know," she tapped my cheek with a playful finger--Gertrude can be -very charming if she thinks of it--"I know perfectly what I want to do. -And when I make up my mind to do a thing I stick to it." - -And so she does, the clever girl! - -"I wish I were like you," I muttered. "I am a sort of drifter, I'm -afraid." - -"That's why you need a manager," laughed Gertrude. "Wait till you've got -me. Then you won't be just running after books and telling yourself -what you're going to do some day. You'll be doing, publishing, -lecturing; you'll be known--famous." - -"Oh my heavens!" I cried out in a terror, throwing up a defensive hand. -"I think I'll run away." - -"Too late," she smiled, with a cool archness. When Gertrude smiles she -is exceedingly handsome. "I've ordered my trousseau. You wouldn't -leave me waiting at the City Hall, would you?" - -"I might," I answered, smiling back at her. "If there should happen to -be a book auction that morning. And it's only a subway fare back to your -flat." - -"Now, this is the program," she announced, assuming her magisterial -tone, which instantaneously reduces me to a spineless worm before her. -"You will come to my flat on the twenty-fourth at ten o'clock. Then we -shall drive down in a taxi to the City Hall and get the license--or -whatever they call it--" - -"Lucky you'll be there," I could not help murmuring. "I should probably -get a dog license or a motor-car license instead of the correct one--" - -"Then," went on Gertrude, very properly ignoring me, "we can have the -alderman of the day sing the necessary song." - -"He may want to sing an encore--or kiss the bride," I warned her. - -"He won't want to kiss me when I look at him," answered Gertrude -imperturbably. Nor will he! "Then," she added, "we can stop here at -your place and pick up your hand luggage, and mine on the way to the -Grand Central Station. You can send your trunk the day before and I'll -send mine. No time lost, you see, no waste, no foolishness." - -"Perfect efficiency, in short--" - -"Yes," said Gertrude, "you'll probably forget some important detail in -the arrangement, but there's time enough to drill you into it the next -three weeks." - -"Forget," I repeated, somewhat dazedly, I admit. "What is there to -forget--except possibly my name, age or color?" - -"You needn't worry," flashed Gertrude. "I'll remember those for -you--when you need them. I meant," she explained, "about your trunk or -railway tickets and so on. But anyway, it doesn't matter. I'll remind -you of everything the day before." - -I promised to tie a knot in my handkerchief. - -"And may I ask," I ventured, "where we are going?" - -"I haven't decided yet," Gertrude informed me. "I'll let you know -later, Ranny dear." - -There is something very wholesome and complete about Gertrude. That is -the reason, I suppose, I have so long been fond of her. How she can put -up with a dreamer like me is more than I can grasp. Without any -picturesque or romantic significance to the phrase, I am a sort of beach -comber, sunning myself in her cloudless energy on the indolent sands of -life. Every one either tells me or implies that Gertrude is far too -good for me. Nor do I doubt it. But I wish we could go on as we are -without exposing her to the inconvenience of being married to me. But -Gertrude knows best. - -"Won't you stay and share my humble crust this evening?" I asked her as -she rose to go. - -"No, thanks, Ranny," she smiled, somewhat enigmatically, I thought. "We -shall often dine together--afterwards." - -"Of course," I agreed flippantly. "We may even meet at the races." - -"I promised," said Gertrude, "to dine at the Club with Stella -Blackwelder--to settle some committee matters before I go away. Shall -you be alone, poor thing?" - -"Yes--but that doesn't matter. I am often alone. I prop up a book -against a glass candlestick and the dinner is gone before I am aware of -it." - -"It might as well be sawdust, for all you know," laughed Gertrude. - -"So it might," I told her, "except that Griselda can do better than -sawdust. I might, of course," I added, "call up Dibdin and have him -feast with me." - -"Your trampy friend," commented Gertrude. "Yes, better do it. I don't -like to think of you so much alone." - -"Now, that is very sweet of you, my dear. I'll do exactly that." - -Her cool lips touched mine for an instant and she was gone. - - - - - *CHAPTER II* - - -To my shame I must record that, once I was alone, the appalling fact of -marriage overwhelmed me like a landslide. With a sense of suffocation -and wild struggle I longed to do in earnest what I had threatened to do -in jest, to run away, blindly, madly, anywhere, to freedom, as far as -ever I could go. - -When I should have been rejoicing, I desired, in a manner, to sit upon -the ground and tell sad stories of the death of kings. I thought upon -Lincoln, a brave man if ever one there was, who had paled before the -thought of marriage and wrote consoling letters to another in similar -case. When I ought to have been feeling at my most virile, I felt -unmanned. - -Yet, was I a boy to be a prey to these emotions? At twenty-nine surely -a man should know his own mind and be in possession of himself. Never -before had I doubted my way in life. In a world where every one who has -no money proceeds with energy to make it, and every one who has a little -tirelessly labors to acquire more, I had wittingly and of full purpose -turned my life away from the market place and toward a studious devotion -to books. On my compact income of less than two hundred and fifty -dollars monthly left me by generous parents, I was able to maintain my -modest apartment in Twelfth Street and to live a life, purposeless in -the eyes of some, no doubt, but which to me is priceless. - -That slender income and the old Scotchwoman, Griselda Dow, with her -Biblical austerity and North British economy, surround my existence with -the comfort of a cushion. Because two sparrows sold for one farthing, -was to Griselda a reason and an incentive for miracles of thrift. To -change all this in three weeks--and I have not yet informed Griselda! -In a welter of agitation I began to pace the room. - -Perhaps I am a fool to harbor such emotions, but I confess that the -sight of my pleasant study, covered to the ceiling with the books that I -love, and so many of which I have gathered, fills me with a poignant -melancholy. To uproot all this or to change it violently seems like a -sin I cannot bring myself to commit. How had I come to think of -committing it? - -Gertrude is, of course, a splendid girl. With all her energy, she can -yet sympathize with the mild successes of a poor bookworm and listen -with patience to the tales of his triumphs as though he had captured an -army corps. My first edition of the "Religio Medici" can mean nothing to -her, who has never read it, but she seemed gladdened by my victory when -I acquired it under the very nose of a wily bookseller. - -When was it that I had first asked Gertrude to marry me? It is odd that -I cannot remember, for our friendship could have continued on the same -pleasant basis for the rest of our lives. - -I was dining alone with her one evening at her apartment in Gramercy -Park, I remember, and there was sparkling Moselle. I am not one of your -experienced topers, and that sparkling Moselle entered my blood like a -Caxton in a Zaehnsdorf binding or a First Folio of Shakespeare. A -golden haze had seemed to emanate from every object in the region of -that Moselle. Then, I recollect, Gertrude and I were on a new plane of -being. We were speaking of marriage. Without being "engaged", we were, -in Gertrude's phrase, talking of "marrying each other." It was on that -evening I must have asked her, though, oddly enough, I have no -recollection of the fact. And now, it seems, three pleasant years have -passed and the time has come. - -Again it occurred to me abruptly that I had not yet informed Griselda. - -What if Gertrude should insist upon my removing myself to her apartment; -would she accept Griselda? And how would my precious books be -domiciled? How human they are, those books, even though silent! Always -I have found them waiting whenever I returned from journeys, from summer -visits, from the country, from anywhere. Their backs and bindings seem -to shimmer and flash forth a stately greeting, to exhale that subtle -fragrance of leather, ink, and paper that none but book-lovers know. -They have developed a sense in me to perceive these things as no one -else can perceive them. How delightful it has been to find them in -their peaceful legions, arrayed and changeless, retaining the very marks -and slips I have left in them, faithful servitors and friends! - -I take down the "Antigone" in the Cambridge Sophocles that faces me as I -stand and open at random to the chorus: "Love, invincible love! who -makest havoc of wealth, who keepest vigil on the soft cheek of the -maiden;--no immortal can escape thee, nor any among men whose life is -for a day; and he to whom thou hast come is mad." It is clear that -Sophocles was no modern. - -Ah, me! I must tell Griselda at once, lest her Scotch probity should -charge me with disingenuousness or evasion. I pressed a bell. I could -not face Griselda in the kitchen which is her stronghold. I must summon -her to mine. - -Griselda, with a heather-blue cap awry on her coarse gray hair, appeared -at the door. - -"You called?" she demanded. - -"Yes, Griselda, I called. Come in; I wish to speak to you." - -Griselda has known me since I was seven and all my gravity counts for -ever so little with her. So redolent is she of rich encrusted -personality that she gives to my poor small apartment the air of an -establishment. - -"You always call me, Mr. Randolph," she somewhat testily informed me, -"just when I have my hands in the dough pan or when the pot is boiling -over." - -"Which is it now?" I asked her, laughing somewhat ruefully. - -"Both," was her laconic answer. - -"Hurry back then," I told her. "What I wanted to say will keep." - -"Just like a man," muttered Griselda and left me without ceremony. - -The relief I felt was shameful. To face Griselda with news of a -possible derangement of our lives required a courage, a girding up of -one's resolution to which at the moment I felt myself woefully unequal. - -There was Dibdin and his blessed archeological expedition. He had told -me that there might be a berth for me as a sort of keeper of records and -archives. If only he had started last week. In a mist of vision well -known to daydreamers, I suddenly saw the trim shipshape steamer with -holystoned decks, the glinting metal work, the opulent South-Pacific sun -pouring down on lightly clad passengers lounging in deck chairs; girls -in white lazily flirting with indolent men. What oceans of joy and ease -were to be found in the world for those who knew how to take them! - -Ah, well! Gertrude would make no opposition to my going, since absolute -individual liberty is the very keystone in the arch of our coming -marriage. - -I decided to ring up Dibdin. - -"Our line is out of order," the switchboard below informed me. "They'll -have a man up here as soon as possible." - -Frustration! I did not wish the colored door boy below to hear what I -said. He has a notion of my dignity. - -With a restless agitation new to me I again fell to pacing the room, a -room not contrived for exercise. It occurred to me that I must go to see -my sister, my only near relative. She was sure to be at home, for she, -poor girl, is always at home,--what with her three children and her -broken health. - -If it were not that the damnable telephone is out of order, I would ring -her up immediately. What with her three young children and an income -the exact equivalent of my own, she has little diversion unless I take -her to the theater or the opera. How does the poor girl manage, I -wonder? I dread to ask her and she never complains. I ought to see her -oftener; if only she lived nearer than the depths of Brooklyn. - -There is the result of romantic marriage for you! Poor Laura committed -the error of falling in love with a man on a steamer when she was barely -nineteen and marrying him secretly; after seven years and three babies, -the scoundrel Pendleton, with his smooth ways and unsteady eye, deserted -her, disappeared into the blue. The poor girl's health has never been -good since then. - -It is irritating to think that I might have done more than an occasional -gift for Laura and the children. But I am so wretchedly poor myself. - -I still cannot comprehend how Laura could have been so inconceivably -foolish as to marry that ruffian Pendleton before she had known him -three months--and then to acquire three babies! - -Gertrude, at all events, could not be guilty of anything so perverse. - -Marriage--children--chains--slavery--how sordid it all is and how -disturbing! Good enough perhaps for the hopeless middle class, -semi-animal types, who have nothing else to expect of life, or to absorb -them. But for folk with ambitions and ideals! - -What are my ambitions and ideals, I cannot at times help wondering? -Useless to analyze. Freedom to have them is the first of all. - -How eager I used to be to discuss them with Laura during those long -summers at our cottage in Westchester when life seemed endless and the -future infinite. Between sets at tennis I poured out to her the things I -was going to do in the world. Laura is only two years older than I, but -how well she had understood and how sympathetic she was! It was the -motherhood within her, I suppose, that drove her to the marriage and the -kiddies. - -The scent of those summers comes to my nostrils now, the fragrance of -lilac and honeysuckle, that brought ideas to one's head, dreams of -achievement, of perfection and happiness. Who has that cottage now, I -wonder? Poor Laura's dreams have been distorted into a very dismal sort -of reality. And what of my own? But here is Griselda and she is -announcing Dibdin. - - -That grizzled priest of what he is pleased to call science growled in a -way he meant to be pleasant as he shouldered into my comfortable study -and sank sprawling into my best chair. He never seems quite at home in -a civilized room. - -"Couldn't get you on the telephone," he remarked. "Thought I'd drop over -and see what iniquities you're up to." - -"As you see," I told him, "I'm deep in crime." - -"Will you feed me?" he demanded with a gruffness that is part of his -charm. - -"Certainly. What else can I do when you come at this hour?" - -"All right; then I'll listen to you," he said. - -"But how," I wondered, "do you know I want to say anything?" - -"You look charged to the nozzle," he answered elegantly. "What is it--a -rare edition of somebody or other?" Amazing devil, Dibdin. I always -resent his ability to read me in this manner. But he tells me that in -his archeological expeditions he has had so often to watch faces of -Indians, Chinese, negroes, Turks and others whose language he did not -speak, that to see the desires of men in their eyes amounts with him to -an added sense. - -"Well, if you must know," I sat down facing him, "I am nonplussed, -baffled, perplexed, at sea, on the horns of a dilemma--all of those -things. I am to be married in three weeks." - -"Eager swain!" was his only comment. - -"Is that all you can say?" - -"Well, feeling about it the way you seem to feel, I might add that -you're a damn fool." - -"Tell me something novel!" I retorted irritably. - -"Can't," he said. "That's the only thing I know." - -"Comprehensive," I sneered. - -"Complete," was his succinct rejoinder. - -"What a comfort you are!" I cried with a harassed laugh. - -"What the devil made you get into it?" he growled. - -"Fate," I told him. - -"It's a poor fate that doesn't work both ways," he observed. - -"I suppose I sound to you like either a brute or a cad or both," I -pursued. "But the fact is, Dibdin, I am not a marrying man. The girl -in question has nothing to do with it. She's an admirable, a splendid -girl, far too good for the likes of me. But I simply hate the thought -of marriage--of owing duties to anybody. I want to be free to do -absolutely as I please, to go off with you to the Solomon Islands, or -China or Popocatepetl if I want to, or to run after some first edition -if I feel inclined. In short, I don't want to bother about wives or -children or whooping cough or measles, or have them bother about me. -Would you call that selfish?" - -"Damnably," said Dibdin without emotion. - -"Well, then, that is what I am," I retorted warmly, "and it is no use -trying to change. It takes myriad kinds to make a world. I am one -kind--that kind." - -"No," said Dibdin gravely, "no--I think you're some other kind." - -"This eternal, beautiful, boundless freedom," I went on, ignoring -him--"surely it is good that some mortals should have it, Dibdin--and I -am losing it." - -"Three weeks off, did you say--the obsequies?" he queried. - -"Yes," I answered sadly. - -"Then maybe it won't happen," he remarked to the ceiling. - -"What makes you say that?" I caught him up. - -"Don't know," he replied in his carefully lazy tone that he assumed when -he wished to sound oracular. "Just a feeling--that you deserve -something, a good deal--worse than marriage." Then abruptly sitting up -in his chair and pulling a thin volume out of his pocket, "Look at -this," he muttered. - -I took the vellum-bound book and opened it. - -"An Elzevir 'Horace'!" I exclaimed. "Where did you get it?" All the -rest of the world and all my cares thinned to insignificance before this -treasure. - -"A plutocratic book collector living in a mausoleum on Fifth Avenue has -just given it to me," he replied. "It's a duplicate. He has another and -a better one of the same date. D'you value it any at all?" - -"Value it!" I cried, as my fingers caressed it. "Why, certainly I value -it. It is a perfectly genuine Elzevir--the great Louis himself printed -this at Leyden. It is not what you would call a tall copy, and binders -have sacrilegiously spoiled an originally fine broad margin. It's not -perfect. But it's a splendid specimen of early printing, with title -page and colophon intact. It's a beauty!" - -"You beat the devil," murmured Dibdin in his beard. "You can be -enthusiastic about some things, that's clear. Anyway, the book is -yours," he concluded. "I have no use for it." - -"You don't mean it!" I exulted incredulously. "I am simply delighted, -Dibdin, tickled pink, as you would say! I have long wanted the Elzevir -'Horace.' I haven't a single Elzevir to compare with this. Think of -this coming out of the blue!" And in my foolish way I fell to gloating -over the thin, musty little volume, examining the worm drills, holding -it up to the light for watermarks in the gray paper and, in general, I -suppose, behaving like an imbecile. - -"Illustrates my point," muttered Dibdin, fumbling with a malodorous corn -cob and a tobacco pouch. - -"Point? What point?" I looked up at him abstractedly. - -"Out of the blue--this book you say you yearned for--anything may -happen." - -"And you call yourself a scientist," I marveled, leaning back in the -chair. "Things like this happen--yes. But in the serious business of -life you're ground between the millstones of the gods--a victim of -events you cannot control. Look at Rabelais and Montaigne, two free -spirits if ever there were any. Yet one was a victim of priestcraft so -that he cried out until he roared with orgiastic laughter, and the other -a victim of property,--took a wife that disgusted him. (I have -beautiful editions of both of them, by the way, which you ought to look -at.) But each of them was a victim." - -"A victim if you're victimized." Dibdin puffed at his foul pipe. (I -cannot make him smoke a decent cigarette.) "But if you know how to play -with circumstances, you use them as I saw a cowboy in Arizona ride a -bucking broncho. You ride them till you break them. Look at me, my -boy," he went on, with a grin of mingled modesty and bravado. "I knew I -was a tramp at heart. But my people would have been broken with -humiliation if I had turned out a 'hobo' on their hands. So I took to -ruins and buried cities in out-of-the-way places, and politely speaking -I'm an archeologist. But I tramp about the world to my heart's -content." - -That, I admit, presented Dibdin and the whole matter in a new light to -me. - -"Why," I finally asked, "didn't I do that?" - -"Because you're not a tramp at heart," puffed Dibdin. - -"Yes, I am!" I almost shouted at him. "That is exactly what I must be, -since I have such a horror of home, of domesticity." - -"You with all this comfort--a flat, a housekeeper, all the truck in this -room? No, no, my boy! You're cast for something else. Hanged if I -know for what, though. These things are too deep to generalize about. -Time will tell." - -I rose and circled the room, inanely surveying "this comfort" that seems -to offend Dibdin, though he likes well enough to sprawl in my best -arm-chair. The books, the rugs, the fire, the alluring chairs, the -happy hours that I have spent here seemed to crowd about me like the -ghosts of familiars, praying to be not driven from their haunts. - -"Then why the devil," I demanded accusingly, pausing before him, "did -you encourage me and praise my little papers and bits of work in college -when you were teaching me?" - -"Trying to teach you," he corrected placidly. "You've never been a -teacher in a large fashionable college, my boy. When most of your -so-called students are taking your course because it is reported to be a -snap, so they can spend their evenings at billiards, musical comedies, -or the like, any young devil with a ray of intellectual interest becomes -the teacher's golden-haired boy. Even teachers are human. You'll admit -you haven't set even so much as your own ink-well on fire as yet." - -"All that is beside the point," I returned irritably. "Here I am in the -devil of a fix and you are talking like Job's comforters." - -"Yes," he agreed, "I suppose I am. But in the end it was not the -comforters but events that pulled Job up. Await events with resignation -and expectancy, Randolph, my lad, and play the game. Stake your coin -and wait until the wheel stops and see what happens." - -"A fine teacher you are!" I laughed at him, albeit mirthlessly. - -"No good at all," he assented cheerfully, knocking his pipe against the -ash tray and pocketing the noisome thing. "And didn't I chuck teaching -the minute events made it possible? Events, my boy; they are the -teacher and the deities to tie to. Set up a little altar to the great -god Event--right here in your perfumed little temple. That's what I -should do," he concluded, muttering into his beard. - -"Incidentally," he added, "I'm getting extraordinarily hungry." - -"Oh, sorry," I murmured. "Glad you're here to eat with me, anyway. It -enables me to put off breaking the news of my coming marriage to -Griselda." - -"What--you haven't told her yet?" shouted Dibdin, sitting up in his -chair. "That fine, upright Highland lassie? Then you're no disciple of -mine! Face things with courage and face 'em fairly, Randolph. Go and -tell her now! I'll wait here with my highly moral support." - -"I--I can't," I blurted miserably. - -"Yes, you can," he insisted with obstinacy. "Go and do it now." - -With a gesture of desperation I pressed the bell. - -"If I am going to tell her anything," I mumbled between my teeth, "I'll -say it right here." Dibdin laughed ghoulishly. - -"This cowardice--this shrinking from life," he philosophized -detestably--"that's what our kind of education brings about." - -Griselda appeared at the door. - -"You rang, Mr. Randolph." - -"Yes--er--yes, Griselda," and I felt myself idiotically hot and flushed. -"I wanted to say--" and beads of perspiration prickled my forehead. -Then in desperation, I stammered out, - -"Mr. Dibdin, Griselda--he is dining here to-night--that's all, -Griselda!" - -Dibdin's laugh rattled throatily in the room. How I hated him at that -moment! Griselda swept us with an impenetrable glance. - -"There is a place laid for him," she uttered in the tone of one whose -patience is a sternly acquired virtue. And she left us. - -"Better strip, my lad," chuckled Dibdin, "and put on your wrestling -trunks." - -"What d'you mean?" I demanded sulkily. - -"The tussle that life is going to give you will be a caution." - -"A lot you know about life!" - -"Not much, that's a fact," Dibdin observed more soberly. "But I've had -to face some things, Randolph. I've had to grin at a lot of greasy Arabs -in the desert who thought they would hold me for ransom. I've had to -laugh out of their dull ambition a pack of villainous Chinese thugs in -Gobi, who felt it would profit them to cut my throat. I've had to make -my way alone through a jungle in Central America for days when the -beastly natives absconded with the supplies and left me in the middle of -a job of excavation. I've had other little episodes. But never, son, I -may say truthfully, have I shown such blue funk as you did just then -before the patient Griselda." - -"Rot!" was my only answer. "Let's go in to dinner." - - -It is after ten. Old Dibdin is gone and I have been putting down these -foolish notes. - -It must be by some odd law of balance or compensation, I suppose, that -those whose lives are least important keep the fullest record of them. -It is a weakness of mine to wish to read in the future the things I -failed to do in the past. It is really for you, O Randolph Byrd, aged -seventy, that I am writing these notes. - -If only Gertrude had made up her masterful mind to three months hence, -instead of three weeks, I should have taken my last fling and gone by -the next boat to Italy. - -Biagi, that courteous scholar and humanist, writes me from the -Laurentian at Florence that he has discovered some new material -concerning Brunetto Latini--the teacher of Dante. Among the few -ambitions that I dally with there has always been the one to write a -life of Brunetto, who taught Dante how a man may become immortal. I -have a fine copy of Ser Brunetto's works, the "Tesoro" and the -"Tesoretto", and it seems a shabby enough little encyclopedia in verse -of knowledge now somewhat out of date. There must have been, therefore, -something in the man himself that enabled Dante to attribute his own -greatness to the teacher. - -But I cannot go to Florence and return in three weeks. - -Gertrude, I know, will tell me I can do it after we're married. But she -will expect me to "clean up the job" in two weeks. - -There is nothing about Gertrude that terrifies me so much as her -efficiency. I shall never dare to mention the subject to her, and so I -shall never attempt it and never know the mystery of Dante's -immortality. It is all one, however; what have I to do with greatness? -No more than with marriage. - -Bur-r-r! The room is cold. _Sparge ligna super foco_, as cheerful old -Horace advises. I have just complied and put another log on the fire. - -My nerves must be a shade off color to-night. I could have sworn a -moment ago, as the room grew chilly, that my sister Laura was standing -before me. It is my guilty conscience, I suppose. Too late to call her -now. Besides, the telephone is no doubt still "out of order." Poor -Laura! I saw her, white as death, with tears running down her drawn -cheeks. What things are human nerves when a bit unstrung! I shall go -and see Laura to-morrow. - -I have had my conversation with Griselda and it came off not amiss. - -"Griselda," I began carelessly, after Dibdin had gone, "did I mention to -you that I am to be married in three weeks?" - -Griselda is not one to waste breath in futile and flamboyant feminine -exclamations. She turned somewhat pale, I thought. - -"You know very well you did not," she answered in level tones, polishing -a spoon the while. - -"Well, I meant to," I told her truthfully enough. "Didn't you expect -it?" - -"No, sir," was her blunt reply. - -"Neither did I," I blurted out before I knew it. - -A wry, unaccustomed smile for a moment illumined her dark, gypsy-like -features. - -"You needn't tell me that," she retorted, and I wonder what she meant by -it. It is not like her to waste words. "Am I," she continued, "to take -this as notice to find a new place?" - -"God forbid!" I cried in horror. "Whatever happens, Griselda, you -remain with me--let that be understood." - -"And suppose Miss Bayard shouldn't want me?" she demanded with quiet -intensity. - -"Then she will probably not want me," I told her. "That question won't -arise. Besides, Griselda," I went on, "we haven't decided yet how we -are going to manage. Miss Bayard will probably want to keep her -apartment and I mine. She would hardly wish to be bothered with me all -the time." - -"And you would call that marriage!" exclaimed Griselda aghast. - -"Why not?" I queried mildly. "I don't know much about it, Griselda, but -marriage is determined by the kind of license you get at the City Hall -and what the alderman says to you. The leases of apartments have -nothing to do with it, I'm quite sure--though I might inquire." - -Griselda's face was blank for a moment. Then on a sudden she was bent -double in a gale of wild, hysterical laughter. Never have I known her -so shaken by meaningless cachinnation. Perhaps her own nerves are no -better than mine. Even now I still hear her rattling deeply from time -to time like muffled thunder. But I don't care now. What a relief to -get it over! - -It is nearly bedtime. Casting over the events of the day, I cannot but -conclude that my own will has played too small a part in the whole -matter. - -I must see Gertrude to-morrow in good time and acquaint her with my -desire to run over to Florence before we are married and look up Biagi's -new material bearing upon the blessed old heathen, Brunetto Latini. -Since Gertrude desires me to be great and famous, she cannot deny me the -opportunity to discover how a great and famous man accomplished the -trick. Besides, what has been delayed three years can surely support a -further delay of three months. - -But, good heavens! What is this? Voices--the scuffling of feet in the -hallway--what army is invading me at this hour! I believe I hear -children's voices--and a scream from Griselda, who has never screamed in -her life! - - - - - *CHAPTER III* - - -Laura--my dear sister Laura--is dead! Her children are with me! - -Without warning she dropped suddenly under her burdens and with her -dying breath confided her children to me--me! - -That one cataclysmic fact has taken its abode in my brain and numbed it -as well as all my nerves to a chill and deadly paralysis that excludes -everything else. It still seems wholly unbelievable--some nightmare -from which I shall awake with a vast sickly sort of relief to the old -custom of my tranquil life. - -The turbulence and the pain of the last three days, however, are still -lashing about me like the angry waves after a tempest, in a manner too -realistic for any dream. I am broad awake now, I know, and for hours I -have been blankly staring into a very abyss of darkness. - -What will happen or what I shall do next, I haven't the shadow of an -idea. - -Laura is dead and her children are with me, and I am their guardian and -sole reliance. Who could have forecast such a fate or such a role for -me? Three days! It is incredible! Only three days ago, I was -languidly protesting because I could not take ship forthwith for Italy -to examine some manuscript at the Laurentian in Florence! - -No, by heavens! It was not I. It was some one else--some one I knew -vaguely, in a past age, a man to be envied, serene and cheerful, blest -of life, whom I shall never meet again. - -The last three days! I cannot banish them and yet I cannot meet the -memory of them. Was it I who faced the tragedy, or was it some one -else? Nothing surely is more tragic than a young mother's death--and -that young mother my own sister! Who was it that stonily passed through -the ordeal of the "arrangements" and the black pantomime of the -sepulture? I cannot record it even for myself, for never, I know, shall -I desire to be reminded of it. At the death of my mother, I still had -Laura with her practical woman's sense. But now I was alone. I say now -because however remote it seems, this tragedy will always be present. -My life must forever remain under its stupefying spell. - -It is not credible that only three days ago I sat here in my study -revolving trifles, those many shining trifles that went to make up my -former life. - -Three days ago the silence of this house was disturbed by the voices of -children, the clatter of their feet, and for the first time in my life I -heard Griselda scream. - -"Oh, Mr. Randolph," she rushed in, sobbing, with the dry tearless sobs -of those much acquainted with grief, "Miss Laura--she--the children are -here!" - -I knew. Though inwardly I sank all but lifeless under the blow, I knew -clearly that Laura was dead. - -"Is she very ill?" I heard myself asking faintly, with a clutching -desire to shrink still from the appalling truth. - -"She--oh, Mr. Randolph,'" she lamented, "don't you understand--ye know -very well!" she suddenly added with a harshness that surprised me. "We -shall have to put the children to bed in your bedroom." - -It was as though she had suddenly revolted at the softness of the -atmosphere in my environment, at any artificiality or evasion. She -seemed abruptly determined to face the stark facts in the open. - -"The girl will sleep with me," she concluded tonelessly and turned to -go. - -"Which girl?" I queried dazedly. - -"Her that brought the bairns," she replied and left me. - -"Send her in here--I want to speak to her!" I shouted after Griselda. I -could not face the thought of going out there. I was held to my chair -by a sheer pitiful lack of courage to move into the dreadful gulf before -me. - -I closed my eyes and endeavored to still the tumult in my brain into -silence. I wanted to think. But only those can achieve silence who do -not need it. I could not. I opened my eyes. - -A thin little girl of perhaps twelve or thirteen stood before me. This -surely could not be the girl Griselda had referred to in charge of the -children. She was herself a child. Were my disordered senses tricking -me? I experienced the thrill Poe's hero must have felt at sight of the -raven on the bust of Pallas. - -"Who are you?" I whispered. - -"I am Alicia, sir," she answered with large, frightened gray eyes -fastened upon mine. - -"What--what is it?" I stammered. - -"The lady said you wanted to see me." - -"Did you bring the children?" I breathed, incredulous. - -"Yes, sir." - -I was awestruck. Her eyes, were the eyes of a child yet they were -filled with sorrow and a searching fear old as the world. - -"How old are you?" I could not help asking, with an irrelevance foolish -enough in the circumstances. - -"Going on fourteen, sir." - -"And you--you are the nurse?" - -"I helped Mrs. Pendleton with the children before school and after -school," she answered with more assurance now, but still uneasy. "I am -a mother's helper, sir." There was no mirth in my soul, but the muscles -contorted my features into a sickly grin. - -"I see," I murmured mendaciously. But I saw only my own confused -turpitude at my blindness and neglect in face of the shifts and needs -poor Laura had been compelled to suffer. - -"Where do you come from?" I inquired with a dry throat, ashamed to ask -anything of importance. - -"From--the Home for--Dependent Children--in Sullivan County," she -murmured hesitatingly, with a tinge of color in her cheeks. On a sudden -I saw her pale lips tremble and guiltily I realized that, thoughtless, -after my wont, I was subjecting her to an ordeal merely because I was in -torment. - -"Sit down," I forced myself to speak evenly, "and tell me exactly what -happened." - -She sidled to the big chair, her gaze still fixed upon me, as though to -watch me was henceforth her first anxiety. She gripped the arm of the -chair and hung undecided for a moment as though fearful of making -herself so much at home as to sit down in this room. - -"Sit down," I reiterated more encouragingly, "and tell me what happened -to my sister." - -"Yes, sir," she murmured obediently, perching on the edge of the great -chair. "Well," she began, "when I came home from school in the -afternoon Mrs. Pendleton was lying down. The children were hanging -about her bed and she looked very pale." - -"Yes, yes," I urged her on impatiently. - -"Then I took them downstairs and gave them their bread and milk and -tried to read to them so as to keep them quiet. But only the littlest -one, Jimmie, wanted to listen. Randolph and Laura wanted to play Kings -and Queens." I realized that I must hear the story in the girl's own -way. - -"Then," she continued, with an effort at exactitude, "I thought that -Jimmie and I had better join them, because then I could keep them from -making so much noise. We played until supper time. But Mrs. Pendleton -didn't feel well enough to come down. So the children and I had supper -downstairs and Hattie--that's the cook--took Mrs. Pendleton's supper up -on a tray." - -That must have been while I was lamenting to Dibdin over the hardness of -my lot. - -"Then what happened?" I muttered, turning away from her gaze. - -"I went up to see if Mrs. Pendleton wanted anything," she resumed -nervously, frightened by my movement, "and she said no, but that she'd -get up later when it was time for them to go to bed. So I helped them -with their lessons until bedtime and Mrs. Pendleton came down. She said -she felt a little better, but she looked very sad and white. And when -she began to walk up the stairs--" her lips grew tremulous again and the -tears dashed out of her eyes, but she finally controlled herself -bravely. - -"--She fell--and--" she began to weep bitterly, "she just said, 'The -children--my brother--telephone--' and that was all--" and that piteous -child who was no kindred to my poor sister sobbed convulsively. - -That must have been about the time when I was at table with Dibdin and, -over the sauterne, complaining to him of the narrowness of my income in -view of the lacunae and wants of my library. - -"We couldn't--get you--on the telephone," she found breath to utter at -last. "So I brought the children here--Hattie told me how to -go--Hattie's over there alone." - -Nothing in this world can ever stab me again as the poignancy of her -recital stabbed me. My life seemed shattered, irreparable. All my -dreams were at an end. Laura was gone and here were her children thrust -by destiny upon my hands--unless their scoundrel of a father should ever -return to relieve me of them. I had lived peacefully and harmlessly in -my way, but for some inscrutable reason Fate had selected me for her -heaviest blow. - -"Very well," I told her as kindly as I could in the conditions, "now you -go back to Griselda and go to bed. I'll have to think things out." - -"Oh--but the house!" exclaimed the little girl--and never again do I -wish to see such horror on a childish countenance as at that instant -froze the features of little Alicia. "All alone," she added, her thin -shoulders heaving. "Aren't you going over now, sir?" - -"Now!" I exclaimed, looking automatically at my watch. "Why--yes--in a -few minutes, child." - -"But--Hattie is there alone--" she stammered. "There's nobody else--then -I'd better go back." - -It was obvious, of course, that I must go at once. But why should a -child see spontaneously that to which I am obtuse? - -"Oh, well, you are right, of course--I must go immediately--I hadn't -thought--I'll go over now"--and I turned away from her, lifted the -curtain and gazed out into the wet, murky street below. Life had -collapsed and the ruins of it were tumbled about my hot ears. I hardly -know how long I stood there, completely oblivious of the girl Alicia. - -"Please, Mr. Byrd," I was startled to hear a tearful, childish voice -behind me--"won't you see the children before you go, sir?" - -I wheeled about sharply. - -"The children? Oh, yes--no!" The horror of the situation fell about me -like an avalanche that had hung suspended for a moment and then crashed -smotheringly over me. "No," I whispered huskily, "I can't--not now--not -now!" A kind of chill darkness numbed my senses. - -Like a pistol shot I suddenly heard the harsh voice of Griselda in the -doorway. - -"The cab is at the door, Mr. Randolph. Don't forget your rubbers." - -And like an automaton galvanized into life I found myself whirling to -the house of death. - - - - - *CHAPTER IV* - - -For a week the children have been with me and nothing has yet been done -about them. Another week, I think, will drive me mad with indecision. - -I seem unable to emerge from the shadow of mystery and terror into which -my serene world has been so suddenly plunged. The book-lined study is -my solitary refuge; and like a schoolgirl I can do no more than unpack -my heart with words. - -I have seen Gertrude. - -It is astonishing how resourceless are even one's nearest and dearest -friends in face of anything really capital. - -"Poor Ranny! How ghastly!" Gertrude cried, when she first heard of it, -wringing my hand. "But buck up, dear boy. You know how I feel. There -is a way out for everything." She spoke, I thought, as though I were in -need of ready money. - -She was here this afternoon to see the children. Gertrude is no hand -with children. They seemed strangely shy of her, a woman, though they -literally fell upon the neck of growling, grizzled old Dibdin. They are -still subdued by the suddenness of their tragedy, though real sorrow -Gertrude tells me, is, thank Heaven, beyond them. - -"We'll have to think up a way of disposing of the dear things," she -remarked briskly. And though I am myself completely at a loss what to -do with them, I cannot say I relished her way of putting it. - -"What, for instance, could you suggest?" I inquired dully. - -"Schools, Ranny dear, schools," she impatiently answered. "There are -homelike places run by splendid women--just made for such cases. Why, -even the little one--Jimmie, is it?--How old is he; four?--There are -places even for kiddies as young as that." - -A heavy confusion, the reverse of enthusiasm, oppressed me. - -"You forget, Gertrude," I endeavored as gently as possible to remind -her, "Laura confided those children to me with her dying breath--to -me--her only relative. Do you think I ought to fling them out at once, -God knows where!" - -"Good Lord, Ranny!" she cried, flushing with a smile of anger peculiar -to Gertrude when she is annoyed. "What a sentimentalist you are at -bottom--after all!" - -"A sentimentalist--I?" I felt hurt. "Just put yourself in my place, -Gertrude, and see how easy such a decision would be for you." - -"I do, Ranny; that is just what I am doing," she insisted impatiently. -"But don't you see that if there is any one thing you cannot do, it is -to keep them here--or in my apartment?" - -"Yes," I said, "I see that. But I also see that I can't pitch them out -among total strangers, a week after their mother's--" I could not trust -my foolish voice to finish. - -"Do you forget," demanded Gertrude with her smile that brands me -imbecile, "do you forget, Ranny, that we are to be married in two -weeks?" - -"No, Gertrude--far from it. But that is why we are discussing this -problem--because it is perplexing. Besides, schools of the right sort -are bound to be pretty expensive things." - -"Oh," said Gertrude, "of course. But poor Laura's income ought to be -enough--" - -"My dear Gertrude, that is what I don't know. Carmichael is to give me -an accounting of it to-day or to-morrow. Laura never spoke of her money -matters to me. But, as you say, there will probably be enough. Only, it -isn't altogether that--you see, Gertrude--" I floundered. - -"Yes, I see, Ranny, I see," she hammered at me in the maddening way -women have. "You simply can't get up enough will power to do something. -It's the old story. But you'll have to, my dear," and she smiled -sweetly. "You have all my sympathy and all the cooeperation you'll take. -But the one thing we can't do is stand still. You understand that--don't -you, Ranny?" - -"Yes. I understand that. But my brain is as fertile of plans as a -glass door knob." - -"I'll tell you what I'll do, Ranny," Gertrude summarized. "I know all -this has been a great shock to you. I'll let you alone for a couple of -days to turn things over. And think of what I've said. But then we -must come to some definite decision. I'd give anything if this terrible -thing had not happened now--but it can't be helped, can it?" - -Now, that was very sweet and reasonable of Gertrude. And it is a -thousand pities that she feels distressed. But it would have been ten -thousand more if poor Laura had died just after we had been married -instead of before. As it is, the problem before me is largely mine. -Were we now married, Gertrude must have had to bear an undue share of -it. - -Shall I ever win back to the old tranquillity and the peace that was -mine? That was the first thought that came to me when I parted from -Gertrude, a selfish thought as I immediately realized, in view of what -is facing me. I can no longer think as I have thought and new feelings -are struggling for birth within me, commensurate with the new -responsibility. The world, as I walk through it, seems to present an -aspect strangely different from what it did a week ago. It is so chill -and alien and hollow! - -As I was reentering my study I heard a crash in the dining room, which -is now the children's room, and when I glanced in upon them the girl -Alicia was gathering up smithereens of glass and Ranny, the eldest boy, -quietly announced, "It broke" in a manner that so obviously gave him -away, all the others could not help laughing; and they laughed the -louder when I joined them. Confused and angry, the boy ran out of the -room. - -It is a world apart, the world of children, into which parents, I -suppose, grow gradually. Not being the parent of these children, I fear -I shall never penetrate it. - -Sooner or later they must be sent away, even as Gertrude maintains. And -I must face that event forthwith. - -I was interrupted at this point by the irruption into the room of -Jimmie, the youngest, inimitably, grotesquely shapeless in his -nightgear, pattering toward me and taking refuge between my knees. He -was being pursued by the girl Alicia who stood shyly and distressfully -smiling in the doorway, as though all explanation were futile. - -"Well, old boy, what is it?" I demanded with mock severity, though in -truth I was more afraid of him than he evidently was of me. - -"Iwantsayprayerstoyoulikeamummy," he uttered in one excited breath, as -though it were one single word. - -"You want what?" - -"He says he wants to say his prayers to you, sir," spoke up the girl -clearly. "I am sorry--he broke away. Shall I take him away, sir?" - -"Wanto say my prayers to you like to mummy," insisted Laura's child, -scrambling upon my knees. And with a pang of sadness that set all my -senses aching I saw the picture of the past--poor Laura with her sweet, -resigned face, living when she lived only in her children, listening to -the prayers of this sprite with the silken sunshine in his hair. - -"All right, Jimmie," I murmured faintly, as he clung to me; "go ahead." - -Tightly clutching me about the neck and nestling his face against mine, -he brought forth with childish throaty sweetness the few words to the -creative Spirit that mankind the world over, in one form or another, -addresses as Our Father. "And God," he concluded with brilliant triumph -in his eyes, "bless Mummy and Uncle Ranny." - -Nothing that I can remember has ever moved me as that child moved me. -Like St. Catherine of Genoa at her decisive confessional I seemed to -receive a profound inner wound by that child's act, tender and bitter -and sweet, that I never desire to heal. For the moment Laura and I were -nearer to being one than ever we had been in her lifetime. Nevermore -shall I forget the sweetness and fragrance of that little child and his -warm nestling faith in me. And I am planning to cast him off. - -"Come, now," interposed Alicia, as though breaking a spell. - -"One more hug," cried Jimmie, with the arrogance of righteousness. And -suiting his action to his words, he clambered down with engaging -clumsiness from my knees and padded toward Alicia. Once more I was -alone with my thoughts. - -Can it be that some instinct in the child whose heart is still imbedded -in his mother's had made him seek the one person who had been nearest -his mother? - -I cannot say, I cannot say. - -Oh, God--and I must send him and the others, Laura's children, away, -away among strangers! - -There seems to be no other way out. - -I have been turning idly the pages of books in a way bookish people -have, seeking for inspiration, for some word of guidance. Brunetto -tells me on the word of St. Bernard, that tarnished gold is better than -shining copper; and that the wild ass brays once every hour and thus -makes an excellent timepiece for his savage neighborhood. But nothing -of this casts a glimmer of light upon my dilemma. Rabelais keeps -shouting from his yellow page, "_fais ce que vondras_." But what is it -that I desire to do? - -Ah, I know what I desire to do! There is counsel in the old books, -after all. - -I will have in the girl Alicia, and see what I can glean. She was -brought up without kith or kin of her own. And though an institution is -more of a machine than a good school, still those who had the rearing of -her were total strangers. There might be some gleam of suggestion in -that. - - -Alicia has been here. - -"Come, child, sit down," I invited her, observing that she still -displayed a tendency to stand in awe of me. "I wish to ask you some -questions." But her tense little face was still haunted by a vague -fear. "It's about the children," I added, and she seemed somewhat more -at ease on the edge of her chair. - -"How long were you at that Home--in Sullivan County?" I began, grinning -by way of ingratiating myself. - -"Ever since I can remember, sir," she answered. - -"Were they kind to you?" - -"Oh, yes, sir." - -"How kind?--What did they do for you?" - -"They gave us food and--and medicine when we were sick. And on -Christmas we had a tree. Only nobody ever came to see me. I always -looked out of the window for somebody to come. But no one came." - -"Yes, yes, I know," I pursued. "But did they show you -affection--sympathy?" - -Alicia was silent. - -"Don't you know what I mean?" I pressed. - -"Yes, sir, I think I do." - -"Then why don't you answer?" - -"I--it's hard to explain," and she laughed a frightened little laugh. -"There is no one there to--to do those things you said. There were five -hundred of us there. If you're not sick you just go on like all the -rest. If you're sick they give you oil or something. Sometimes a child -pretends it's sick just so the matron or a nurse might take it in her -lap and make a fuss over it. And some are naughty--for the same reason." - -I nodded gravely, but my heart was gripped by a poignant aching. I saw -Laura's children compelled to feign illness or delinquency in order to -receive a touch of individual attention which, I suppose, every child -spontaneously craves. - -"Were you glad to leave there?" I asked. - -"Oh, yes, sir!" she answered eagerly. - -"Tragic, my poor sister dying," I said, half to myself. "She was an -ideal mother. Now--I hardly know what to do." - -Alicia leaped from her chair and came yearning toward me. Her little -face tremulous and working, she cried out: - -"Oh, Mr. Byrd, you won't send us away--to a Home--will you?" - -"No, no!--Not to a Home," I replied defensively. "But schools--there -must be good places for children--" - -"They'd feel terribly," she stifled a sob. "They love it so here--Even -here Laura cries for her mother every night--and little Jimmie--" - -"Never mind," I took her up hastily, "nothing is decided yet, my dear -child. I'm glad I spoke to you. You see," I ran on, "there's so little -room here, and I--I know nothing about children--" - -"But there's nothing to do," she protested, sobbing. - -"Nothing?" I smiled vaguely in an effort to cheer her and laid my hand -upon her thin shoulder. - -"Nothing except just love them," she said. "I'll take care of them--all -I can." How simple! - -"Well, well, we shall see," I aimed to be reassuring. - -"Do I have to go--back to the Home?" she asked brokenly, with an arm -hiding her face. - -"Oh, no, certainly not," I answered hastily. "We'll find a better way -than that. Now," I added, "be a good girl, dry your eyes; run along and -don't say a word about--our conversation." - -"No, sir," she murmured obediently. And still gulping, she left me. - -It is obvious that the girl Alicia has been of decisive help to me! - -Yet it is equally obvious that I cannot keep the children here. - - -Dibdin has been here and he has left me in a state of distraction, worse -if possible than that I had been in before. - -The good fellow endeavored to be vastly and solidly cheering. - -"All nonsense," he growled, "about children being hostages to fortune. -They are the only contribution a human being really makes to the world. -All the digging that burrowing animals such as I do in the four corners -of the earth, all the fuss that fellows in laboratories make over test -tubes and microscopes and metals and germs, all the stuff that people -sat up nights to put into those damned books of yours--all of that is -done for them--for the next generation and the generations they will -beget." - -"Eloquent!" I flippantly mocked him; "but how is it you've elected to be -what you call a tramp?" - -"Elected?" he grunted disdainfully. "I didn't elect. It elected me. -Besides," he continued, lowering his voice, "I would have given it up -like a shot--given up anything, changed my life inside out, done -anything if I had been able to marry the one woman I wanted. I'm one of -those strange beasts for whom there is only one woman in the world--no -other: - - 'If heaven would make me such another world - Of one entire and perfect chrysolite, - I'd not have sold her for it,' - -he quoted, and added with a hoarse laugh, "you ought to know your -Othello." - -"Then why on earth didn't you marry her?" I could not help marveling. - -"Too late," he murmured, with a whimsical smiling twitch to his head, -that is very engaging. "She was already married to somebody else when I -first saw her. Too late," he repeated with ruminative sadness. "But -don't let us talk about that," he broke off abruptly. "Have the kids -begun to go to school yet?" - -"What is the use?" I answered him gloomily. "I haven't formed any plans -for them yet." - -"Plans? What do you mean?" he inquired, puzzled. Like the girl Alicia -he seemed to think there was nothing to do that required any thought. -And I wondered if the simple souls in life are only the improvident or -the very young. - -"Do you see this place," I demanded irritably, "as a home for a family -with three children, to say nothing of a fourth in attendance upon -them?" - -"Have to have a larger place--farther out--of course," he answered -glibly, puffing at his pipe. - -"And am I a person to take care of and bring up three or four children?" - -"Why the devil not?" he demanded. - -"Why the devil yes?" I retorted fiercely. "What do I know about -children? What experience have I had? Do you see me as a wet nurse to -a lot of babies?" - -"Wet nurse be hanged," he responded gruffly. "Here's your first chance -to be of use in the world and--you talk like that--" - -"Easy to talk," ruefully from me. - -"Well, what the blazes do you mean to do?" - -"That is what I am trying to work out," I fell upon him bitterly. -"D'you think it's easy? I've got to work out some plan--find homes for -them--the right kind of schools--with a home environment. Oh, it's -easy, I assure you! Besides," I ran on savagely, "you seem to forget -I'm to be married in two weeks." - -"I did forget that," growled Dibdin, with a semblance of contrition. -"What does the lady say?" - -"Well, what should she say? Could you expect a girl on her wedding day -to become the harassed mother of three children not her own?" - -Dibdin jumped from his chair, ground an oath between his teeth and his -forehead was a file of wrinkles. - -"Listen, Randolph," he began in another voice. "It's damnably tough, -and I know it. But you can't, you simply can't disperse your sister's -children to God knows where. You are the only relation they've got. -Put yourself in their place. It would be damnation. If you need--more -money," he stammered in confusion, "why, dash it--I'm an old enough -friend of yours to--to advance you some, eh?" - -And he laughed raucously, wiping the perspiration from his forehead. - -"You are a good sort--of tramp," I grinned sheepishly, seizing his hand. -"But it isn't that. I don't know as yet what Laura left them. But it -isn't that. I feel like--like hell about it--but what can I do--what -with Gertrude and--and everything else. Oh, it's the easiest thing in -the world, I assure you.--But I wish to God I could see my way to -keeping them!" - -"Easy or not," said Dibdin huskily, "if you send those children away, -I'll break every bone in your body." - -I laughed almost hysterically. I know Dibdin. When he is most moved -and most sympathetic, he is at his most violent. - -"Don't go," I clung to him as with sunken head he shouldered toward the -door. - -"Must," he growled. "I've got to think, too." - -"I wish you had married, Dibdin, and had children of your own," I all -but whispered with my hand on his shoulder. "And I'm sorry for the -woman. You're a good devil, Dibdin. I wish I knew who the woman is." - -"I'll tell you," murmured Dibdin, with a queer throatiness of tone. -"I'll tell you who she was. It can't matter now. She was--No, by God! -I can't--not now!" - -And he shuffled out, leaving me gazing after him speechless and -open-mouthed. - - - - - *CHAPTER V* - - -The girl Alicia keeps watching me like some bewildered household animal -dimly aware of the breaking up of its household. Always I am conscious -of her great eyes upon me. To her, I presume, I am a Setebos who can -inflict pain and torture, like Death himself; who can disrupt her little -world of clinging affections by the merest movement of my hand. - -I am in that process of turning things over to which Gertrude has -indulgently consigned me and I am if anything farther away from a -decision than I was twenty-four hours ago. I finger my books and open -at random a volume of Florio's "Montaigne" in an edition that is as -fragrant of good ink and paper as the Tudor English is rich, and the -first line that falls under my eye is that of Seneca, "_He that lives -not somewhat to others, liveth little to himself._" Does this mean that -my long absorption in my own small concerns has made me incapable of -decision in anything of importance--that I live too little? - -I stole into the bedroom last night where the children were sleeping, -while Griselda was making up my couch in the study. - -With their flushed faces they lay there almost visibly glowing before my -eyes with that perfect faith that children seem to have in the grown-up -world about them. Heine somewhere speaks of angels guarding the child's -couch, and it is not sheer poetry. Their faith and trust, still -illusioned, brevets, I suppose, to angelic rank every one about them. -Randolph, with a slight frown and moving lips, dreaming seemingly of -something active and strenuous, as befits his ripe age of eleven; Laura, -serene with her mother's countenance and straying curls, and little -Jimmie with his tumbled hair like that of some child by Praxiteles or -Phidias--they slept--secure in their trust, despite their recent -shattering bereavement. - -No one can really know anything about children until he has seen them -sleeping. Like fortune, they are always trustfully in the lap of the -gods. Never before had they touched me as they seemed to touch the -hidden springs in me at that moment. It was so, I pictured, that Laura -was wont to steal into their dormitory of nights before going to bed; -and that vision, no doubt, was a potent help to her courage to continue -uncomplainingly and brave in the face of sorrow, humiliation and her -self-effacing loneliness. Would I had been able to picture such things -more clearly while she was living. - -Griselda surprised me emerging from the room and she smiled, the -austere, inscrutable Griselda, with such a smile as Michelangelo might -have depicted on the face of one of his Sistine Sybils, those weird -sisters who seem to know all things because they have suffered all. - -I muttered a casual good night to Griselda and brushed by her -nonchalantly, as a boy whistles with apparent carelessness when he feels -most awkward or uneasy. - -I slept upon my problem in the way old wives advise you, but to-day I am -no nearer the solution. - -I keep trying coolly to imagine them in appropriately chosen schools and -homes, and yet some tugging at my heart strings, some strange alchemy of -the brain, wipes out those images before they are formed and replaces -them with the vision I saw last night in my invaded bedroom. - -Who is to help me make a choice? And before I have put down these words -I realize that no one will help me. My dining room is at this moment -vocal with their laughter--but something within me is more loudly -clamorous yet against the treachery I am planning them. Treachery! That -is nonsense, of course. I have a perfect right to decide what I choose. -But already that word keeps recurring in my brain whenever I envisage -their dispersal. - - -My decision is taken. - -I can hardly say who made it. In reality, I suppose it has made itself. -But however it came about, there--heaven help me!--it is. - -Gertrude telephoned that she was coming this afternoon. I offered to go -to her, but she would drop in, she graciously insisted, now that I was a -family man, after lunching with a friend at the Brevoort. - -Gertrude's entry is always breezy and cheerful. - -"Hello, Ranny," she murmured lightly, sinking on the sofa and holding -out both hands. I took them, kissed them and held them in mine. I was -well aware that for her these were days of tension. - -"That's nice," said Gertrude with a laugh. "But what I want is a -cigarette, a match and an ash tray." - -"Of course, how stupid of me!" I mumbled and supplied her with her -wants. - -"Those books, Ranny," she puffed, scanning my laden shelves, "they -terrify me afresh every time I see them--when I think you've read them -all." - -"They needn't alarm you," I deprecated quite sincerely. "The more I read -them the less I seem to know--as you will agree." And I sat facing her. - -"No room for the brains to turn round in?" she laughed. "Oh, come, dear -boy, it's not so bad as that. I really think," she added more soberly, -"you have a very wise old bean on your shoulders." - -"What sudden and startling discovery leads you to words so rash?" I -inquired. - -"I've made the discovery all right," she nodded with emphasis. "Anybody -who can handle a situation like this the way you're handling it is no -piker." - -Gertrude often affects the slang of the day as a humorous protest -against what she terms my purism. But the truth is, I like the -vernacular myself. - -"Impart it," I urged her, whereat she smiled. - -"Regular street Arab you are," she declared with arch satire, "but what -I mean is this. I am always one for quick action--and I don't know much -about children. I urged you to send them away at once. But I realize -now that so soon after poor Laura's passing away that would have been -cruel--and it wouldn't have looked well, besides. Now I see it more -your way, Ranny." - -"You do!" I could not help exclaiming. - -"Yes," she continued firmly. "I see your way is best. I see that we can -be quietly married and have our little trip just the same. Then, when -we come back, in the natural course of events and rearrangement, we can -look up places for them and settle it all right as rain. That's what -you had in your clever old head, Ranny, I'm quite sure--and I admire you -for it." - -"I see," I gasped, wondering what words or acts of mine had conveyed -this elaborate strategy to Gertrude. For the space of a minute perhaps I -was sunk in thought. The vision of the children asleep in their innocent -faith in me suddenly arose vividly and smote me to the heart. The -nestling image of Jimmie--the girl Alicia with her great, wistful eyes -telling me that there was nothing to do "but just love them"--all this -was throbbing in my brain with every heartbeat. And had I in reality -schemed out the intricate design with which Gertrude now credited me? -By no cudgeling of my poor brains could I recall any such devising. It -was impossible. It was new to me. Then something in me that is either -better or worse than myself took the reins of the occasion and, like the -auditor of another's speech, I heard myself saying with solemn firmness: - -"No, Gertrude--you must have mistaken me. I had no such plan. We shall -be married, of course, but our marriage can make no difference. I -cannot turn these children, Laura's children, out of the house. Not -now, at all events, not until they're older. They have no one in the -world but me and I mean to keep them." - -"Mean to keep them! You mean that?" she gasped. And it pained me to be -the cause of a deep flush on Gertrude's face and neck. - -"I've never meant anything more certainly in my life," I told her. - -"Then we can't marry," said Gertrude in a low tone, still scrutinizing -me as though she were wondering whether she had ever met me before. - -"Why not?" I cried. "Why should they make so great a difference? In -any case, didn't you have an idea that we would each keep our separate -flats?" - -"Don't talk rot," flared Gertrude in an exasperation which I still -deplore, for the steely glitter in her eyes was not pleasant. "I am not -going to make myself ridiculous by marrying a houseful of kids for whom -my husband is the nurse. Do you really stick to that, Ranny?" - -"Yes, Gertrude," I nodded. "I must." - -Gertrude gazed at me searchingly for a moment, then to my amazement she -laughed in my face, a trifle louder than her wont. Laughter was at that -instant far from my thoughts. - -"Oh, well," she resumed her earlier lightness of tone, "then we'll -simply postpone our marriage a while. You'll get tired of this maternity -game, Ranny, depend on it. We've postponed it three years--a few months -more can't make much difference, can it?" - -Then she approached me and took my hand. - -"Little boy's tender conscience must be given its fling, mustn't it?" -she began mockingly, in imitation of a child's speech, in which she does -not excel. "Never mind, give its little whim its head." - -A remarkable woman, is Gertrude. - -"Perhaps it's only proper," she concluded more seriously, "that we -should postpone it, since you are just now in mourning." - -"Nonsense," I answered her. "Laura would certainly never have desired -any such thing. Our marriage will not be a thing of pomp and orange -blossoms. We could just as well get married now as any other time." - -"No, Ranny," she replied decisively. "Now it's my turn to be firm. I -think I am right." - -I should honestly have preferred, in spite of the conditions that -surrounded me, to have married Gertrude then and there without further -delay. We are neither of us young things full of ineffable inanities on -the subject of romance and I experienced a sober desire for all possible -finality in the midst of the jumbled and painful confusion into which -Fate had seen fit to cast me. But Gertrude was obdurate. - -Just as she was about to go there was a gentle tap on the door. -Gertrude, whose hand was already on the knob, opened it. It was the -girl Alicia. - -With a downward quizzical glance Gertrude fixed the girl so that for a -moment she stood fascinated, unable to detach her eyes from Gertrude's. -She turned them in my direction finally and they were troubled and -imploring. - -"Please, Mr. Byrd," she said, "the children want to go for a walk now, -instead of lessons. The sun is out. Can I take them?" - -"Yes, yes," I said hastily. "By all means." - -"Wait a minute," commanded Gertrude, smiling mechanically. "What is -your name, child?" - -"Alicia, ma'am." - -"Alicia what?" - -"Alicia Palmer," and the child's voice was tremulous with trepidation. - -"And do you give the children lessons?" - -"Yes, ma'am," she answered, lowering her eyes as though a crime had -found her out. - -"And how old are you?" asked Gertrude not unkindly. - -"Going on fourteen, ma'am." The girl looked up at once, responsive to -the gentler tone. But wishing to relieve her of the interrogatory, I -lamely put in a word urging that she take the children out at once -before the sun had disappeared. The girl glided away like a shadow. - -"Why, she's quite attractive--the little thing," murmured Gertrude. -"You'll have quite a menagerie." Then, laughingly turning to me, she -cried, "Oh, Ranny, Efficiency ought to be your middle name." - -"Perhaps I'd better adopt it?" I murmured. - -"Do," said Gertrude. "Well, so long, old boy, I must be running." And -in her haste she even forgot to let me kiss her good-by. - -So after all the alderman at the City Hall was not to sing his song over -us yet. For no reason that I can help I seem to be in disgrace with -fortune, Gertrude and aldermen's eyes. - -A nameless melancholy, a kind of humorous sadness, has taken possession -of me. - -It is not my lost tranquillity that I regret now, nor does Gertrude's -taunt of inefficiency disturb me. But at bottom I have always realized -the type of man that I am not. The type of man who stands four-square -in face of all the shocks and emergencies of life, who can meet all -changes and events with equal courage, who can take any situation -smilingly by the hand as though he were its indisputable and indulgent -master, that is the sort of man I should wish to be. But all my own -defects clamorously accuse me of embodying the exact opposite of such an -ideal. I have shrunk away from life until it fits me like a coarse -ill-cut garment rather than a glove. It takes a vast deal of living to -be alive, and the dread obsession haunts me that I have become as one -mummified in this dim catacomb of books. - - -I have been to Carmichael's office at his request and the blow that he -has dealt me is heavier than any since Laura's death. - -Laura, it appears, in her desperate desire to increase her income, had -been speculating in the lying promises of oil and mining stocks which -offered fabulous returns. One after another her substantial railway and -steel bonds went to her brokers for "margins" and some were sold for -current livelihood. No wonder she was compelled to resort to an -orphanage for a "mother's helper", who is herself a child. The result -is that something less than two thousand dollars of Laura's capital -remains for her three motherless and fatherless children, the oldest of -whom is eleven. - -I have no doubt but that her tortured and silent anxiety on this score -hastened my poor sister's death. Carmichael himself, her lawyer and -adviser, was ignorant of her acts until it was too late. The dread -goddess Fortune plainly does nothing by halves. If it were not for my -grief over the suffering that poor Laura must have endured so -uncomplainingly, I should be moved to uproarious laughter. Job, I feel -sure, must have had his moments when the comforters were not there, when -he laughed until the tears bedewed his dejected old beard. - -And I, incompetent recluse that I am, have undertaken the care and the -rearing of three children! I should at least admire the completeness -with which Fate plays her hands or produces her situations, were I not -at this moment utterly and stonily impervious to all thought and all -emotion--unless an inert and deadly sense of disaster be an emotion. - - -No, that was not enough. What a glutton is that same Fate! Dibdin has -been here to say a hasty good-by. - -He has heard of a ship that sails from San Francisco in a week and that -will touch at his particular group of islands, so that he will not have -to trans-ship at Papeete, as had been his earlier plan. I have never -before in my life felt so utterly alone! - -He laughed a curious laugh, that seemed foolish yet exulting, when I -told him I had decided to keep the children. His eyes glittered and he -turned away for an instant to hide them. - -"Look here," he muttered hoarsely, with the assumption of his most -matter-of-fact manner, "let me advance you a thousand dollars or so--in -case you should have a use for it. Be an investment for me," he added, -with a short laugh. "What use is it to me in the Marquesas or Solomon -Islands, eh?" - -"No, thanks, Dibdin," I told him. "I can mention one or two good banks -on the Island of Manhattan--if you don't know of any." - -"Don't be an ass, Randolph," he came back with severity. "I'll write -you a cheque." - -"No, you won't," I replied with equal obstinacy. "I won't take it. If -I need it, I'll cable you." - -"Devil you will," he growled irritably. "Cables don't run where I'll -be. You're an ass, after all." - -"Thanks. Would you like to see the children before you go?" - -"H'm, yes," he answered meditatively. "No, by gosh!" he added in sudden -confusion. "No, I can't. Got to run. Slews of things still to do." - -Inscrutable devil, Dibdin! Who would have supposed him such a bundle of -oddly-assorted emotions? - -"By the way," he said abruptly, as he was starting, "Carmichael--heard -from him--everything all right?" - -Inwardly I felt a tug as though some one had pulled violently upon some -cord inside me. - -"Oh, yes," I lied as urbanely as I was able, "everything quite all -right. You'll keep me in addresses, I suppose?" - -He scrutinized me for an instant so searchingly that with a tremor I -feared he would see through me. - -"Oh, yes, of course," he finally answered. "The Hotel de France, -Papeete, is a good address until you hear of another. They know me -there." - -"Good," I tapped him on the back. "Write a fellow a word whenever you -can. Pretty lonely here after you're gone." - -"Lonely!" he repeated. "And you--oh, by George, and I'd almost -forgotten--and you to be married in a few days--lonely!" - -"That's--off," I faltered--"for the present." - -"Off!" he exclaimed aghast. "Did she break it off?" - -"Put it off," I corrected. - -"When you told her of keeping the kids?" - -I nodded my head slowly, watching the odd play of his features. - -He opened his arms quickly as though he were about to hug me like some -grizzly old bear--then as quickly he dropped them, shamefaced. - -"By God!" he uttered solemnly. "This--this gets me--the way things came -about. You--you are a man, Randolph, my lad. Courage--that wins -everything in the end. Even when it loses, it wins. Yes, sir." - -I have not the remotest idea what he meant by those words. - -"Broken up about it?" he demanded abruptly. - -What my gesture proclaimed to Dibdin I don't know. For me it expressed -all that I had passed through during the last ten days. - -"No, you're right. No use," he said, clapping me on the shoulder. "Sit -tight, my boy. Courage--the only thing! Now, good-by," he wrung my -hand, "and God bless you." - -"Same to you, old boy, and best of luck." - -And now the only intimate friend I possess has gone and left a hole in -the atmosphere as large as Central Park. - - - - - *CHAPTER VI* - - -An odd look of overt approval I have surprised of late in Griselda's -eyes causes me a peculiar twinge of regret. It shows that new -conditions have overwhelmingly ousted the old. Griselda never troubled -to approve of me before. I have no desire for any change in Griselda, -even for the better. - -I have been successful, however, I am bound to record. I have found an -outdoor school for Ranny and Laura in Macdougal Street near Washington -Square, and a nearby kindergarten for Jimmie. The girl Alicia is able -to take Ranny and Laura to Macdougal Street on the way to her own public -school. Jimmie, who does not go until later in the morning, is a -problem. Thus far I have been conducting him to his kindergarten -myself. But obviously that cannot continue, despite the fact that -Jimmie, seeing his elder brother depart with two girls, turns to me with -a look of inimitable superiority and observes: - -"We men must stick together, mustn't we, Uncle Ranny." - -I gravely agree with him on the general policy, though I aim to -forestall future trouble by indicating that expediency often governs -these things. - -The term bills paid in advance to the schools have left a gap in my -exchequer. For the first time I have been compelled to decline a -genuine bargain. Andrews, the bookseller, called me up with the -announcement that he had something I could not resist. Laughing, I -asked him to name it. - -"It is nothing less than Boswell's 'Johnson'," he told me with -particular solemnity, "first edition, with the misprint on page 135--a -beautiful copy." - -"Dated April 10, 1791?" - -"Dated April 10, 1791," he repeated with impressive triumph. My heart -sank, though it was beating loudly. For many years I have had an order -for that Boswell. - -"And the price?" I murmured faintly. - -"For you," he said, "four hundred dollars." - -Griselda would approve of me blatantly did she know the courage it -required to answer Andrews. - -"No, friend, I am sorry but I cannot afford it at present." - -Andrews was incredulous. "Do I hear you correctly?" he queried. - -"Accurately," I told him, "if you hear that I can't take it." - -"Then I refuse to accept the evidence of my ears," he retorted with -spirit. "I shall send it down to you." I told him it was useless. -"Oh, you needn't buy it," he shouted. "But I insist on giving an old -customer the pleasure of seeing it at his leisure, in his own library." - -A shrewd, good devil is Andrews, even though he is a good salesman. I -have been feasting my senses on the Boswell, but it will have to go -back. - -Dibdin's going so abruptly has left me very heavy at times upon my own -hands. He had a way of dropping in unannounced when you least expected -him, so that I came to count upon him at unexpected moments. There is -no one to take his place. Now on clear evenings I ramble aimlessly -northward and often turn in at the club, though so little have I been a -frequenter of it I hardly know a soul in the place. Last night I ran -into my classmate, Fred Salmon, for the first time in months. - -Fred is, I should say, my exact antithesis. He is full of laughter and -noise and exuberance. Riches are his goal in life, and if he expended -one half the vitality on the acquisition of riches that he devotes to -the collection of humorous anecdotes, he would be a wealthy man to-day. - -"Hello, Ranny," he shouted when he saw me, "you're just in time to join -me in a little refreshment. What you doing now?" Luckily he seldom -waits for an answer. With trained rapidity he gave his order to a -waiter and continued, "Come across any rare editions lately, any fine -copies, such as 'Skeezicks' or 'Toodlums' by Gazook?" - -"No," I told him, "my collection is lacking in those masterpieces." - -"Tell you what you ought to be, Ranny," he boomed, as the waiter put -down the glasses. "You ought to be (here's how!)--a bond salesman!" he -decided after a pause and gulped down his liquor;--"or else a dog -fancier." - -"Why those exalted callings?" I asked with only the mildest curiosity. - -"You are such a simp and you look so damn honest," he elucidated, "that -anybody would believe anything you say." - -"Then will you believe me if I say I don't want to be either of those -things--or anything else?" - -"Oh, sure!" he responded heartily. "I know that all right. You haven't -got anything on me. I'd rather own a few good horses and follow the -races round the tracks of the world, if I had my choice. Instead of -which I've got to separate the world from enough dollars to keep me -going. If ever you get hard up, Ran," he concluded reflectively, "let -me know. I'll set you up in the right game. Never make a mistake. I -took a course in character reading for five dollars--by -correspondence--that's how I know so much." - -Dollars! Dollars! Dollars! Must every one then become merely a -dollar-amassing machine? I remember Fred in college, ruddy with the -freshness of youth, when he was making jokes for the _Lampoon_ and, so -abundant was his energy, everybody expected him to do Great Things. And -now he can talk of nothing but dollars--and he doesn't seem to be -oversupplied with those. I am nothing myself, but at least no one -expected anything of me. - -Fred proposed that we play a game of poker, bridge, checkers or -cribbage. But as none of those manly sports tempted me at the moment we -parted and he cordially informed me that he would look me up one day. - -Nevertheless, with all his noise and emptiness, Fred was glowing, or -seemed to be glowing to me. His ideas are puerile. His talk is cast in -one mold, upon one design, that of evoking laughter. But he is alive. -He is not apathetic. That is what I deplore in myself, the apathy that -has saturated me after the recent events, that are like a dark liquid -which has entered my mind at one point and then by natural action -unchecked has stained every fiber of my being. It is not thus I shall -acquit myself of the task I have assumed. I must become alive! - -The children, I am beginning to think, are the only creatures really -alive in this world. They don't hanker after musty-smelling first -editions, after knowledge of bygone old worthies like Ser Brunetto some -seven centuries dead, nor yet after the eternal conversion of life into -dollars. - -To-day I witnessed a curious excrescence of their bubbling imaginations. -My door standing open, I was able to observe a ceremony that transformed -my dining room into a church and the four infants with solemn faces into -the vivid celebrants of the sacrament of marriage. They are evidently -ignorant of the "alderman" method. To the delight of Jimmie and Laura, -Ranny, my oldest nephew, with hieratic pomp, was being married to the -girl Alicia. Even she knew better than to laugh as the boy was slipping -a ring upon her finger, murmuring some gibberish which he had either -learned or invented, and endowing her with all his worldly goods. The -goods consisted first of all in the number of a hundred kisses, which -the boy proceeded to administer with savage realism to the crowing -delight of Jimmie and the uncontrollable giggling of Laura. This part -of the endowment being finally completed, he brought forth from his -pocket a small toy pistol and gravely placed it in her hand. I nearly -jumped from my chair when I saw that. A pistol of all things! What -could have made the little apes think of that? What a text for a cynic! -Perhaps every bride ought to receive a pistol as part of her wedding -dower? They then proceeded merrily to eat bits of cake and to laugh and -chatter like any other wedding guests. I closed my door softly and for -a space I was lost in reflection. For it suddenly came to me that to -approach life with anything less than the playful zest of children was a -grim, a fatal error. - -It was odd that Gertrude should have chosen that hour to evince the only -sign since her decision that she had any memory of me. When she came -in, preceded by the knock and laconic announcement of Griselda, the -first words she spoke were: - -"Well, Ranny, and how is domesticity?" - -"Highly educative," I told her, as I ministered to her usual wants. "I -have just learned the proper way of marrying a woman." - -"Indeed?" murmured Gertrude, somewhat sourly, I thought, "and how is -that?" - -"It's not the alderman that is important," I informed her. "It's done -with a hundred kisses and a pistol." In reply to her look of -incomprehension, I described to her the episode of the dining room. To -my surprise Gertrude could see no humor in that. - -"What a child you are, Ranny," she shook her head sadly. "And I thought -that with all your faults you were a serious person." - -"That must have been your fundamental mistake about me," I answered -somewhat sheepishly and yet nettled. "I fear I am not half as serious -as the children are." - -"No," said Gertrude. Then after a brief pause, - -"Have you decided yet that the children ought to be sent away to -schools?" - -"Why, no, Gertrude! Such a thing has not entered my head since--since -we talked of it," I told her. - -"Ranny," she solemnly leaned forward, "I think I know what's troubling -you. You needn't be so foolishly proud with me. It's a question of -money, I take it. Well, I'm ready to help out with their bills. I know -these things are expensive. I am willing to set aside part of my income -for their bills. We could arrange that part of it somehow. Why, you -foolish boy, won't you take me into your confidence?" - -"It isn't that--at all," I stammered. "Why won't you understand--it's -the children themselves. How can I throw them over?" - -"You don't think you're doing anything for them here--you and this -foundling-asylum girl, who comes from goodness knows what parents? -Better let me manage this--" - -Curiously, I felt offended at her speaking thus of the girl Alicia who -seems as integrally a part of my charge and household as any of the -rest. - -"It's very good of you, Gertrude," I muttered, "to offer so much. But -to take money from you for my sister's children is--out of the -question." This put her more than ever out of temper. - -"I never knew any one quite so idiotic," she retorted caustically. "You -can do nothing yourself and you won't let anybody who can, help you." -And after smoking in silence for a few minutes, Gertrude turned from me -in disgust. Very smartly dressed she was, too, with a most becoming -winter hat and handsome furs. I should like to please Gertrude. But -she seems unable to grasp my point of view, namely, that touching those -children I feel my responsibility to be personal. - -"If only some one nearer to them than myself turned up," I murmured -abjectly, "you'd see me bundling them out so quick it would make their -little heads buzz." - -"Nearer," she repeated vaguely, "when you know there is no such person." - -"Their father, for instance," I explained. "I have no reason to think -him dead. Laura had always felt certain he was alive. There are all -sorts of explanations possible for his absence. He may come back, you -know." - -Gertrude laughed at me bitterly. - -"The only likely explanation," she retorted, "is that he was tired of -his wife and children. He is probably having a good time somewhere with -some one who knows how to hold him." - -That was a phrase that stung me. Why must she slur my poor sister now -in her grave? I bowed my head but I could not reply even though I admit -to a feeling of gloomy certainty that Jim Pendleton will never return. - -"Good-by," said Gertrude, smiling grimly at me. - -"Au revoir," I answered, letting her out. But she paid no further heed -to me. - -Why I should vent my undeniable irritation upon Alicia I do not know. -But I called her into my study as soon as Gertrude had gone and she -entered smiling brightly. The child, I believe, looks considerably -happier than she did when first she came here and her eyes are less -wistful. I was conscious of the sternness of a hanging judge upon my -visage. But Alicia ignored my mood. Possibly she has found me out and -knows that I am least to be feared when in appearance most despotic. - -"Alicia," I began severely, "how are the children getting on? Are they -all right?" (What an imbecile query!) - -"Oh, yes, sir," she wonderingly answered. - -"I mean--are they happy here?" I scowled at her. - -"Yes, sir--they think it's lovely." - -"Are they--are they afraid of me?" I demanded austerely, looking grimly -at my finger nails. - -"No-o, sir," she stammered, "they--they are not." - -I was terrifying the child, I realized with a pang. But when I looked -up suddenly the little vixen seemed to be struggling with -laughter--though that can hardly be. She had the manners to turn away. -An attaching little baggage is this child, but I'll have no nonsense. - -"And you--" I pulled her up sharply, too sharply perhaps, whereat I -grinned in mitigation-- - -"Do you feel competent to go on taking care of them?" - -"Oh," she gasped--no suspicion of laughter now--"I just love it--Oh, -you're not thinking of--of sending me away, after all, Mr. Byrd?" - -There was a catch in the poor girl's voice and I felt stupid and brutal. - -"No--no," I growled judicially. "Not at all. I merely wanted to make -sure that there is no trouble of any sort. I suggest that you report to -me every day or two upon anything that occurs to you--that you think I -ought to know." - -"Yes, sir," she faltered, "I will, sir." - -"Have they clothes and shoes and things--warm enough for this weather?" - -"Oh, yes, sir--heaps," she answered, smiling again. - -"And you, have you everything you need?" - -"Why, yes, sir--I think I have." Her shoes seemed thin and worn. I was -in no mood to be superficial or evasive. - -"Are those the best shoes you have?" - -"Yes, sir," she answered faintly. Her calico frock also seemed -extremely thin. - -"That is all," I dismissed her curtly. "Ask Griselda to come to me, -please." - -"Griselda," I began, genial enough to one that is not in awe of me, "I -wish you would look over the girl Alicia's wardrobe and get her whatever -she needs in the way of shoes and things. Would you mind doing that?" - -"Ay, I'll do it, Mr. Randolph. I know some cheap places in Fourteenth -Street--" - -"Heaven forbid, Griselda," I interrupted her. "I won't have that. -There is enough inequality and heart-burning in the world without -putting it among children. No, no. Buy the things where you bought the -others--for Miss Laura's children." - -Griselda laughed hoarsely. - -"You'll not begin ruining the lassie with gaudy clothes!" she exclaimed. - -"No, Griselda, I'll not. Good clothes have never yet ruined anybody," I -gave her as my genuine conviction. "It's the other way about. It's poor -clothes eat at the vitals of your self-respect like the fox in the tale -of the Spartan lad." - -"Have ye gone into the bills for the clothes for the bairns?" she flung -at me. - -"Not yet," I answered mildly. "But I'll make a walking tour through -them one of these days." - -"You'll walk backwards when you do, I'm thinking," flung out Griselda, -and disappeared, muttering. In Griselda's lexicon extravagance is -synonymous with crime and even outtops it. But she is certain to do as -I ask. - - -There was a book auction to-day. And two days having elapsed since my -interview with Gertrude I was sufficiently myself, when I lay down the -paper announcing it, to think of going. The news of an auction still -has the effect upon me that a bugle might exert upon some battered, -superannuated cavalry horse. Despite the rise of the plutocratic -collector, despite the shoals of dealers who have made of book-buying -almost an exact science, I still dream of encountering one day the -fortune of Edward Malone, who, late in the eighteenth century, bought -Shakespeare's sonnets in the edition of 1609 and a first printing of the -"Rape of Lucrece", all for two guineas. - -I had already conducted Jimmie to his kindergarten. On the way, as he -nestled his hand more firmly in mine, he looked up at me with a humorous -smile and informed me that "we men have won'erful times together." It -gave me a curious thrill and I felt grateful even for this companionship -in my solitary life which Gertrude and so many others find foolish and -despicable. - -I was letting myself out at the front door when a plain, large-mouthed -young woman of perhaps thirty, austerely garbed in black, stood facing -me. I remained for a moment bereft of speech and then, of course, I -foolishly apologized, I don't know why--perhaps for encumbering the -earth. - -"You wish to see Griselda?" I mumbled, with my hat in my hand. - -"No," she declared, scrutinizing me in the murky hallway. "I want to -see Mr. Randolph Byrd." - -"I am he," I told her. - -"I should like to talk to you," she said in a low voice. Mentally I -waved a sad farewell to the book auction and to any bargains it might -hold and led the way to my study. - -"I am at your service," I told her, grinning, and all but offered her a -cigarette. - -"It's about the little girl, Alicia Palmer," she began hesitantly as -though she had something dreadful to impart. - -"Are you her teacher?" I wonderingly asked. - -"No, Mr. Byrd, I am from the Home for Dependent Children--I am one of -the inspectors." - -"Ah, I see. You wish to--to inspect her," I blundered on stupidly, -whereat she laughed. - -"No--not exactly," she smiled. "To tell the truth, Mr. Byrd, I wish to -inspect you--" - -"Well, this is all there is of me," I broke in. - -"And I want," she added, "to take her back to the Home." - -"Take her back!" I cried, stung by something in her tone. "But--but -why?" - -"We don't allow our girls to live in the homes of bachelors," she -murmured, lowering her eyes for an instant. - -"Oh!" I gasped feebly. It is my eternal wrongness that seems to be at -the bottom of everything. The picture of the children upon my hands -without the girl Alicia swept me with a chill dismay. - -"It ought to have been reported to us," she said reprovingly. "It -really ought." - -"What ought to have been reported?" I groped in bewilderment. - -"The change--the transfer. We sent Alicia to Mrs. Pendleton," she -explained. "When Mrs. Pendleton--er--died, we ought to have been -notified--so we could look after her." - -"I understand," I murmured weakly. "You see, my sister's death was so -sudden that nobody thought of such things. I didn't even know she had -taken this girl from your Home." - -In my blundering way I then explained to her how the children came here, -of their attachment to Alicia and of my own absurd dependence upon -her--which I abruptly realized. I told her quite truthfully, I believe, -that now the children could not get on without her. And the bitter -thought assailed me that nothing in this world that is pleasant or -fitting or agreeable can long be left unshattered; that everything human -and sweet and tranquil must be by some human hands undone. What a -miserably destructive race we are! - -"Well," I concluded sadly, "I suppose now you'll take her away--and what -I shall do with these three children is beyond me." - -To my surprise, as I looked up, I distinctly saw a tear glisten in her -eye. She looked away. - -"You have a great many books," she observed with nervous irrelevance. - -"The result of a misspent life," I sighed. - -"Well, I don't know what to do or say," she said, rising awkwardly. -"I'd like to see Alicia and--the other children. And I'll have to -report--I shall call up the matron of the Home on the telephone." - -"Won't you do it now?" I eagerly prompted. - -"I'd better see Alicia first, I think--when will she be in?" - -"At lunch time," I said; "won't you stay, or come to lunch?" - -She seemed to recall that this was that obscene environment, the home of -a bachelor. - -"No, thank you," she murmured primly. "I'd better come again in the -afternoon. Would three-thirty do all right?" - -"Admirably," I told her. - -"I'll do the very best I can," she reassured me. - -"That's very good of you," I answered from a grateful heart. - -Farewell, auctions! Farewell, peace! Once again I am in troubled -waters, predestined like a bit of flotsam to bob about only in storm. -Obscurely, deep within me, I long for power to do everything, to arrange -everything, to make my world swing about me rhythmically instead of my -lurching about it drunkenly. Even on this secret page, meant for no -eyes but mine, I would pour out my grief and tragedy, the eternal -underlying sadness of life--and then rise up a man of will and energy to -manage my affairs. Instead, I can only weakly scribble ineptitudes to -while away the time until a poor underpaid girl inspectress returns to -pronounce sentence upon me. Am I, or am I not, to be allowed to live -within hailing of tranquillity? Gertrude, I am wretchedly afraid, was -right after all. What business has a manikin like myself to look with -bold eyes upon duty, or to grapple with responsibility which an ordinary -man would assume as if adding another key to his key-ring--to pocket and -forget? - - -Falstaff could not have been more genial or hilarious than I feel at -this moment, nor yet the ancient Pistol. When I left the dining room a -few minutes ago, my dignity would have suffered permanent eclipse had -the children espied me after I closed my door. I capered about the room -like some rheumatic goat lilting a wild melody _sotto voce_. - -The inspectress has pointed her thumbs upward. I hardly know whether -Alicia, the children or Griselda decided the issue favorably. - -"Do you wish to see Alicia alone?" I asked the inspectress when she -returned. She will never know, that nice plain girl, with what tension -I had awaited her. No lover she may have had has ever kept a tryst for -her more tremulously--or she would not now be Miss Smith. - -"No," was her reply, "she is only a child. I want to see her with the -children." Alicia was already prepared and, I am bound to admit, -partially primed. - -"Here is Miss Smith, come to see you, Alicia," I announced with assumed -lightness, as I ushered the lady in. Oh, it was very distinctly -"ushered." - -"How do you do, Alicia," Miss Smith held out her hand, melting at the -sight of the children in the midst of play. "How are you--well and -happy?" - -"Oh, so happy!" answered Alicia, coming forward with flushed cheeks. "I -am so glad you came." - -"But why didn't you write us, child?" was the gentle remonstrance. - -"I am awfully sorry, Miss Smith," from contrite Alicia. "But the time -passed so quickly--I was just going to--and I had to get new -clothes--and there are so many things to do." - -Miss Smith looked down at Alicia's clothes dubiously. Perhaps she -thought their quality too ruinously good for one of the inmates of her -Home. She then glanced at the silent, wondering children. - -"Hello, Miss Smith!" they cried in broken chorus, catching her eye. It -was she who had originally brought Alicia to them. "You won't take -Alicia away, will you?" Laura spoke up bravely. - -"Why, dear?--Wouldn't you like to have her go away?" she returned, -smiling uncertainly. - -"No! We wouldn't!" replied all the children actually in one voice, with -little Jimmie loudest, whereat we both laughed. - -"Who," demanded Randolph sternly, "will sew our buttons on?" - -"And who'll give me my baf?" cried Jimmie. - -"Or help us with our lessons?" put in Laura. - -"Well, we'll see!" Miss Smith came back brightly. I believe that young -woman is genuinely fond of children. "What are you playing just now?" - -They all began to explain at once. - -"Shall I leave you with them?" I murmured. - -"Yes--I'll stay a minute or two," she nodded--and I tiptoed out to await -doom. - -When I returned a few minutes later, I heard to my surprise Griselda's -voice, just before I opened the door, rising to the full height of her -indignation: - -"If this is no fitting, then nothing is fitting--" whereupon I opened -the door. - -The children had disappeared. Griselda with flashing eyes was literally -towering over poor Miss Smith. Evidently Griselda had been bearing -testimony. Most excellent witness, Griselda! What chance had any Miss -Smith against a rock of sheer personality like Griselda? - -"It's all right," Miss Smith announced, smiling faintly as I entered. -"I called up the matron this noon and she left it in my hands. This is -an exception--the first of its kind in our institution--but I mean to -let Alicia stay. She--she seems so happy here," she added, faltering. - -"That's very gracious of you," I bowed. "I thank you. Shall we--tell -them your decision?" - -Griselda opened the door of the bedroom where they all had been cooped -up like so many frightened little hares, and Randolph, unable to contain -himself, demanded eagerly: - -"Can she stay?" - -"Yes," nodded Miss Smith, and wild shouts must have shattered the nerves -of the other tenants. Jimmie, as a mark of highest favor, ran to Miss -Smith and held forth his arms to be taken up into hers. He could not -bestow a greater confidence. Alicia dabbed some happy tears from her -cheeks. I begged Miss Smith to stay to tea with them, and unobtrusively -escaped. Now my mind is agog with triumphant imaginings. If ever I -become President, Griselda of a certainty shall be my Secretary of -State. - - - - - *CHAPTER VII* - - -Now that the Christmas holidays have passed and I have been casting up -accounts, the uneasy knowledge has come to me that I am no longer living -on my income. The freshet of bills is surging about me yet. Perhaps I -have been improvident, but I have not bought a book in ages. Andrews, -the bookseller, informed me the other day, with an expression more of -sorrow than of anger, that though he couldn't comprehend my -unaccountable refusal of the Boswell, he had not the heart to offer it -to any one else. He was holding it still, he declared, in order to -spare a friend regrets. - -"Sell it, Andrews, for God's sake--sell it," I told him. - -"But you've had your order in for three years," he protested, "and never -canceled it. Now suddenly you refuse it. That must mean something!" - -"It means--I'll tell you what it means, Andrews: I have acquired a young -family." I then briefly explained to him my situation. - -"You don't tell me, Mr. Byrd--you don't tell me!" he repeated over and -over. "Then this is what I do," he announced with a sudden ferocity of -decision. "I hold that work, if I have to hold it for ten years, until -such a time as you feel you can take it. Only I am so short of room -here," he added blandly, "will you not store it for me on your shelves?" - -"Why, you--you Samaritan!" I laughed in my embarrassment, clapping him -on the shoulder. "What are you trying to do--make a bankrupt of me?" - -"If you will include it under your insurance--" he answered--"but never -mind: I'll insure it myself." And then he talked of something else. He -was as good as his word. Before I reached home that Boswell was here -and is now on my shelves. I have been gloating over that epic of -personality and it occurs to me that Johnson and Griselda are kindred of -the spirit. - -Two months! It is incredible. Years must have passed since the -children have come here. My past life seems remote as ancient Egypt. -This morning came a letter from Biagi of the Laurentian, asking why he -did not hear from me, when was I coming to Florence, and adding that at -Oxford also some Brunetto Latini material has been recently unearthed -and that I might stop on the way and examine it. I laughed. Gone are -those days, never, I fear, to return. If only I could smell a good old -parchment once again! I still remember the thrill I felt when Biagi -first showed me the vellum script of Sophocles at the Laurentian. I -could actually see the scribe in the Byzantium of the eleventh century -reverently copying the lofty beautiful words, in a spirit of high -worship, his pale cheeks flushed with his pious task. I _was_ that -scribe! Why, I ask, was that strange and eager feeling implanted in my -particular bosom? Could it be that in some past age, I was myself the -scholarly Greek?--But that is nonsense. - -If only I could pay my bills. Yet I dare not touch the trifle Laura -left to her children. That must remain for emergency. - -And on May first we must change our quarters. The renting agent, a -decent enough little person, was very apologetic. - -"I have kids myself," he informed me deprecatingly, "and I know what it -is. But you understand. A bachelor is one thing and four children is -quite another. Makes a difference." I told him that I was more or less -aware of the difference it made. - -"And these people here, in this here, now, building," he explained, -"they're so nasty nice--they can't stand the sight of a kid, let alone -the sound." I made no comment, for too recently had I been just so -nasty-nice. - -We shall have to seek some pastures new. - - -Fred Salmon, as good as his word, has actually looked me up. - -I don't know why the mere entry of that breezy Mohock into the room -brought my unwilling fatherhood into a relief ten times sharper than I -had felt it before. I suddenly felt myself a gawk and a failure before a -man of the world--even though I did not wholly respect the man of the -world. Once more I was acutely aware of lost freedom. Abstract -Freedom, out of which I had stepped as a man steps from life into death. - -Luckily Fred is not one to beat about the bush. - -"You remember," he began, skillfully rotating the mutilated end of a -cigar between his teeth, "my telling you at the club the kind of -business you'd be suited for?" - -"A bond salesman or a dog fancier," I answered promptly. - -"Have you gone into anything?" - -I replied in the negative. - -"Well, I'm thinking of starting something," he announced solemnly. - -"A dog kennel?" I queried. - -"No--a bond business, Ran." - -"I wish you luck, my boy," I told him. - -"None of that--" he grinned, "I want you to go in with me." - -I gazed at him in speechless astonishment. - -"Have I said a bellyful?" he demanded, removing his vile cigar. - -"A--yes," I gasped, "and more." - -"Ha! That's the way I am," he laughed. "Ideas come to me and I act -upon them." - -"But--what have I done--" I began, stammering, "to deserve this--" - -"You're the man for my money," he erupted boisterously, "I sometimes -make a mistake in picking a horse, but never in picking a man, Ranny, my -boy, never!" - -When Henry the Fowler was tranquilly snaring finches and news was -suddenly brought him that he had been elected Emperor, I doubt whether -he had felt more completely graveled than did I at that moment. But to -be serious with Fred Salmon was just then beyond me. - -"You have come to the right man, this time, Fred," I gave him back a -parody of his own tone, "not a doubt of it!" - -"You bet I have, old Hoss," he cried, "don't I know it?" - -"That is," I went on, "if fitness, training, experience, capacity, -predilection and abundance of capital are factors, you have selected the -one man--" - -"Yah!" broke in Fred, "I know all about that. Don't try the sarcastic -with me, old boy. I know all you can say and a darn sight more. But I -told you it's the cut of your mug I want. What good is the best trained -two-year old if he's a hammer-head? It's with a man as with a horse. -You've got the right look to you--and that's what counts!" - -The mockery of my thanks and all further attempts at clumsy satire were -utterly ignored by Fred. - -"You're comfortably fixed, I know," he said, ruminatively scanning my -books, which curiously suggest wealth to every one. "But dash it all, -man, you must want more money for something or other--more books, maybe. -Everybody wants more something. I know," he ran on, "it isn't every -fellah makes up his mind on the dot the way I do. You've got to turn it -over in your so-called bean, I suppose. All right. But remember--I -don't take no for answer." - -"With that trifling limitation, I assume, I have a wide liberty of -choice?" I ventured. - -"Oh, yes," he grinned. "Outside the fact that you're coming in, you can -go as far as you like. Salmon and Byrd!" he exclaimed suddenly. "How's -that for a firm name? By gosh!--There's genius in it! May have been -that which was driving me to you. I never go wrong. Salmon and -Byrd--Gad! It's so good it scares me!" - -"Salmon and Byrd," I repeated after him mechanically. "The _menu_ -strikes me as incomplete for a _viveur_ like you. Add a little shrimp -salad--or at least an artichoke." - -He grinned but he would none of my flippancy. - -"No, no," he wagged his head. "None of that. Don't spoil a fine thing. -It's--what do they call it--sacrilege. A good firm name--it's half the -battle. By George! This has been a day's work for me. I didn't know -it was going to be so rich. We ought to have a dinner on it at the -Knickerbocker--or Claridge's. What d'you say?" - -In a flash I saw the vista of Fred's life spread out before me--noise -and laughter, ventripotent bouts with costly dishes in expensive places, -tinkling glasses--the world of money-making which consists as much in -riotous expenditure as in half-jocund half-fanatical getting. It was to -this world that Fred was inviting me. - -"There will be supper at six o'clock, if you care to stay," I suggested -mildly. - -"No-no, thanks," said Fred reflectively. "I'd like to. But somehow not -to-night. I couldn't. Better come along with me. And we'll work out -details." - -I resisted his urging, however, and he left me with this Parthian arrow: - -"Think it over as much as you like, Randolph, my boy. But it's a go. -Nothing you can say against it will hold a candle to the reasons in -favor. The firm name alone is worth a hundred thousand dollars. -Consider it settled. Never felt so sure of anything in all my life. So -long, my boy. You'll hear from me." - -He did not even turn his head when he heard my burst of almost -hysterical laughter as he was closing the door. Always heretofore I had -counted myself, how humble and insignificant soever, as of the -priesthood in the temple of fine things. It was abasing to think that -Fred had claimed me for the money-changers. - - -Never again do I wish to experience the martyred minutes of anguish that -I have passed through during the last twenty-four hours. - -For some reason that none can explain Jimmie suddenly came down with a -fever. That bright little whorl of life all at once looked white, -refused his food with the pallid pitiful smile of an octogenarian and, -in a twinkling it seemed, his cheeks were burning, his eyes glittered -dryly and his lips were parched. Called to his bedside, I leaned over -him and the air about me seemed to darken. Laura's child was, I -believed, dangerously ill. The heart within me turned leaden and even -Griselda displayed alarm. Then and there I vowed inwardly that no -strangers should have the care of this child if he recovered, so long as -I could care for him myself. - -The nearest doctor, who occupies a ground-floor apartment below, a brute -of a man of thirty-five or so, elected, when he came up, to look wise -and inscrutable. Calm and grave, he prescribed oil and with a murmured, -"We shall see in the morning" he left me in an agony of doubt and -anxiety. - -The only person who exhibited any degree of calm was Alicia. And though -she is still a child herself I confess to a feeling of resentment -against what seemed to me callousness in the face of our perturbation. -I saw visions of any number of diseases, of being quarantined, of -Jimmie's possible death, of my bearing forevermore a feeling of nameless -guilt before Laura's memory. I told them I should sit up the night. - -"Oh, no, Mr. Byrd," insisted the girl with sudden vehemence. "Don't do -that. I'll make up a place in the dining room and leave the door of -their room open. I'll hear him if he wakes." - -"I'm afraid, Alicia, you don't take this seriously enough," I told her -sternly. She looked at me wistfully for a moment and then faintly -smiled. - -"Yes, sir, I do," she answered. "But it's no use our all wearing -ourselves out at once if it's real sickness. But I don't think it's -anything much." - -"How can you know?" I demanded suspiciously. - -"I just think so," she asserted. "At the Home children were always -coming down like this. The next day they were as well as ever again." - -"But this is not the Home," I retorted severely. The girl flushed. I -saw I had hurt her. - -"But he's a child," she insisted doggedly, in a low voice. I shook my -head. - -"I shall sit up in the study," I told her, "with the door open. I shall -hear him if he calls. You'd better go to bed." - -Her great haunting eyes looked at me for an instant and she left me. In -the study I lighted a fire, drew up the large chair, lighted a cigarette -and in dressing gown and slippers composed myself for the night, -determined to spend it waking. - -In my mind were revolving many things. Fred Salmon's absurd proposal, -the strange trick of circumstances that had suddenly made me responsible -for a houseful of children, the whereabouts of Dibdin, the amazing -multiplicity of bills, the little lad's burning fever. Drowsiness began -to assault my eyelids before the glowing fire. To combat it, I took -down that sonata in words, Conrad's "The Nigger of the Narcissus", and -reread the description of the Cape storm, which is not a description so -much as the expression of the storm itself. As always in reading that -book, I was overawed to the point of pain by what language can do. And -pondering upon that, I allowed myself to doze off for a few seconds. -Suddenly I awoke with a tremor and looked at my watch. To my amazement -it was half-past six in the morning. - -Abjectly guilty, I stole out and tiptoed into the dining room. The -light was burning. I saw three chairs with a crumpled pillow upon them -and Alicia, smiling drowsily, was gliding out of the children's room. - -"How is he now?" I asked in a muffled tone, thinking basely to give her -the idea that I had watched the night through. - -"Sleeping quietly," was the reply. "His fever is mostly gone." - -"That's splendid," I murmured sheepishly. "You are up--er--early, -aren't you?" - -"I just lay here on these chairs," she answered quietly. "I looked in at -Jimmie about every half hour. He had a very good night." With a sharp -pang of annoyance mingled with relief, I felt myself stark and unmasked. -We gazed at each other in silence for a moment, and then I broke into -muffled laughter, in which she softly joined. And though I felt myself a -fool, I vow I could have hugged that child to my heart of hearts for her -sense of humor no less than for her silent unfailing constancy. - - -Like sunlight after storm, Jimmie's recovery is making the apartment -ring again, and when it rings too much I close my door. - -I close my door, but not upon the bills. These keep pouring in with the -insistent buzzing of a swarm of hornets, and every day I see them with a -more helpless dismay. I figure and I add and I calculate, but I seem -unable to subtract. I cannot see how we could do without the things -that are bought. Already my modest current account is near the point of -exhaustion and nothing can possibly come in before April. - -To-day, in my perplexity, I took an elevated train and journeyed -southward into the region of money. What I should do there I hardly -knew, but a nameless inner necessity seemed to be driving me to do -something. I had a vague notion of consulting with Carmichael. But -when I came into lower Broadway and was actually at Carmichael's door, I -fled in disgust with myself for the sufficiently transparent reason that -I really had nothing to say to him. I felt like a debutant pickpocket -who turns back abruptly from the threshold of his calling because he -realizes the absence of a vocation or is overcome by cowardice. - -In the street I looked upon the driving masses of people, swarming, -streaming, with strained faces, urged on by invisible whips of need, of -desire, driven like the souls in Dante's hell by demoniac powers who -ever cry, "Pay your way! pay your way!" They did not hear the cry now, -the continual snapping of the infernal whips, but I heard them and I -quaked inwardly. To myself I fancied the most of these surging figures -upon a level of life that has few problems, that is always "happy" with -the dull unexultant happiness of the slave or the captive, coming -briskly to the office of a morning with a sort of tarnished metallic -gayety, lunching at Childs' or at a counter unprovided with stools, -clinging to a strap in a car jammed with their kind, visiting a -motion-picture "palace" in the evening and living within their incomes -because they must. And though all the rest was abhorrent, that last -detail made me envy them. - -Pay your way! Pay your way! The cry was beating in my pulses as I came -away, droning in the car wheels as I traveled northward, dully insistent -in the very noises of the streets about me. - -Once within my own door the warmth enveloped me like summer air and with -the warmth came the joyous laughter of the children playing in the -dining room. In a bubbling of happy turbulence they came rushing toward -me as I looked in upon them, demanding that I judge between them on the -rules of their game. - -"Just because she's a girl," complained Randolph loudly, indicating -Laura, "she always wants to be queen." - -"It isn't because I'm a girl," broke in Laura, panting. "It's because -it's fair. Boys never want to be fair, Uncle Ranny, that's what's the -matter. He's been king for half an hour and he always wants us to do -impossible things so he can be king forever." - -"And I want to be king, too," loudly proclaimed Jimmie. - -I suppressed the nascent revolt as best I could and soothed the passions -of pretenders. I reminded them that this was a democracy and that -royalty in our land could count only upon a visitor's welcome. - -"Aw, don't I know?" said Randolph fiercely. "I wouldn't be really truly -king for anything." - -It was a pleasure to me to enter from the turmoil of the outer world to -this playing fountain of affectionate young life. Jimmie, Laura, -Randolph, little glimmers of spark-like personality were fitfully -flickering over their childish heads and it was my task to turn them -into steady flames. That was what I owed to my sister Laura and that -was the course upon which I was irrevocably embarked. But now, alone in -my study, I still hear in the hum and rumor of the streets the insistent -imperative cry, Pay your way! Pay your way! - - - - - *CHAPTER VIII* - - -The incredible has happened. No, not the incredible. The incredible is -always happening. It is the impossible that has taken place. - -I, Randolph Byrd, am now a business man--no priest of the temple, but a -brazen money-changer as ever was. - -The hum and the noise and rattle of it are perpetually in my ears like -the whirr of machinery in the brain of the factory hand. I cannot think -or put myself in the moods of thought. The sound of the ticker is -constantly in my head, and my nerves crave movement. - -Fred Salmon has accomplished his will. - -"You must stir it and stump it and blow your own trumpet," is his motto, -and he is teaching me to blow. The firm of Salmon and Byrd is an -actuality and clownishly Fred is making the most of the humor of the -name and doing his best to make me abet him. I say Fred has -accomplished it all. But at the bottom it is Laura's children who are -innocently the primal cause of my debacle. - -"D'you know what you are?" Fred shot at me to-day in a flash of -inspiration--he is dowered with a fecundity of flashes these days. "You -are the original Old Man Who Lived in a Shoe! It's the kids that made -you get into the game. Gosh! I wish we could get that fact on our -letterhead!" - -With Fred to think of an idiotic notion is to utter and commit it. And -I live in constant dread lest some of our customers and clients, a -sporadic body as yet, should inquire as to the children with which I -know not what to do. Fred is an Elizabethan. In the spacious days he -would have ruffed and strutted and wenched and taken chances with -careless slashing humor among the best or the worst of them. He is a -buccaneer who can throw the dice with jovial laughter when things loom -blackest under the very guns of disaster. He is an enigma. He is, in -short, my exact opposite. - -Yet he has made me his partner and accomplice. I used to think myself -adamant, but in his hands I am clay. - -It is now late in March. The cold blasts are often succeeded by genial -days of brilliant sunshine that already promise the birth of a new -spring. How much I should delight in the flower market near the -Laurentian or in walking up the hill toward Fiesole past the fairy-like -Florentine villas, or strolling in the Lungarno and across the Ponte -Vecchio to San Miniato--to the Pitti--the Uffizi--the gentle air of Fra -Angelico's cloisters--what absurd fancies! ... I am in wintry New York, -yoked to a broker, or as the letterhead styles us--Investment Bankers. -And though we have received no cables as yet, we are equipped with a -fascinating code cable address, which is "Sambyrd!" There is no end to -our grandeur. - -Sambyrd! How it all came about is still swathed in a sort of -semi-transparent mystery for me--semi-transparent, for even now I do see -one thing clearly: My income was hopelessly inadequate to the rearing of -three children and my capital was already invaded. With the capital -gone what was there left for me but addressing envelopes, the children -in a Home like that which Alicia came from and general collapse and -catastrophe! - -And then there was Fred's enthusiasm. - -"Money," said he sententiously, "is a very simple matter. It won't come -rolling to you of its own accord, but you can get it. Every one must -find his own way. This is my way--Salmon and Byrd. Will you join me and -make it your way, too?" - -And I, struggling like a fish in a net, like a bird in a snare, like any -beast caught in a trap, could discern no way of my own. - -"But what," I demanded in a sort of despairing indignation, "can I do at -that business?" - -"You can learn," said Fred. "And you'll be making something before you -know it. And as we grow you'll make more." - -And then I made the startling discovery that there are no parallels in -life. Writers may babble of types and statisticians of means and -averages and populations of facts, but I realized with pain that with -all my books I knew of no guide or inspiration. The case of every -blessed one of us is unique. I could think of no one in precisely my -own circumstances. A pathetic, dejected melancholy overcame me at my -fatal tardiness in learning that the world, like a hungry beast, was -clamoring for decisions. "Decide! Decide! Decide!" it seems to roar -with slavering jaws, "or I devour you! And if you don't decide I shall -still devour you." The drifters perish without a struggle. I had -drifted heretofore but now I must flagellate the will for a choice. - -And so I yielded. - -The half of my capital has already gone into our offices, and if chairs, -desks and tables will make for success we shall both be millionaires. -There are magnificent leather sofas such as I never dreamed of lolling -on, but discussions and transactions of money, it seems, must be done -within walls padded with luxury. Money breeds money, Fred is ever -telling me, and even as bees are attracted by honey, so the opulent -investors will flock to our richly fitted hive. The droning of the -ticker and the sound of a typewriter are the only noises permissible, -and the smoke of cigars must be the most fragrant. - -I hardly know why I should be ironic. Never before have I derived so -much amusement in a short space of time. There was the entrance of our -first customer, Signor Visconti. He came, this enterprising Milanese, -in response to one of the hundreds of individual circular letters we -sent out to small banks and investors, on magnificent stationery, -announcing our rare bargains in securities so safe that the rock of -Gibraltar was pasteboard by comparison, so gilt-edged that only the best -of government paper could dare to crackle in their presence; so -remunerative that--anyway, Mr. Visconti, admirably dressed, came in. - -The young woman who brought in his name had been drilled not to seem -flustered. Fred flushed purple with pleasure and executed a brief but -exquisite war dance on the rug. - -"Tell him I shall see him directly," he murmured to the young woman and -sprawled on the leather chair beside me in his triumph. - -"Why don't you see him then?" I could not help asking. - -"Wouldn't do," Fred wagged his head mysteriously. "Must keep him waiting -at least a minute or two--though I'm burning up to get my talons into -him." - -I laughed at him. - -"Now this is what you do, my boy," Fred gave me quick instruction in the -hushed voice of a conspirator. "A minute or so after I leave you, you -take your hat and coat and pass through the room where I'm talking to -him. I won't notice you. When you're nearly at the door, I'll call you -back. You'll be in a hurry, but you'll come back. I'll introduce you -to Mr. Visconti, then I'll say confidential-like, but loud enough for -him to hear, 'You going out about those bonds?' 'Yes,' you answer, 'but -I'll be back soon.' 'While you're about it,' I'll say, 'you can tell -Spifkins we can let him have that two-hundred thousand on call at four -and three quarters.' You just nod quickly, like a busy man, salute Mr. -Visconti and out you go." - -"Where--do I go?" I stammered in a daze. - -"You go to a telephone booth downstairs in the lobby and you call me up -on the wire. And don't be surprised at anything I say until I hang up. -Then you can walk round the block and come back. Is that clear?" - -"Clear as an asphalt pavement," I answered in my bewilderment. - -"That's all right then," he grinned and left me. - -Complying with his absurd charge, nevertheless, I was duly introduced to -the well-dressed, well-fed, deep-hued Italian banker from Macdougal -Street and made my way to the telephone booth in the lobby of the -building below. And this is what I heard in Fred's most suave and -ingratiating tone. - -"Oh, not at all, Mr. Ferris--always glad to hear from a customer. -Ah--yes, Mr. Ferris. We can still let you have those bonds. Though in -reality they are sold to another client. But I think we can give him -something just as good that will suit him equally well. Yes, that will -be all right. A hundred thousand, wasn't it? Well, well--ha! ha! -Better late than never. Don't let that bother you. Yes, yes, Mr. -Ferris. Send them over to your office as soon as my partner comes back. -I am a little busy now with a customer. Oh, don't mention it, don't -mention it! Eh? Why, yes--thanks. At the Waldorf about five, then. -Ta-ta." And he hung up the receiver. - -For a moment I stood speechless in the steaming booth with the telephone -receiver in my hands and then I staggered out, shaken by helpless -laughter. - -When I returned, Visconti, smiling broadly, was in the process of being -ushered out by Fred with warm exchanges of amiabilities. We all shook -hands on the threshold in a cordial flurry of busy enthusiasm and a -moment later Fred and I were alone. - -"Just sold that fine peach of a Guinea ten thousand dollars' worth of -Hesperus Power bonds," chuckled Fred in irrepressible glee. - -"But where," I demanded, "did you get the bonds to sell?" - -"Haven't got them yet," he paced the room in nervous jubilation. "But -we'll get them in a jiffy--at the National City Bank. They've got lots -of 'em over there." - -Something dark and heavy and cold seemed to have dropped inside of me -upon the vital parts, and chilled me for an instant. - -"So this is this kind of a business?" I muttered. - -"This is the way this kind of a business begins," he replied composedly. - -That interlude of actual business after the ferocious activity of -renting, equipping and furnishing an office, getting stationery printed -and engraved, installing a ticker, making that mysterious body of -connections that was Fred's province, was sufficiently exhilarating to -make me accept it without much scrutiny. After all, what could I do? -This was the furrow in which my plow was set and this, I suppose, is the -custom of the country. - -"How," I could not help wonderingly asking, "did you land the effulgent -Visconti?" - -"Oh, he's a good scout," explained Fred. "He runs a banking house for -his fellow dagoes in Macdougal Street. He saw we were new and he likes -to give young fellows a chance. He was quite frank. You see, it's -nothing for the big houses to sell ten bonds or so. But he knows that -to us just opening up it means a lot more than the commission. It means -a Sale. Oh, he's a sport, all right." - -"That surprises me more than I can say," I told him. - -"There are some good-hearted brutes even in this business," growled -Fred, "and don't you forget it." - -"Do you think," I asked with a twinge of shame, "he saw through your -telephoning business and that rigmarole of yours to me in the booth?" - -"Damn if I don't think he did!" roared Fred. "But never mind. He's a -sport. And some day, when we're big guns, we'll show him that we -appreciate his hand-out by putting him on to something good--see if we -don't!" - -I felt as shamefaced as though we had committed a felony. Yet I suppose -that this is the ordinary comparatively innocent chicane of even honest -business, remnants of oriental chaffering and huckstering that still -survive. I am hoping we shall grow out of it. Though at times I suspect -a certain flamboyancy of temperament in Fred that makes him resort to -such shifts rather than not. - -A man who had purchased some bonds called up and inquired whether we -would take them back. There was no reason for Fred's offering anything -but an endeavor to dispose of them. But instead his grandiose reply -was: - -"Why, certainly we shall take those bonds back, Mr. Smith--and as many -more of them as you've got. Yes, bring them down by all means." - -Once he had hung up the receiver he turned toward me with blank dismay, -muttering: - -"Now what the hell shall we do with those things?" - -I own to a flash of genuine anger at his imbecile untruthfulness. - -"You don't know what to do?" I spluttered. "Then why on earth did you -speak as though you had a dozen buyers waiting in a row?" - -"Because that's business," he tried to shout me down. "That devil will -have more confidence in us if we let him go back on his bargain than if -he made a lot of money on it. Don't you know human nature?" - -"Not human nature like that," I retorted bitterly. "Tell me what you are -going to do about it." - -"Let's get on the telephone, both of us," he spoke cheerfully, "and each -call up as many people as we can and offer them those bonds before that -weak sister gets here." - -"A desperate remedy," I growled irritably. "Let me see you do it." - -Fred lighted a cigar and gazed out of the window. When he turned his -face was suave and benignant. He looked like nothing so much as a man -about to fill a row of Christmas stockings. Then he betook himself to -the telephone. In a cheerful, friendly, lingering voice he began to -offer his gift to one after another of his list as though an inward and -spiritual grace were moving him irresistibly to benefaction. His face -was on a broad grin even under a series of repeated refusals, and I -confess to experiencing a sort of truculent joy at what I believed to be -his discomfiture. His accents, however, never lost their velvety -quality nor did he betray by a single note any trace of disappointment. -On the contrary he was warming to his work with a keen gusto. On a -sudden the young woman at the telephone outside informed him that he was -being called. He listened. - -"Mr. Smith?" he answered mildly. "Hello! Bringing us those bonds? -What? Decided to keep them, after all? Well, well," with a laugh, "the -Lord be with you then, Mr. Smith. We could have sold them ten times -over since you first called me. No, no. It doesn't matter. I'll find -something else for the others. You're mighty wise, Mr. Smith--I'll hand -that to you. No, it's all right. Come and see us. Good-by--good-by, -sir!" - -When he turned away from the telephone the perspiration beaded his -forehead and puffy cheeks and he grinned genially. - -"Whew," he whistled, passing a handkerchief over his face. "That was -great fun. But why do they want to break in on the innocent morning -with things like that! Well, that's how it is, Randolph, my boy," he -added lightly and turned away to other things. In his way Fred compels -my admiration. For this is only one instance of many, one thread in the -texture of our daily life. How I long to read a few pages of "Urn -Burial" in order to forget it all! - -It is too soon to know whether or not we are a success. But we are each -of us drawing a small salary and to me that is an immediate help. - -What a curious jumble is our life! Forces strange and awe-inspiring, -the very stars in their courses seem to be defending Laura's children, -lest I should do them an injury. But in order to keep them and rear -them I must resort to a kind of olla-podrida of backstairs shifts and -devices, such as I have described, that make my cheek burn. But I -suppose it is as Dibdin says: We are all the ministers and retinue, be -it in court dress or in tinsel and livery, of that exalted prince of the -world, the child. For me, however, it is still a struggle to grasp that -ineluctable truth. Perhaps as a reward for this, as a sort of pourboire -of Fate, I shall become gruesomely rich, a kind of Maecenas, an orgulous -figure among scholars, and finance some new Tudor or early English texts -or latter-day collections of the classics? - -My pipe has gone out. I have taken to puffing a pipe in a manner that -would delight the soul of Dibdin. Dibdin! Every day I expect to hear -from him, but still my expectation is vain. The children are all abed -and I sit here filled with a sense that I am responsible for all of -them, sleeping and waking, for their nourishment and existence, for all -this machinery that keeps the six of us going, and the thought fills me -with awe--and yet there is a kind of pleasant sense of pride in it, too. -Dibdin would say that I reminded him of a broody hen, and Dibdin would -be right. A broody hen is a model of responsibility for all mankind. - -Yet though I cannot look with young-eyed confidence upon all of this, or -upon my enterprise with Fred, I can hardly resist a feeling that -something of the youth and manhood I have spent as a solitary among -books, something stirring and effervescent that I have suppressed, is -struggling for an outlet. Fred's methods of business, though I wince at -some of them, fill me with gusts of irresistible laughter. His constant -horseplay and good humor are infectious. - -To-day he came to me with a grave countenance and informed me that -Sampson and Company, a house from which we sometimes buy a few bonds, -desired to know whether we would join them in underwriting the Roumanian -loan. - -"And what did you say?" I inquired with equal gravity. - -"Naturally I told him I must consult my partner." - -"What did they say to that?" - -"'Oh, sure,' he said, 'but it isn't a large loan--only fifteen millions. -All we want you to take is about three millions.'" - -I looked at him quizzically. - -"Well, what d'you say, partner, shall we take it?" - -I scrutinized his baffling expression and roared with laughter. He -joined me, laughing, until the tears trickled down his cheeks. - -"But look here," he began, the flamboyancy of his manner persisting even -in private, "three millions isn't so much--and the profit would be -large." - -So long as it was horseplay I enjoyed the joke. But with Fred the -barrier between jest and earnest is very thin, often indistinguishable. - -"Don't talk rot," I told him. "Do you want a short cut to bankruptcy?" - -"Well, it would be in a great cause," he grinned. "Got to help dear old -Roumania!" And humming a musical-comedy tune, he left me. But I am -still conscious of a dread lest Fred, in some moment of irresistible -magnificence, should commit poor little Salmon and Byrd to the devil or -the deep. - - - - - *CHAPTER IX* - - -To-day is a red-letter day for me. The red letter came from Dibdin. As -a matter of fact his brief scrawl in the peculiar, heavy, unadorned -script which I love is written on the minutely ruled paper and in the -violet ink of the Hotel de France at Papeete. But it was so -delightfully cheering to see his dear old fist again--almost like seeing -the man himself. The sheet is dated more than two months ago, and -postmarked San Francisco six days ago. I wonder what brute intrusted -with mailing it has carried it about in his pocket. - -Without a word of preamble it begins in Dibdin's abrupt manner. - -"I've got you on my mind. How are the kids prospering--and you, old -bookworm? I've picked up something for you even out here--a first -edition of Balzac's 'Pere Goriot', somewhat fly-blown and the worse for -wear, but intact all the same. I won't intrust it to the mails. I'll -bring it to you. - -"I am enclosing a check for a thousand dollars. Now don't be an idiot, -however difficult that may prove. I know all you can say, and believe -me it isn't worth a damn. Use it in some way for the kids and make me -feel happy out here among the wrecks and loafers of white humanity. I -wish you could come out here some day and see to what creatures that -once were white men will stoop just to avoid a little work. However, -that's by the way. I count on you to do as I ask or you'll make me -sore. - -"The blessed old tub I came out in sails for Suva in three days. And -from Suva I go to the Marquesas. You'll hear from me again before long. -If you want to take a chance and write me, the Hotel de France, Papeete, -is still the best address I can offer you. Yours, Dibdin." - -That was all--after months of waiting. I wish the old fellow enjoyed -writing letters a little more than he seems to. Nevertheless I was -delighted. The irrepressible tramp! He speaks of the Marquesas as if -they were around the corner. - -As to his check, my first impulse was to destroy it immediately. I -shall keep it, however, as a memento of Dibdin's absurd generosity of -spirit. It would have to be some desperate need that would ever compel -me to use it. Dibdin little dreams of Salmon and Byrd. - -I called in the children to show them the letter. And though they were -less excited about it than I was, they seemed delighted at the fact that -after a day in the office I should appear gay and cheerful instead of -weary and careworn. Care is the badge of incomplete lives. And what I -needed was a letter from Dibdin. - -A breath of the wide world has come to me with that pleasant burly note, -of other-worldliness, of freedom, of rovings and wanderings, something -of the zest I used to feel. I used to feel myself (or so I think) -strung like a lute, sensitive to every breath and sign of beauty, to all -the subtle tunes of life. My nerves are duller now, responsive only to -the obvious. In the inverted world of business I suppose that is -progress. Dibdin's letter has brought back something of my old self, at -least a nostalgia of other days. - -And here my conscience smites me. It is long since I have seen -Gertrude. I must rectify that omission at once. After all, Gertrude -has been patience itself with my vagaries. And the thought of the old -freedom is struck through with the years of her friendship. Gertrude -never interfered. - - -I have seen Gertrude and she was indulgently amiable when I read her -Dibdin's letter. - -"I believe, Ranny," she was pleased to say, "you are developing. Do you -know, I think business experience very good for you?" It was very -agreeable to see Gertrude curled up on a sofa in a very pretty tea gown -comfortably smoking her cigarette. I felt suddenly that the neglect of -feminine society is a mistake for any man, most of all for myself. - -"I'm glad my partner isn't here," I told her. "He might give me away." - -"I don't care," she answered. "You are a stronger man to-day than you -were a few months and even a few weeks ago. Here you are attracting -money. A thousand dollars is always a thousand dollars." - -"Yes, indeed! Let Morgan look to his laurels," I relied. "His days are -numbered." - -"Don't be absurd," she laughed. "You'll be rich before you know it. -But that isn't the point. Lots of other things you'll see in a new way. -You've been a sentimentalist, Ranny," she went on explaining. "Business -gives a man judgment instead of sentimentality. You'll come to -understand that my advice to you in a number of things, including the -children, had more sense to it then you guessed. You will recognize -that even children can be cared for better by efficient people trained -for it than by an inexperienced bachelor and a little foundling girl. -Don't worry about that now," she added hastily, "but you'll find out." - -My answering grin must have been of a sickly pallid hue, for I own I -felt myself chilling at her words. - -"I thought," I put in, "that that was all over and settled between us." - -"So it is, Ranny dear," she answered quickly. "Don't misunderstand. I -am not advising now. I am merely prophesying." - -"Oh, in that case," I endeavored to be conciliatory, "it will be a -pleasant game to watch how true your prophecy comes." - -"Yes," she spoke more eagerly. "Now tell me about your business. It -must be horribly interesting." - -"It horribly is," I agreed, "and fearfully done." And I went on to -describe to her amusement some of the ways and means of the ingenious -Fred Salmon. - -"How delightful," was her laughing comment. "Do you know, Ranny, when -we're married I mean to come down to your office quite often?" - -"Better come now," I suggested. "Who knows--whether there'll be an -office by then?" - -"Oh, it isn't so long to wait--perhaps in--June--or when you take your -holiday." - -"The sooner the better," I told her quite sincerely. "I see no object in -any further delay--" whereat Gertrude seemed pleased. - -"Oh, I'll spring it on you one of these days," she smiled gayly. "Now -will you have some tea or something to drink?" - -A very companionable person is Gertrude. Since, as a great man has -said, a grand passion is as rare as a grand opera, I presume that -notwithstanding novelists and romancers to the contrary, companionship -is what virtually all successful marriages are based on. One thing my -business experience has taught me thus far is a disgust with vague and -indefinite conditions. The sooner Gertrude and I are married, the -better I shall like it. - -Barely had I written down the last words above than something occurred -to give them the lie. I am still shaken with anger at what I have -learned. - -Alicia, whom I had thought to be in bed, rapped gently on my door and -came in, her sweet candid face so charged with pain and alarm that I -jumped from my chair at sight of her. I have seemed scarcely to notice -her these months, yet I realize she has grown as dear to me as any of -the other children. To see her suffering seemed poignantly intolerable. - -"What on earth," I gasped, "is the matter, Alicia?" She could scarcely -speak for the tears that were choking her. "Is it any of the children?" - -"N-no, sir," she sobbed. "They--are--all right." - -"What on earth can it be then?" I demanded, putting my arm about this -little Niobe and gently seating her in the big chair. "Come, my dear, -tell me about it." She made an effort to control her sobs. - -"You are--going to--send me away," she wept. The same old story. That, -I thought, must be this child's obsession. - -"Am I?" I spoke as gently as I knew how, taking her little cold hand in -mine, "and why am I going to do that?" - -"I don't know," she sobbed bitterly. "I suppose because I am no use -here--because you don't want me." I laughed at her boisterously in an -endeavor to shake her out of that notion. - -"And who," I asked, "has said anything of the kind?" She did not -answer. "Was it Griselda?" - -"No, sir," she breathed. - -"Was it any of the children?" - -"Oh, no, Uncle Ranny--I mean Mr. Byrd. They like me." - -"What was it then?" I insisted gayly. "Come, out with it. I never -heard such bosh. Come, tell me the whole story, Alicia." - -"I--I was in the square this afternoon," she began, drying her eyes with -a very wet and crumpled little handkerchief, "playing with Jimmie while -Laura and Ranny were roller-skating--" and she paused. - -"Yes, yes," I urged, "and then?" - -"A lady stopped to talk to me--it was Miss--Miss Bayard." - -"Miss Bayard?" I repeated wonderingly. It was strange Gertrude had not -mentioned it. She must, I thought, have forgotten the incident. "And -what," I prompted, "did Miss Bayard say?" - -"She said," and Alicia's lips quivered pitifully, "'are you still here, -child?'" - -"Yes--go on!" I could hardly trust myself to speak for the premonitory -anger that was rising within me. - -"I told her, yes, ma'am." Alicia spoke somewhat more easily, feeling, -evidently, that I was not against her. "And Miss Bayard said," she went -on, "that she thought I had gone away weeks ago. I didn't understand -what she meant, and I asked her where she thought I had gone. 'Didn't -anybody from the Home come to look you up?' she asked me. And I told -her that Miss Smith had come. And she asked me whether Miss Smith hadn't -done anything about me. And I told her that Miss Smith had--that she -said I could stay." - -"And what did she say to that?" I gasped, by this time livid with anger. - -"She said it was very strange--that she did not understand it. She -didn't say it to me. She seemed to be speaking to herself. And then -she just gave a little nod and walked away." - -"Just gave a little nod and walked away," I repeated after her -mechanically. "And because of that you thought I was planning to send -you away?" - -"Yes, Mr. Byrd," she murmured with a dejection that in the young is so -profoundly touching it makes one's heart ache. - -"Well," and I hope my sickly laugh was as reassuring as it was meant to -be, "and if I tell you that I knew nothing at all about it--will that -make you feel better?" She nodded. "And if I tell you that so far from -planning to send you away, I couldn't do without you; that you are -necessary in this house, that you are just the same to me as any of the -other children; that I make no distinction between you; that, in -short--this house is your home until--until you grow up and get -married--as long as you want to be here--" and I sat on the side of the -chair, drew her to me and patted her as I might have patted little -Laura. "Is that all right?" - -"Yes, Uncle--Mr. Ranny," she whispered, her head sinking toward me like -a child's, and a sigh of deep content escaped her. "I don't want -anything else in this world!" - -How beautifully affection sits upon a child! - -"Now go to bed, Alicia," I urged her gently, "and don't bother your -innocent little head about anything of that sort. Miss Bayard was -probably joking, but--she won't do that again--when she knows how badly -it made you feel." - -She stirred as from a trance and slowly rose. "How is the school work -going?" I asked her. "All right?" - -"Yes, Mr. Byrd," she murmured, "except the Latin--I don't put in enough -time on it, the teacher says, especially the Latin composition." - -"Ah, we'll have to remedy that. You must come and let me help you. -What are you reading in Latin?" - -"Caesar's Commentaries," she smiled, shamefacedly, like a troubled child -that has been restored to happiness. - -"Ah, then you _must_ get it right. For what would happen, Alicia, if -you were to face the world ignorant of how Caesar conquered the -Belgians! And if you should go out into life without an intimate -knowledge of the equipment of Caesar's light-armed infantry, of the -habits of the Gauls and the right use of the catapult or the proper -employment of the chariot, the consequences might be little short of -ignominious! Better come to me and let me set you straight. I know you -understand indirect discourse from the way you told me your story -to-night. But the subjunctive, my dear--ah, the subjunctive must be -closer to you than a brother and nearer than hands and feet!" - -She laughed a merry, delicious peal of laughter and when she said good -night I put my hand upon her soft silken hair and sent from the room a -very radiant, happy little girl. - -But now, as my thought wanders back to Gertrude's surprising _demarche_, -uncontrollable indignation again possesses me. To think that it was she -who had instigated the visit of that little inspectress, Miss Smith, -weeks ago! It is unbelievable. Underhand methods in Gertrude are new -to me. - -I have called up Gertrude on the telephone. And in spite of the -lateness of the hour she insisted in a somewhat wintry voice that I had -better come up at once and see her, as she put it, settle it once for -all. _Je m'y rend_. To settle it once for all is precisely what I -desire. - - -My desire has been stormily satisfied. Though inwardly indignant, I -returned to Gertrude with every intention of being very bland and very -reasonable, hoping against hope to have the unlovely fact somehow -cleared away. But Gertrude, it seems, had decided that the indignation -properly belonged to her. - -"Hello, Ranny," she greeted me easily, in the gray tone that precedes a -tempest. "What do you mean by speaking to me as you did over the -telephone?" - -"I--I mean this," I faltered, but that was the last time I faltered in -speaking to her. "Did you or did you not report the case of Alicia to -the Home and send an inspectress to me?" - -She watched me with narrowed eyelids for a moment and then, deciding -evidently, that a little truculence would reduce me to my normal state -of pulp, she answered coolly: - -"And suppose I did--what of it?" - -"I merely want to know the truth," I answered her quietly enough. "Lies -are so detestable to me." She flinched perceptibly, but drew herself up -with hauteur. - -"Well, then I didn't!" she returned loftily. "But what if I had? -Somebody ought to have reported it," she ran on with gathering temper by -which she thought to crush me. "I think it's indecent for you to have -in the house a girl of that age who's no relation to you. The fact that -you are a fool doesn't make it any less indecent. I'm the only woman -friend you have and somebody has to see you don't make a worse idiot of -yourself than nature made you to start with. Now do you understand, my -excellent friend?" - -And having discharged this volley she stood panting lividly, as if -viewing my ruins. At the moment however I could not consider her. I -knew only that flashes of red appeared before my eyes, that I spoke the -literal truth when I told her: - -"To me such an action and the person guilty of it would be equally -contemptible." - -"You say that to me?" she gasped, taking a step forward, with a -colorable imitation of incredulity, strange in view of her denial. - -"To you--yes," I told her, quietly enough, for now I was more master of -myself. "And contemptible is only a mild euphemism for what I should -really think." She stared at me speechless for a moment. - -"_You_ think!" she uttered in mocking scorn. "You've posed as a sort of -God's fool--but what you are is the devil's tool." - -"Take care, Gertrude," I warned her. "You might say something that you -will regret even more." - -She waved me contemptuously away. - -"I'll say this," she returned in level tones, seating herself and -clenching her hands in an effort at control--but in reality she was -beginning a new offensive. "You'd better go home, Ranny, and make up -your mind to send that girl away. All men are rotten. But it's because -I thought you were different that--that--" she did not finish, but -added: "And to have you gathering in girls from the gutter--" - -"Stop!" I cried, "I won't hear another word," and turned away as if to -go, not trusting myself to say more. - -"Come back!" she called, jumping from the sofa. "Come back and listen: -Either you send that girl away or I'll have nothing more to do with you. -Is that understood?" - -I laughed at her mirthlessly. - -"Choose between her and me," she uttered with the touch of melodrama -that few women seem to escape. - -"Don't be theatrical," I told her, now more in control of myself. "That -girl makes it possible for me to bring up Laura's children. She is no -more to me than any of the others. But however that may be, she -stays--understand that, please, Gertrude: she stays!" - -"Then you've chosen?" she demanded in livid stupefaction. - -"I've announced no choice. But the girl stays." - -"Thank God!" she lifted her hands upwards, and I hope her prayer was -acceptable. "I knew I was tied to a fool," she added, as though I had -been holding her enchained, "but I did not know he was a knave as well. -I'm free at last!" - -I walked out without trusting myself to make reply. - -I sincerely hope Gertrude will enjoy her freedom more than she did her -bondage. Anyway, I am glad she has entered a denial. - -As I walked home under a starry sky, however, I was amazed to feel my -anger cooling rapidly; the sense of defeat, of disappointment with human -nature, giving way to a new feeling of freedom, to an elation I had not -experienced in years. I definitely felt a leap of exhilaration in the -wake of the other mingled emotions. It took me by surprise. - -Matrimony is obviously not for such shameful villains as myself. If -Gertrude expects me to return on bended marrow bones and sue for -forgiveness, I am certain she is mistaken. Matrimony is not for me. -That at least is clear. - - - - - *CHAPTER X* - - -The dancing flamboyancy in his veins has proved too much for my revered, -partner, Fred Salmon. - -With a glimmer hall bravado, half amusement in his eyes, he announced to -me this morning that he has "signed on for a piece of the Roumanian -loan." - -I was stupefied. - -"How much?" I gasped faintly, watching him closely, for I could not -believe it. - -"Only a measly million," he replied with deprecating cockiness. "It was -as much as I could do to make them let us come in at all. If it weren't -for your cold feet I would have taken the three millions." And his -chuckle irritated me beyond words. - -He was in earnest. He was not joking. - -"And where the devil," I spluttered, "will you get the money for even -the initial payment?" - -"Raise it, my boy, raise it," he bent, beetling over me. "If we want to -amount to anything we've got to take chances. One syndicate -participation like that and perhaps another with the newspaper -publicity, and we're made men in the Street. Got to do it. Want to be -a piker all your life? I don't!" - -"You're--mad--" I stammered limply. "Stark, raving mad. And how do you -propose to raise the money?" - -"By selling the bonds, fellow!" he announced with aloof superiority. - -"Have you got the bonds?" - -"No. They are not even in this country. We give them _ad interim_ -certificates until the bonds arrive." - -"Have you got the certificates?" - -"No," was the astounding reply. "We'll sell 'em first, get the money -for 'em, turn it over to Sampson & Company, the syndicate managers, and -draw our certificates. That's how it works. Of course if we were a -bigger house, better known, it would be easier. But we'll do it--don't -you worry--we'll do it!" - -"You mean," I groped, "we have to sell something we haven't even in hand -and get money for it?" - -"That's what it amounts to," he grinned, though less jauntily than -before. - -I felt myself crumbling to dust. - -"Don't sit there like that!" he cried, regarding me as one looks down -from the side of a great liner upon a drifting derelict. "Get busy! -Get on the telephone and sell some Roumanian bonds!" And he chuckled in -his absurd triumphant manner that will one day drive me to desperation. -"Begin with your friend Visconti," he suggested. "He seems to have -taken a shine to you. Talk to him in Dago." - -Many and many a time had I asked myself what I was doing in that -particular galley. To enter a new occupation without enthusiasm, for a -cloistered monk like myself to go out into the market place as a -chafferer and a huckster, among a race I had not even cared to -understand, and to embrace their ideals and their career, concerning -which I had not even curiosity, had been difficult enough. With the -lash of my need I had whipped myself like a flagellant to the daily -grind until custom had given it the ungrateful familiarity that the -treadmill must have for the mule. - -But to embark upon this murky enterprise of Fred's, charged for me with -the dread of a hundred lurking pitfalls, into which I should infallibly -stumble, charged with the fear of certain failure, all my instincts -revolted against it. Nevertheless, like a lost soul, I suffered myself -to be driven because I must. - -It is to the glory of human nature that there is more of the milk and -marrow of human kindness in it than pessimists give it credit for. The -excellent Visconti, after listening to me in silence while I lamely and -guiltily explained my offer to him, courteously replied in Italian. - -"If you recommend them, Signor, I will take them. I cannot take many, -but I will take five." - -I thanked him as best I could, but I shrank back as under a blow. This -man was buying not Roumanian bonds so much as my Word. Besides, though -the bonds were right enough, I had nothing to give him and yet I wanted -his money. I could not face it, and so I informed my egregious Fred. - -"That's so," said Fred reflectively and for a moment he was lost in -thought. Then, as is his wont, he suddenly began to radiate the heat of -a new inspiration. "I've got it!" he cried. "Listen here. You've only -put half your capital into this business. You've got in the vault--how -much is it? Twenty-five thousand in securities?" - -I gaped at him in terror. - -"Well," he ran on, "suppose you bring them over, deposit them with -Sampson and Company against that much in _ad interim_ certificates--or -else borrow money on 'em. Don't you see?" he slapped his knee -gleefully, "then we have those certificates on hand. We can pass 'em -right out to fellows like Visconti, who come straight across, and so go -on with the game. When we're through, all you've done is to lend -yourself--the firm--twenty-five thousand in securities, given us a big -lift and you put your securities back in the vault. Don't you see -that?" - -"No." - -"Isn't that clear?" he asked in an injured tone. - -"Clear as pitch," I answered truthfully. - -"Never mind," he clapped me smartly on the shoulder. "You go bring your -securities over. I'll make it clear. Of course you'll draw interest on -the loan you're making the firm." - -And like the mule I am, I dully complied. And now we are laboring on -with the sale of the million in foreign bonds to people the majority of -whom have not a notion whether Roumania is the capital of Rome or a -Central American republic. "_L'insuccess_," declares Balzac, "_nous -accuse toujours la puissance de nos pretentious_." But as I had no -pretensions in this business, loss and failure would be doubly -humiliating. What then, I ask myself again, am I doing in that galley? -Meantime what remains of my slender possessions is hypothecated to the -pretensions I had never entertained. - - -I have been house-hunting in the suburbs. It is idle for me to try to -find either a house or an apartment in any region that would be suitable -for both my means and the children in New York. So for two Saturdays -and two Sundays I have been trudging the dreariness of the less -expensive suburbs in quest of a house. - -"What!" exclaimed Fred, when he heard of it, "not going to leave the -Shoe?" - -"Yes," I told him. "The Shoe pinches, I must find another." - -"Well, you're a funny old geezer," was his laughing comment. I could do -better than that in describing him. - -When I come home depressed and weary I find a shower of little -attentions awaiting me, very winning and touchingly agreeable. Little -Jimmie, with great serious eyes, ostentatiously brings me my slippers -and dressing gown and watches my face intently for the reward of -commendation. When I murmur, "Thanks, old man, very good of you," I can -virtually see his little pulses pounding with exultation in his veins. - -"Are you vewy tired, Uncle Ranny?" he inquires, keeping up the high -drama of profound concern. - -"So, so, old chap," I tell him, kissing his serious little face. -"Nothing to worry about." A moment later I hear him dashing about the -dining room very properly and completely oblivious of my fatigue. - -Laura in the role of Hebe, gravely brings me tea on a small tray, and -asks whether there is any book I desire or anything else that she might -bring me. - -But behind all these attentions I discern the directing hand of Alicia. -Can it be that the child has instinctively divined that I have actually -broken with Gertrude on her account, that the little woman's soul in her -secretly exults in a feeling of victory? Since she cannot know all the -conditions, she can feel, at most, I suppose, only a vague primitive -sense of triumph in defeating the will of another woman. Perhaps I am -attributing too much to her young intelligence, but at times I seem to -perceive in her eyes, in her bearing, a touch of the protective -instinct, of almost the maternal toward me, that I had never observed in -her before. Possibly it is merely a sense of gratitude. At all events, -those attentions of the little people are very soothing and grateful, -notably now, since Griselda's have declined perforce, in view of her -greatly increased work in the kitchen. Yet it staggers me at times when -I realize the number of souls for whose shelter and livelihood I am -responsible, for the complex machinery that I must keep revolving. -Experience like that should be acquired young. Like Mr. Roosevelt, I -would advocate early marriages. - - -I have found a house. - -In Crestlands (thrilling are the names of suburbs!) thirty-five minutes -from Grand Central Station, in Westchester County. I came upon a -chalet-like cottage built largely upon a rock that I believe will answer -our purpose. The rent is moderate and there is said to be an asparagus -bed somewhere in the "grounds." I know there are two trees with gnarled -roots grasping their way downward among the stones, in a business-like -struggle for existence, and there are a few inches of lawn for the -children. With a veritable terrain like that as dower, it will surprise -no one that I took the cottage. - -"The latitude's rather uncertain, and the longitude also is vague," as -vague, almost, as that of Roumania; nevertheless I shall be henceforth a -dweller of Suburbia. - -This being Sunday, I took the children out there in the afternoon to -examine their new demesne. With the air of a castellan exhibiting an -old castle, I showed them through the rooms and in the phrases of the -real-estate dealer I enumerated their advantages--with a heavy heart. -But the children cared nothing about that. Randolph saw visions of a -tent or an Indian tepee under one of the gnarled old trees and Jimmie -illustrated how he would "woll down" the slope; all our "grounds" are -slope _et praeterea nihil_. But Laura, detecting a neglected rose bush -near one of the windows, clapped her hands for joy. - -"This is like the house in 'Peter Pan', Uncle Ranny," she cried -delightedly. "There will be roses peeping in, and babies peeping out." - -I looked at her in poignant surprise. It was so absolutely the voice of -her mother when she was a girl, the spirit and the expression. It is -exactly that feature that my poor sister would have first taken into -account; it might have been Laura herself. I turned away in order not -to cloud their delight. The poetry of life is the only thing worth -living for, yet what a toll the world exacts on that commodity! - -Griselda, in spite of all temptation, had declined to come. - -"Is there a good kitchen?" she demanded. I told her I thought there -was. - -"Then I will not waste my time looking for the birdies in the trees or -the paint on the roof," she retorted stoutly. She even demurred at -Alicia's coming. "There's over much to do," she protested darkly. - - -Of discomfort and wretchedness let none speak. I have sounded both and -so much else that is unpleasant to the abysmal depths that I shall never -again look with the same eyes upon the impassive faces of the men in the -moving express train. They have all no doubt lived and suffered even as -I, these, my brothers! - -I have moved the household to my suburb, and this is a lament _de -profundis_. - -The legendary mandrake is a gurgling infant to the way my books cried -upon removing. They not only screamed; they sobbed and quivered like -broken souls to be dislodged from their place that has known and loved -them so well and so long. Every object in the flat was a whole -plantation of mandrakes. Their wailing and ululation resounds yet in -their new and changed surroundings. Roses peeping in, indeed! To my -books this is a house of sorrow. Forlorn and jumbled and still unsorted -they stand and lie in heaps so that their fallen state wrings my -lacerated heart. Alicia, to whom I sadly complained of this condition, -consolingly answered: - -"But my English teacher in school would say that that was a 'pathetic -fallacy', Mr. Ranny. Books and things don't really feel, do they?" - -"Don't they!" I bitterly exclaimed. "Let unemotional pedants speak as -they stupidly will, Alicia. Nothing can be more poignantly pathetic -than a fallacy!" - -"Yes, sir," murmured Alicia and with reverent fingers she silently -helped me to place some of those books. She has a tender touch for the -objects of other people's love, a charming attribute in a woman. - - -And from the physical chaos in the chalet at Crestlands I am whirled -madly every morning in a crowded express train, then in a convulsively -serried subway car, to the more subtle chaos in the office of Salmon and -Byrd--to sell Roumanian bonds. Roumanian bonds are overrunning those -offices like the rats in the town of Hamelin. Ah, will not some piper, -pied or otherwise, come and pipe them all into the sea? The answer, I -grieve to say, is no! The impossibility of shifting one's burdens is -the fundamental mistake of Creation. - -Nothing irritates me more after a morning's fruitless telephoning or -ineffectual running about than to have Fred Salmon smile sleekly, clap -me on the back and mumble mechanically: - -"Great work, old boy! You're doing fine!" - -What is the use of these false inanities? On Saturday he came to me -with the gratifying intelligence that Imber and Smith, who took two -millions of the bonds, have already sold out their allotment. - -"Damn them!" was the only answer I could find. - -"That's what I say," he answered in his perfect role of being all things -to all men, then reflectively, "I think Smith's a liar, though." I'll -wager nevertheless that he congratulated Smith as heartily as he bruises -my back. To be all things to all men is surely one of the most -disgusting traits in a human biped. Fitfully ever and again I wish -myself out of the ruck and rabble of all that. But sadly and heavily it -comes to me that it is better perhaps to bear the ills one has than to -fly to others that are a mere sinister blank. I seem like a man on a -raft with the storm-lashed waves washing over me the while I gasp for -breath and hope for rescue. - -I wonder what this life would be like if upon coming home to Crestlands -there were not those eager little retrievers to fetch and to carry and -to wait upon me, to surround me with their glad young freshness. But in -candor I must admit that but for them I should be leading my old -secluded life, undisturbed among books, that now seems remote as a past -incarnation. - - -The weeks go by and, toiling under our burden, we are desperately trying -to stem the rush of time. In certain hard-pressed moments I have a -sickly feeling that time will win--and crush us. A revoltingly new -discovery I made yesterday, that Fred has taken to drinking during -business hours, suddenly drew the life out of me like a suction pump. -Then, realizing the meaning and the enormity of the fact, I was -frightened out of fear and talked to him in as friendly and kindly a -vein as the circumstances would permit, in an effort to show him our -position and where it might lead us. - -His first snarl of defiance gave way to contrition. He wept maudlin -tears and made promises so robust that they ought to outlive him, but--I -feel shaken as never before. - -Meanwhile Sampson and Company are calling for the payments due on our -allotment of bonds, and Fred, the smiler and the diplomat, is shirking -interviews with them. - -"What we need, Ranny," he said to me to-day in chastened mood, "is -capital, more capital. We went into this business on a shoe -string--sometimes it will hold till you can get a rope and sometimes--" - ---"Even a life line is too late," I supplied. - -He did not answer. But after a pause he began afresh: - -"Couldn't you get round and see some of your rich friends--see whether -they could tide us over for a spell?" - -"Rich friends!" I writhed as one in torment. "Who are my rich friends? -I have none, as you ought to know. I have now put in every cent of -capital that I own--against your business experience, Fred. And this is -where we've arrived. If my sister's children weren't dependent upon -me--but then," I ended bitterly, "I shouldn't be here, as I think you -know." - -He bowed his head. - -"Didn't your sister--wasn't there anything--?" But to his credit, he -did not finish. If, as I suppose, he meant to ask whether Laura left -any money that I could use, he evidently thought better of it and walked -away in a somber silence. And that is where we stand. - -That is where we stand in our business, and the needs of my household -are expanding. Griselda knows nothing of my affairs and yet I surprise -her dark eyes, singularly lustrous for one of her years, watching me at -times out of her swarthy wrinkled face, as if divining the Jehannum I am -experiencing. More than ever she lays herself out to perform incredible -feats of economy, whilst I hypocritically pretend to be unaware of it. - -The children, having prospered and grown during the winter, are in need -of new summer wardrobes, which I have ordered bought. If it is to be -disaster, then shabbiness shall not betray us. Like the man who donned -evening clothes in which to sink with the _Titanic_, I have always -entertained a stubborn faith in the policy of good clothes. Policy, -policy--the trail of policy is over me like a fetid odor--and how clean -and unsmirched I have always felt in my stupid transparency! Gertrude, -if she knew it, would now rejoice that she had thrown me over. - -I envy our clerks and typists who banish all cares at five in the -afternoon and do not resume them until the following morning. What a -gay life is theirs--if they but knew it. They jest and fool and hurl -picturesque slang at one another and draw their pay on Saturdays, -unconscious of how near to perdition we totter. If we go to the wall -they will soon find other places. But I--shall find the wall. I wish I -knew what the emotions of Fred are as, rucking his forehead heavily, he -strides about our rugs. I only know, however, that mine are emotions of -doom. - - -The black doom is upon us. - -After days of haggling and lying and shuffling and paltering we have, as -a firm, expired. - -Our vain and concentrated efforts to sell something that we had not the -necessary means and connections to sell led us to neglect the things we -could have done. - -I shall not soon forget the vile outburst of the heavy-jowled Sampson -when as by a Sultan's firman, he imperiously summoned us to his office -and told us in his language what he thought of us. - -"People like you don't belong in the Street--they belong in jail. -Assign!" he snarled, "Better assign at once and clear out!" - -And not the least of the bitterness of that moment was the acrid -realization that I could not charge him with having flattered and -hounded Fred into the vanity of the enterprise, because at that moment -Fred and I were one--with this distinction: What Fred was suffering -would roll from his back like water from a rhinoceros, whereas I would -remain obscenely branded by his words forevermore. - -It was useless to argue, futile to protest. There was no time or place -for extenuating circumstances. I was too full of shame and humiliation -to offer any conciliatory suggestions, and I still had enough of mulish -pride not to truckle to that fish-eyed bully. We walked out of that -man's office bankrupts. - -I still marvel how I found my way back to our own office through the -lurid darkness that encompassed me. The world about me--the palpitating, -pressing eager world, of which in a measure I had been a part--was -suddenly strange and phantasmal and alien, the ghostly city of a dream. -The people were shadows and their hurrying steps and errands as -mysterious and as unrelated to my life as those of a colony of ants. -The only actuality I did not envisage in that dark moment which was -coextensive with eternity, was that _I_ was the anemic ghost stalking at -noonday and the others were the reality. - -"If only you had not taken the balance of my capital--" was the thought -throbbing under my overwhelming misery--"if only you had left me that!" -But I could not bring myself to whine to Fred. I kept stonily silent. -A burning resentment swelled my heart so that I could not speak. The -newspaper publicity Fred had craved would come to him now with a -vengeance. - -Now they are busy dismembering the corpse and colporting the remains, -whilst I sit darkly at home in Crestlands like one disembodied, dead. - - - - - *CHAPTER XI* - - -I have had time to grow dulled to the shabby peripety of my career as a -business man. The sickening details and legal forms of our failure are -over, and I am wretchedly surviving on the loan made upon an insurance -policy, but still I have evolved no plans for the future. - -I sit in the shadow of the chalet watching Jimmie rolling down the slope -and endeavoring to roll up again. The early August sun is hot in the -heavens and the air even of Crestlands is muggy. And my pulses keep -insistently repeating, repeating, "What is to become of us?" My -pulses--but not my mind. That useless functionary has quite simply -suspended operations. - -I used to feel wise in reading Montaigne and Buckle, humorous with -Rabelais and Cervantes, acute and a man of the world with Balzac or -Sainte-Beuve. But none of these erstwhile comforters, it appears, seems -able to lift up my spirit. Modern young critics talk of escape in -literature, but it seems one can only escape when there is nothing very -serious to escape from. Like a debauchee who had killed his palate or -one who has swallowed an unwholesome dish overnight, the zestful taste -for an essay of Elia, the gustatory rolling under the tongue of -sentences in "Religio Medici", the keen pleasure in a Dryden preface, -all these are now impossible. The savor of them has died for me. My -dreams of Maecenasship for Tudor Texts have gone a-glimmering. - -For joy in books the tranquil heart is needed. The world has been too -much with me and neither poppy nor mandragora can banish the effects of -it. There is no balm to sane me. - - -There was escape after all, though--if not in reading, then in writing. -I can quite understand now the persistence of diarists in the world. I -had no sooner written down the words above than a tremor of resolution -shook me and I went into the baking city in quest of livelihood. I -found nothing save exhaustion, but it is certain that in Crestlands I -shall find even less. - -I looked upon the teeming streets wide-eyed like a gawk, surprised anew -that so many should find a foothold and sustenance where I had failed. -The mystery of that will always baffle me. The deepening gloom gave -way, however, when I entered Andrews' bookshop. His welcome was warm. - -"Stranger," he greeted me cordially, "come into your own." - -"I don't deny I have felt it calling," I admitted. - -"'Course you did--there is nothing else in the world." - -"Ah, how much else, Andrews!" I told him sadly. - -Whether he has heard of my failure or not I cannot tell. If he has, he -was tact itself. - -"Here are some beautiful things for you to see," he announced, bustling -as he led me to a table in the rear of the shop. I looked at his -beautiful things and was able to give him some useful points about one -or two of them. He has actually come upon a Caxton, the lucky devil! -This was indeed "my own", as Andrews was shrewd enough to divine. _Ca -me connait_. And his courtesy and his deference were strangely -consoling in the light of my recent experiences. Courtesy and deference -cost others so little, but what refreshing manna they are to one's -self-respect! - - -I go on tramping the pavements of New York and I wish there were more -point in my trampings. - -Every morning I go forth with a faint glow of hope, and the dim basis of -my hope, when I come to think it out, is something like this: In the -haunts of men I may meet somebody, an old acquaintance who may know or -hear of something whereby a broken reed like myself, a pronounced -failure, may get the chance of earning a livelihood. A desperate enough -situation when reduced to the glaring light of plain speech--but that is -the best that I am able to do. If only Dibdin were here! Despairingly I -am in need of a friend. But my past life has separated and insulated -me, so that when I think of friends and my thought convulsively darts -out this way and that, it encounters nothing but vacancy, empty air. -Fred Salmon is avoiding the Club. He is the only one who had reached to -me from the past, and the result I have already recorded. I am not -eager to meet him, though I have worn out any hostility I may have felt -toward him. _C'est un mauvais metier que celui de medire_. I find my -inward man the better for thinking of Fred neutrally, when I think of -him at all. - - -Illness was the one thing lacking to my ineffable Pilgrim's Progress, so -infallibly illness has appeared. - -Jimmie came down with measles on Saturday and yesterday Alicia followed -his example. The crumpling of Alicia under illness has proved like the -shattering of a column in the edifice of my household. The whole -insecure structure is tottering. And though she is burning with fever, -the unhappy girl is murmuring with anxiety that stockings go unmended -and buttons unsewn. - -"Don't you worry about that, little girl," I keep telling her. -"Griselda will do those things." - -"Griselda has too much to do as it is," she gulps and the tears start to -her hot eyes. I have isolated her and Jimmie in my room, and Randolph -and Laura are cautioned to keep as far as possible away from them. I -remember the time when I would have flown from the fear of infection as -from the plague, but now my anxieties are of a wholly different nature. -Jimmie is mending now, but Alicia is far more ill than she knows. - -Griselda has undertaken the stockings and at night, when I sit watching -and waiting for sounds from either of my invalids, I operate upon the -buttons. It is curious how much art enters into the sewing of a button. -A dog of a bachelor though I have ever been, I have never been compelled -to learn that handicraft before. But I have learned from Griselda, who -smiled crookedly when she imparted the law, that if you twist the thread -around several times after you have sewn it, the whole thing acquires, -relatively, the strength of a cable. To your punctured fingers you -attend afterwards. - -Alicia, awakening at midnight, sat up in bed and caught me at my task; -she moaned most dolefully. I hastily put Jimmie's little "undies" -behind me, but too late. - -"You'll never want me--or need me again--what's the use of getting -well?" she wailed weakly. - -"Oh, yes, I shall, Alicia--more than ever," I hastened to assure her. - -"You do everything now that I ought to do," she pressed with febrile -insistence. "I shall be no use any more." - -"But don't you see, Alicia," I argued, touching her hot forehead, "that -I shall have to be earning money while you are doing the buttons? I -ought to be earning it now, so get well as quickly as you can. Jimmie -sees it; he's much better already." That logic seemed to soothe her -more than I had expected. She caught my hand impulsively and pressed it -to her cheek. The tremendous part played by affection in the lives of -children is a never-ceasing wonder to me. - - -Alicia is convalescent again, _laus Domini_, and Jimmie is now running -about the little house filling it with noise--which is music to my ears. -Laura and Randolph have fortunately thus far escaped infection. Jimmie -is wanting to resume "wolling up and down" the slope again, but this is -still _verboten_. - -I can now take up my journeys into town again and I note with a pang -that I am growing shabby. The yearly purchases of clothes had been as -regular with me as my meals, but I have ordered no clothes for the -spring or summer. Odd, what a deleterious effect the shabbiness of -clothes has upon one's consciousness! The tinge of inferiority it -brings touches some very tender places in one's spirit, almost like a -shabby conscience. But the doctor of the neighborhood, a contemplative -fellow who obviously knows his business, though he talks of his -laboratory and his experiments like an alchemist, has earned the clothes -that I must do without. And of the two I needed them more. - - -My search is ended. There is jubilation in my heart again. I have -fallen into a livelihood; like the bricklayer who used to fare forth, -dinner pail in hand, I have found work. - -And the way of it was an odd little stroke of Fate, a whimsicality that -would have pleased the ironic soul of Thomas Hardy. - -An old college friend of mine, Minot Blackden, whom I used to call -Leonardo da Vinci because he was so full of ideas and inventions, had -rediscovered, he said, the art of glass-staining. After a five years' -residence in Italy, on a modest patrimony, most of which had gone into -glass or into stain, he had returned to his native land and set up a -shop _a la_ William Morris somewhere in the region of Bleecker Street, -and proceeded to stain glass. He had had some newspaper publicity -recently, and there were cuts of his work. - -While passing a church in my hot and dusty peregrinations, it occurred -to me that here might be a chance of serving him and also myself. By -writing an interesting booklet about his craft, illustrating it -profusely and sending it with personal letters to all the vestries in -the country, I might bring a flood of custom to his shop. It is with -this forlorn proposal that I was blundering about to discover Minot -Blackden. I failed to find his shop, but I came face to face with my -old Salmon and Byrd acquaintance, Signor Visconti. - -In his palm beach suit and Panama hat, Visconti made a splendent and -impressive figure in the purlieus of Bleecker Street. - -"Ah-h, Signor Byrd," he cried with Latin cordiality, seizing my hand in -both his own, "you are what you call a sight for sick eyes. I have -often wonder about you--you must come into my banca--we must have leetla -refreshment!" - -Refreshment appealed to me at the moment and gladly I accompanied him to -his private office in the bank, that stands between a junk warehouse and -a delicatessen emporium. With a charming tact he touched upon the hard -luck of Salmon and Byrd and dismissed the subject for good. - -Briefly--for him--that is, with a wealth of gesture and illustration, he -informed me that he was looking for a man for his enlarging bank, and -asked me to recommend one. - -"I want a fina man--" he explained. "American gentleman--who speeks a -leetla da Italian--who put up what you call a fina fronta--understand -me?" - -"A fine front," I mused aloud, "and speaks Italian--no, Signor Visconti, -we had no such young man in our office. I can think of no one I could -recommend." - -He was obviously nonplused. - -"I thinka," he said, with, a gesture of final resolution, "if I could -finda some gentleman lika you, Mr. Byrd, he would be _precisamente_ what -I look for. I know," he added hastily with an apologetic laugh, "man -lika you, Signor, be hard to find!" And again he laughed heartily, -though watching me between narrowed eyelids. His drift was now obvious. -I was silent for a moment. - -"Well, if it comes to that, Signor Visconti," I answered slowly, "I am -doing nothing in particular just now. I may be utterly no good for you, -but--but if--" - -"Ah, you would try old Visconti, Signor!" And up flew his arms like -windmills. "You no ashamed to work in vot you Americans call da Guinea -colony!--no, no!" He noted the deprecating shadow on my face. "Ah, you -understanda--you know the granda history of the Italiana people. -You--but, Mr. Byrd--" and with an admirable histrionic transition he -suddenly turned grave and sad--"Mr. Byrd, you are the very man I looka -for," and he gripped both my hands. "But, Meester Byrd--I fear I cannot -afford to pay what you would expect. Ah, _sacra_--if I could! You, the -very man--_Dio_--" and he clapped a hand dramatically to his -forehead--"the very man, but!--" and his full smile of sad and wistful -regret seemed genuine for all its histrionic value. - -"What do you propose to pay, Signor Visconti?" I inquired. - -"I can only pay to start," he whispered hoarsely, with the round eyes of -a man facing the inevitable, "thirty-fiva, maybe forty dollars week. -Too leetla, I know," he added slowly, letting his hands fall on his -knees with resignation. - -"Very well, Signor Visconti," I said. "If you will try me, I shall be -glad to come at forty dollars." - -Visconti fairly leaped at my hand and the bargain was struck. - -I am to begin earning a livelihood on Monday. - -Who said that adversity is the best teacher? Possibly it is, but -gladness is the ablest cocktail. There is no stimulant like a little -success. - - -I am an august personage. - -I shall choke with pride, so august am I become in the Banca e Casa -Commerciale Visconti. - -I call up the National City Bank concerning the price of bonds, or the -rate of exchange, in English so presumably impeccable that Signor -Visconti visibly puffs out his magnificent chest as he listens. There -is a divinity that shapes our "frontas", rough-hew them how we will. - -"Visconti's speaking," I say with firmness and the head of Visconti's -curls his fine dyed mustache and turns away, glowing with ill-concealed -pleasure. This is seemingly what the head of Visconti's has been -waiting for. Mentally I offer a fervent prayer that he may never be -disillusioned as to my capacity. - -I toil as I have never toiled before. I come early and go late and -frequently have my lunch sent in from the adjoining delicatessen, -powdered no doubt by the contiguous junk house, and the "boss", as the -others call him, smiles with a rare unction that spells approval. - -With difficulty we are actually living on my income. If I had the half -of my capital back that I had no business to put into Salmon and -Byrd--but ifs inaugurate depressing trains of thoughts. My library -alone stands between me and disaster, so like a prudent man of business -I have begun a catalogue of it and I am training Alicia to help me. I -must not again be caught by so desperate a prospect as recently faced -me. - -How my little household had been affected by my late slough of despond I -realize only now that I have passed it. Laughter and high spirits seem -to have been uncorked again. We play and we rollic and chatter, more -than in the early days of our _vie de famille_--how long ago is -it?--something less than a year, no longer! - -It is now the end of September and the schools have reopened. We are -all sanely and industriously busy, like a normal American family, and as -though its so-called head were an adequately competent being, and not -the bungling masquerading amateur that he is. "Who never ate in tears -his bread"--well, we have made intimate acquaintance of poverty and we -fear it less than of yore--though we hate it more. It may be an -impostor, but who maintains that all impostors are harmless? I -certainly would deny that premise, so--we are cataloguing the library. - -"Here is 'The Anatomy of Melancholy' by Burton," announces Alicia, -taking down a volume. - -"Small quarto, printed at Oxford, 1621," I finish for her. - -"Yes," she breathes, marveling wide-eyed. "How can you remember such -things, Uncle Ranny?" for so I have asked her to call me. - -"How can I remember?" I ask in surprise. "How can I remember that you -are Alicia Palmer, close to the towering age of fifteen, or that Jimmie -Pendleton is five?" - -"But we--are people," avers Alicia, "and we are--yours." I own to a -slight thrill at this sweet investiture, implicit in her words, but I -seem obtuse to it. - -"But so is a great book a person," I sententiously inform her, "and -'Oxford, 1621', means a first edition, Alicia--not merely a person but a -personage. That book is as proud an aristocrat as though it were -plastered with coronets and simply throbbing with Norman blood. There -is a whole heraldry about it--it is a prince among books. And all, -Alicia, because it aroused men's interest and has given them delight -from about the time the Pilgrims first landed at Plymouth. It's a book -that could take Doctor Johnson out of bed two hours sooner than he -wished to rise. Also, if the worst came to the worst, it could feed us -for a time, and that is very important, isn't it, Alicia?" - -"Yes," she breathes in awe which for some reason delights me. "What a -wonderful thing it must be to write a great book." And she fingers the -next volume with even greater reverence. - -"The 'Life of Edward Malone', by Sir James Prior," reads Alicia. "Is -that a prince among books, too?" - -"No," I answer. "That is just a friend. Malone, you see, was crossed -in love in the days of Doctor Johnson, and by way of consolation became -a book-collector and a Shakesperian commentator. They say the Irish are -fickle. But here is one who could never love again. So whenever I read -his life, I think I see through a sort of mist the lovely lady whom he -lost and all about him is curiously dear to me. He wouldn't feed us for -very long, Alicia, but he has given me many hours of pleasure." - -"Are book-collectors people--crossed in love?" she inquires with gentle -subtlety, and I am surprised that one of her youthfulness should be -arrested by that particular point. - -"If you mean me," I answer quietly, "then I can tell you that I wasn't. -No one ever loved me enough to cross me. I am a collector by a sort -of--spontaneous degeneration." - -Alicia throws her fine young head back and peals with delicious -laughter. Afterwards I catch her smiling to herself as she copies down -the titles. - -I am amazed to note how lovely that child has become since she has been -here. Her thin, frightened expression has given way to one of happy -confidence. All too soon she will be enriching some young man's life -with happiness. Her interest in my musty old books has given her a -value of companionship in my eyes that I trust I shall not exaggerate at -the expense of my niece and nephews--though Alicia is hardly one to take -advantage of such a situation. Nevertheless, I must be on my guard. - -After all, though she is the chartered, custodian of the others, and -_quis custodiet ipsos_--who shall watch over Alicia? Obviously, it is -my task to improve her mind in order to make her the better guardian for -them. - -And Alicia's mind is improving apace. - -"Uncle Ranny," she inquired the other day, "may I ask what that first -edition of Boswell's 'Johnson', cost you?" - -"It costs me nothing but a sleepless hour now and then," I told her. -"It is not paid for. But I owe Andrews four hundred dollars for it. -God knows when I shall pay it. But why do you ask, Alicia?" - -"I have just read in _Book Prices Current_ that a copy was sold by -Sotheby's in London for one hundred pounds." - -"Already!" I murmured and I was lost in admiration not of the accretion -in value--I am used to that--but of the girl's facility in acquiring the -interest and the jargon of my hobby. - -"Oh, Mr. Andrews must have a wonderful place!" she exclaimed. "That -must be a splendid business. Where is he? How I'd love to see it!" - -"You shall some day, Alicia," I told her. "He is in Twenty-ninth -Street, and an excellent fellow he is." - -I then explained to her how Andrews had insisted upon planting the book -on my shelves. - -Alicia gazed at me in silence for a moment, then suddenly tears -glittered in her eyes. - -"It's because of us," she said, with a quivering lip, "because we came -that you couldn't buy it!" - -"Don't talk rubbish, Alicia," I flared at her. "A collector gets almost -as much pleasure in thinking of books he can't get as in those he buys. -Don't you think you alone are worth more to me than an old Boswell?" - -"No," she murmured gloomily, "but I'm going to try to be." - - - - - *BOOK TWO* - - - *CHAPTER XII* - - -Many months have passed since I last made an entry in this, which I mean -to be a record of my life for later years, when I am grown old and white -and memory gives back vividly only the days of childhood. - -It must be that the stoking of the furnace below all winter, or else my -absorption in Visconti's, has banished reflection upon events from out -of my mind. It is not reflection that was banished, however, but only -the energy to record it. The folk who work the treadmill leave few -records behind them. And I am of the treadmill, occupant of an office -chair, one of the gray mass of dwellers in the suburbs of life. - -The office of Visconti's, that was at first like a queer old wharf in -some foreign city to a ship from distant parts, has grown familiar and -almost homelike, so that I feel the barnacles gathering about my hulk at -the mooring place. - -It is ever the same. I come and I labor and I go. The chair and the -desk await me of a morning and by ten o'clock it is as though I had -never left them. I go forth of an afternoon into freedom and feel a -momentary desire to wander about as of old. The bland frontages of New -York still have a lure for me. But the nestlings for whom I am laboring -are at Crestlands and to them I automatically hasten my steps. - -But is all that about to end? - -To-day, for the first time since his disappearance, I heard of poor -Laura's husband,--Pendleton. - -For to-day I have received an astonishing letter from Dibdin, and it is -that, I suppose, which has stirred me to writing again. - -"Be prepared," Dibdin's letter begins, after his usual abrupt manner, -"be prepared for a sort of shock." - -"A week ago I arrived in Yokohama with half a schooner-load of stocks -and stones, carvings, idols, etc., homeward bound. - -"If you have ever been in Yokohama you will remember the Grand Hotel on -the Bund." Yes, I do remember. It was the one bright spot for me in -Japan on my brief and disappointing journey six years ago. Heaven knows -why I went there. Once I had viewed the Temples at Nikko, the sacred -deer on the Island of Miyajima and the volcanic cone of Fujiyama, there -was nothing else to do. I am not an ethnologist and there were no -bookshops. While awaiting my steamer, the only refuge was that -self-same Grand Hotel at Yokohama, where you can still sit in a chair -facing a window, as commercial travelers in provincial hotels in America -sit, and look out across the water towards Tokio, and smoke and idle and -gossip. Of an afternoon there is tea with excellent little -cakes--served by Japanese girls in kimonos so gorgeous that even a -geisha would be too modest to wear them in the street. The color, -however, is meant for western eyes. The ladies, American and English -from Tokio and thereabout, wives of commission merchants, agents, naval -officers, diplomats, tourists, gather around and do what they can to -annihilate reputations,--as is the way the world over. - -There is also a bar--the longest in Asia. Incidentally, every bar in -the East is the longest and men from Hongkong, Shanghai, Peking, Kobe -and Yokohama carry the measurements of their respective bars in their -heads for purposes of competitive argument. We all need something to -brag about, and there's little else in those parts. When the ladies -have finished their tea and have gone to their rooms or their -'rickshaws, the bar at the Grand is the next halting stage for the men. -I have not thought of it for years, though it is vivid enough to me now. -It is one of the five points on the globe where, if you loiter long -enough, you are certain to encounter every one you ever knew. -But--Pendleton! - -"If you remember this setting," runs Dibdin's letter, "you will realize -how easy it was even for a bear like me to pick up quickly the gossip of -the place and, incidentally, the legend of Patterson. Patterson I -learned was a drifter, an idler, a gambler, and a staunch support of the -Grand bar. He is adroit, suave, pleasant, shifty--an American. Some -trader found him on the beach in the Marquesas, took him along for -company among the islands and ultimately landed him here. He has traded -in skins, in silk, in insurance; is said to have all but killed a man in -a card brawl and has cleaned out many a tourist at poker. Now, he is no -longer allowed to play cards at the Grand. - -"I had a curiosity to see this bird of plumage and two days ago, -Mainwaring, the excellent manager of this hotel, pointed him out to me. - -"Judge of my amazement, as novelists say, when I recognized in Patterson -none other than the author of all your troubles, your vanished -brother-in-law--_Pendleton!_ - -"Will it surprise you to learn that my first emotion was a desire to -rush upon him as he leaned across the bar and drive a knife into his -back? - -"Instead, however, I got Mainwaring to introduce me and if Pendleton was -surprised, he concealed it successfully. Presently he was drinking my -liquor and chattering about the islands from which I am a recent -arrival. If I disguised the cold rage I felt against the man you must -give me credit for more diplomacy than you ordinarily do. - -"'You talk like a New Yorker,' I presently let fall in a casual manner. - -"'Ah, there you have me!' he threw out in a blandly mysterious sort of -way. 'Truth is, I don't know where I come from!' - -"In short, he tried on the lapsed memory sort of thing. Woke up one day -to find himself at Manila. Didn't know his own name or who he was or -whence. Initials on his linen were J.P. so he took the name of -Patterson--as good as any other, and so forth. Very sad. But then one -must take life as one finds it. Some of us are elected to martyrdom in -this world. That, you understand, was his drift. - -"'Well,' I told him calmly, 'if you really want to know who you are, I -can tell you.' - -"He turned, I thought, a shade paler, but he played his part smoothly. - -"'You don't mean it!' he exclaimed with a quite seraphic ecstasy. 'You -know me! My God, man, you are my deliverer come at last!' - -"'You are Jim Pendleton,' I told him quietly and then I told him a few -other things. My reasoning was like this: If he is the thorough hound I -thought he was, he would have an excellent chance of bolting--and good -riddance. If there was a shred of decency left in the man, now was the -time for it to show. - -"Well, he surprised me. I saw real tears in his eyes. He begged for -every detail I could give him. His voice broke when he tried to ask -questions about Laura and the kids. He has not bolted. He is quite -pathetically attached to me. I am dashed if I can tell whether it's -real or not. I don't believe for a minute in the lapsed memory dodge, -but I am flabbergasted. He seems so pitifully keen for every scrap I -can tell him. Maybe the poor brute is really ashamed of his past and is -trying only to save his face under this rigmarole of lost identity? He -clings to me and I have him, so to speak, under observation. If it -should even seem remotely possible to make a man of him again, don't you -think the risk of bringing him home might be worth taking? I don't -know, I don't know. I shall use the best judgment I've got about me, -but don't for a moment think I'll let you down. It's your interest I'm -thinking of and the interest of the kids. - -"I can't leave here for several weeks yet. That ought to give me time -to take his measure. I know what he has been. Question is, can a -leopard change his spots, or a beachcomber his character? We'll see, -Randolph, my boy, we'll see what we see. Hard luck is hard luck, but -this man--well, I needn't tell you. There is such a thing, to be sure, -as trying back. I'd like to have a second chance myself, if I behaved -like a villain. But of this fellow I am far from sure. I will say, -though, that he's drinking less and trying to keep decent not only in my -own sight, but to the surprise of all the white colony here. - -"You will hear from me again before long." - -As I read, I felt gradually overshadowed by the immense somber fact -conveyed in this letter. It was like a black cloud bank that comes up -swiftly, blotting out the sun from over the landscape. It was not a -thing to blink, to wave aside or to dismiss with a shrug of the -shoulders. It was instant and tyrannous, demanding anew urgent thought -and decision. Fortunately I am no longer the same creature that was -bodily hurled from tranquillity and leisure, like a monk from his cell, -into the cold wind-swept ways of life. I seem a little less like chaff -in the breeze. My backbone seemed actually to stiffen and settle as I -posed the problem. - -The problem is the fate of the children. To receive and re-create -Pendleton means to give them up. - -Well--and did I not assume their care only because there was none else? -Now there would be--there might be--some one else. Pendleton has a -legal right to his own children and, if he could establish it -satisfactorily, no doubt a moral right as well. - -The advent of Pendleton might prove to have incalculable advantages for -myself. Here, on the one side, is the treadmill. On the other there -is, or there was, ease and leisure and dreams. My small competency is -gone in the wake of that man's destructive progress. But for myself, I -might manage an easier and more agreeable way of subsisting than the way -of Visconti's. Those are the cold facts, clearly enough--but somehow -they will not let me rest. My world has been violently jarred, for all -my painful calmness, and I seem unable to fit the parts again into -exactly the old solidity of groove and joint. There are lurking -interstices which I cannot fill. "Who is Kim--Kim--Kim?" the hero of an -unforgettable tale was wont to ask himself. And he felt his soul -floating off and dipping into the infinite. Likewise, I ask myself now, -Who is Randolph Byrd? And the startling truth returns that the children -in my house and I are inseparable, that I and they are one! - -With this and the fact that Pendleton is in all likelihood coming back -to claim them, I am, pending further news from Dibdin, left to grapple. -At any rate, Dibdin also is returning. - -It is now the spring and the year is beginning to smile again. I have -been prospering at Visconti's and my income is now again the same as it -was before ever the children came to me--before I became a business man. -But there is not a soul to whom I can confide my new dilemma. - -There is Minot Blackden, the glass stainer, whom I have finally -discovered to be a near neighbor of Visconti's. To be exact, his studio -and living quarters are in King Street, and we sometimes have our lunch -together. But Blackden is so much in the grip of his medieval art that -it gets into his food, stains his tapering hands and even spatters upon -his finely pointed blue-black beard. All he can see in me is the -Philistine who has cast all else aside for the sizzling fleshpots. When -I chanced to mention having four children in my house, he looked upon me -as a bird-of-Paradise might look upon a polar bear; I was to him a -visible but incredible symbol of something strange and gross. There is -nothing placid or resigned about Blackden. He is intense, incandescent. - -"Do you realize," he said to me, "that I am restoring a lost art to the -world?" - -"But does it give you food?" I asked him. - -"What does food matter?" he expostulated. "What does anything else in -the world matter?" - -Nevertheless, he was eager to take up my suggestion concerning the -writing of a booklet upon his new craft and he has been sending it out -broadcast. But so intensely devotional is his attitude to the whole -business that I have not the face to suggest payment for the work, nor -has he referred to it again. I know little of his art, but I know that -his returns are increasing. It is obvious that I cannot burden a soul, -burning with that gemlike flame of Blackden's, with any such confidence -as the impending return of Pendleton. At times I think that Minot -Blackden and Gertrude Bayard ought to marry each other. They are both -so single-minded and so absolutely sure of themselves. But in the -meantime there is no one I can talk to. - -No--absolutely no one. - -Walking to Grand Central station these brilliant afternoons is a thing I -cannot resist. It is the only exercise I get. Crossing Washington -Square, I strike into Fifth Avenue and by the time I reach Fourteenth -Street I have a delicious sense of losing myself, of merging into the -crowd, that is very soothing after a day in the office. There is nothing -so stimulating as the energetic crowd in Fifth Avenue. At Brentano's -bookstore I usually pause and scrutinize the window. I am very sound in -the latest novels and the newest developments in stationery. - -To-day, as my eyes were feasting on the cover jacket of Mr. Arnold -Bennett's latest, a lady coming down the avenue likewise paused before -the window and as we glanced at each other I found I was facing -Gertrude. Of course she had a perfect right to cut me. She smiled -uncertainly instead and put out her hand. - -"Hello, Ranny," she murmured casually. "No reason why we can't meet as -friends, is there?" - -"Not the least in the world," I returned hastily. "Why should there be?" - -"I didn't know--but of course you always were a sensible person." - -I grinned in my guilty fashion. - -"How is everything?" she continued brightly. "I heard--about your firm. -You in business now?" - -I mentioned my connection with Visconti's Banca e Casa Commerciale. - -"You're a sort of hero of romance," she smiled speculatively over my -head. "And the kiddies," she added, "they all right?" - -"Going strong." She made no reference to Alicia but I thought it only -decent not to leave her in doubt. "Everything in my household is about -the same," I said. She nodded. - -The years of our friendship flashed through my mind, with a sense of -regret at the passing and crumbling of human relations. Gertrude would -quite naturally have been the one I could have talked to concerning the -probable return of Pendleton. Then, on a sudden occurred one of those -coincidences which invariably surprise me. For what Gertrude uttered -quite carelessly as though merely to fill the conversational pause, was -this: - -"No news of their father, I suppose?" - -I have never yet lied to Gertrude. I detest lies in general. I was -silent. My face must have betrayed me. Gertrude glanced into my eyes -and in a startled voice she queried: - -"_Have_ you?" - -Briefly, without going into detail, I told her. - -"Why, Ranny," she exclaimed with a new manner, in a new voice, "that's -the most wonderful thing I ever heard. Wonderful! That's the greatest -luck for you. Your troubles will be over!" - -"Ah, will they?" I speculated ruefully, rubbing my cheek. "That's the -problem. Shall I be able to trust the children to him again?" - -"Don't be a--foolish!" she retorted in almost her old manner. "The -responsibility will make a man of him again. Besides--you'll have to. -They are his. I should think you'd jump for joy at the relief. Dear me, -what a story!" - -"Oh--er--I must beg you not--not to mention a word of this to any one," -I stammered. "You understand--it's a ticklish business--for the -children's sake." - -"Don't be absurd," she retorted impatiently. "I don't blab. Will you -promise to let me hear how--how things come out?" I promised. - -At this moment Minot Blackden, his eyes blinded by visions of rose -windows, no doubt, bore down and all but collided with us. I introduced -them mechanically to mitigate his apologies and left them both bound in -the same direction southward. Gertrude waved a hand gayly. - -"I'll expect good news!" were her parting words. - -So I have told some one, I reflected, as I made my way toward Grand -Central, and Gertrude expressed what all the world would say: "I ought -to jump for joy at the relief. Besides, I shall have to turn them over -to Pendleton." The wheels of the train I somberly boarded kept -insistently repeating the same self-evident opinion. In addition there -was the sickness of death in my soul for the folly of having given the -thing away to Gertrude, of all people. - - -I wish I were not obliged to parry social invitations just at present. -The excellent Visconti who had asked me to dinner two or three times -during the winter, has suddenly taken a notion to ask me at least once -every week. I hope I am not grown so churlish but that I appreciate his -well-meant courtesy. But the fag is too great. - -He has a house in Thirteenth Street neighboring on St. Vincent's -Hospital, and he also has a motherless daughter, Gina, abounding in -vitality, who must be amused. The proximity to the hospital, he -intimates, the smell of carbolate and iodoform, depress young blood, and -Gina, being super-American, must not be allowed to remember that there -is anything unpleasant in life. I trust I am not the only vessel chosen -to bring more lively spirits to that girl. - -The effort for me is immense. I go to Crestlands after office hours, -dress, return to town, and then make a late train for Crestlands again. -The food is excellent and Gina sings prettily in a soprano as rich as -her coloring. But the next morning Visconti's does not enjoy the fruit -of my undimmed energies. - -More recently, Visconti has urged me not to dress and in that I see the -fine hand of Gina at work. As an American-born girl, Gina is quick and -eager to read the signs and weather indications. And though I am -becoming dexterous in excuses, I dined at the Visconti's last night -nevertheless. Gina sang the _Sole mio_ and _Una voce poco fa_ and even -told my fortune in cards, predicting that I should "be married a second -time." - -"But never a first time?" I queried simply. - -"Oh, then you've never been married at all!" Gina exulted, and she -energetically read the cards for me afresh. Her sortilege evidently is -not a perfect science. But it occurs to me that by means of it the -clever Gina found out more about my personal life than ever I had -vouchsafed to her in all our acquaintance. - -When I returned home I found Alicia in my study sitting late over the -catalogue, a copy of which she is now completing. She jumped from her -chair. - -"Oh, I am so glad you've come, Uncle Ranny," she clapped her hands -joyously. "I have found something we have overlooked." - -"What is it, Alicia?" And my gaze was, I admit, fascinated by her -flushed cheeks and starlike eyes sparkling with excitement. She seemed -the Muse incarnating those books, the very spirit of beauty they -enshrine. And yet she is not quite sixteen. - -"It's Shelley's 'Alastor'!" she cried. "And it's so thin that it had -slipped in between the covers of another book. It's a first -edition--1816, isn't it?" - -"Yes, Alicia. And a very beautiful poem besides." - -"Oh, isn't it!" she cried in exultation. "I have read it all, Uncle -Ranny, and do you know what I found out?"--and her voice became more -solemn--"it is your life Shelley was writing!" - -I laughed uproariously. - -"Yes, he did!" flashed Alicia. "Only your life is so much better. He -was so absorbed in himself, Alastor, that he died in his loneliness. -And you--you are simply surrounded by people who love you. You--!" - -And then, I regret to record, self-consciousness overtook Alicia. She -became aware of her own vehemence and blushing furiously made as if to -run out of the room. - -My position of vantage near the door enabled me to stop her. - -"Wait, my dear," I endeavored to lift her lowered chin. "Enthusiasm is -nothing to be ashamed of. It's one of the finest things in life. And -I'll tell you more--we are always applying to ourselves everything we -read in books." - -"Isn't that," murmured Alicia shamefacedly, "why people love books?" -Foolish girl--to wake the sleeping pedant in me! - -"Not altogether, Alicia. When we get older we become less personal. I -love books because they hold the truth and the wisdom of men's minds. -And aside from life and love, Alicia, wisdom and truth are the greatest -realities in the world. There is death, of course, but who cares to -dwell upon death?" - -"I always did think that life and--and--love were greater than books," -stammered Alicia earnestly. "And now that you yourself say so, I am -sure of it!" - -Astonishing child! When has she had the time to speculate upon the -magnitude of life and love? Always that young thing keeps revealing -herself to me afresh. I looked at her in silence for a moment. Here was -a better counselor than any one, Dibdin excepted, with whom I might -discuss the impending return of Pendleton. - -"Alicia," I began in another tone, "there is something I should like to -talk to you about. It's criminally late, I know, and you ought to be in -bed, but since you will dissipate on the catalogue, I'll keep you up a -little longer." I led her back to a chair and she gazed at me -wide-eyed. - -"Is it anything about--the--children?" she whispered, somewhat -frightened. - -"Yes--in a way--it is about the children. But more particularly it is -about their father. Have you ever heard of him?" - -"Their father!--I thought he was dead!" she murmured, awe-struck. - -"There were times when we all thought so. He disappeared some years -ago. But he's alive, Alicia. I've just heard from Dibdin, who found -him in Japan." Her eyes grew wider. - -"How terrible!" she breathed. "Does he know all--that has happened?" - -"He does now--of course he didn't until Mr. Dibdin told him." And then -this occurred to me. Ought I to shield Pendleton to the extent of -telling her positively that he had lost his memory or identity? No. A -confidant deserves scrupulous honesty, even if that confidant be as -young as Alicia. "He told Dibdin," I went on, "that he lost his memory -of the past and found himself one day stranded in Manila. Led rather a -wild and worthless life afterwards--people who lose their memories seem -to do that." - -"Do you think that's true?" she queried. - -"I don't know, Alicia, but when he comes back I suppose we'll have to -accept that version. Dibdin will have some advice on that point, I feel -sure." - -Alicia remained silent for a time lost in reflection. Her child's face -in her perturbation was the face of a grown woman. - -"Do you think he'll want to take back the children, Uncle Ranny?" - -"That's the crux of the whole matter, Alicia. I don't know. But if he -does, he'll have a right to do so, of course; they are his." - -"Oh, oh!" and her hands flew up to her face in a gesture of poignant -despair. "Turn them over to such a man! Is that the way the world's -arranged?" - -I smiled gloomily. I saw that there was no need of comment upon the -arrangement of the world. This girl young in her teens understood it as -well as any one. - -"Then I'd have to go, too," she uttered hoarsely with a dry sob of -bitterness in her throat. - -"Not necessarily," I interposed. - -"Oh, yes, I should," she insisted doggedly, as though driving something -painful into her flesh. "But it doesn't matter about me. But, Uncle -Ranny, you won't--you can't give them up! They're all so happy here. -Little Jimmie and Laura and Randolph! What chance would they have of -growing up fine--away from you---with a man like that? You won't let -them go--you won't, you won't! Oh, it would be horrible, horrible!" she -ended passionately. - -"Listen, my dear," I tried to calm her. "I had no wish to harrow your -feelings. I told you because you love the children--and we must face -all this together. I shall want your help, your support." She flashed a -sweet look mingled of pride and gratitude. - -"After all you--have been through," she murmured incoherently. "But why -don't you do this, Uncle Ranny!" and with the quick transition possible -to youth, she was again alive, eager, excited, this little fellow -conspirator of mine. "Why don't you let him come here and live right in -this house for a while? We'll be awfully crowded," she ran on with -flushed energy, "but we'll find room for him. And let's be awfully nice -to him--and believe everything he says. Then we could watch him, and I -just know we'll find out whether he's all right or not!" - -I laughed at her enthusiasm. - -"You forget, Alicia," I informed her, "that even if he shouldn't prove -all right, he is still the father of those children." - -"I don't care," she returned stoutly. "If he's bad and sees that we see -he's bad, he wouldn't have the face to take them away from here. Even a -bad father wants his children to be all right!" - -"And how in the world do you know that, you astounding infant?" - -"Oh, I know!" with a triumphant laugh, "At the Home--some fathers -brought their children and cried--one of them did--because he was so bad -he didn't think he was fit to have a child near him. I had tiptoed into -the matron's office, and I heard him!" - -"Perhaps he didn't want to support the brat," I scoffed to cover up my -wonder. - -"Well, and do you think he will?" Alicia snatched at my words. "A man -who ran away from them, loafing round for years? Oh, it will be easy, -Uncle Ranny!" she chuckled. "He couldn't fool us!" - -"And why, my little Portia, couldn't he?" - -"Because," said Alicia thoughtfully, "he will always be thinking of -himself and we--won't." - -"You mean," I pressed, delightedly, "he'll be self-conscious and give -himself away, the while we are clothed in our rectitude?" - -"Yes!" she cried, with a laugh. "We'll be thinking of Jimmie and Laura -and Randolph--and it's always easier to think what to do when you're -thinking of somebody else--not of yourself." - -"And did you discover that also in the matron's office at the Home?" I -leaned toward her in amazement. - -"No," she bent her gaze downward, "I learned that right here." - -I kissed Alicia upon the cheek. It lies heavy at my door that I have -shown her too little affection in the past merely because she is not -related to me. It startled me to realize that dear to me as Laura's -children are, Alicia is the dearest of them all. - -As with a gentle good night she slipped away, a profound sigh of relief -escaped me. That child succeeded in almost wholly blotting out my -feeling of bitter perplexity after talking with Gertrude. Do Alicias -upon growing older turn into Gertrudes, I wonder? No, I think not. -Surely not. - -I now look to the return of Pendleton almost with equanimity. - - - - - *CHAPTER XIII* - - -I am agitated like a hen with a newly hatched brood. - -It has suddenly been revealed to me that the complacency with which I -have been regarding my care and rearing of the children is abysmally -false and wholly unjustified. - -They are not properly clothed for New York and even here in Crestlands -they seem on a sudden pitifully shabby. The competition in that sort of -thing in a suburb is keen. Everybody's children seem better dressed than -my own and yet, do what I will, I cannot afford to spend more. -Randolph's high-school dignity is positively impaired by clothes which -he is constantly outgrowing. And the rate at which Jimmie wears out -trousers and soils white suits is simply unbelievable. Laura alone -seems to have the gift of always keeping her things fresh and wearing -them as though they were new. - -As for Alicia, that girl ought to be clothed in purple, at least -figuratively, if only I could afford it. It seems to me I cannot live -another day unless I procure for Alicia a large collection of frocks and -blouses and shoes and whatever else would set off that faunlike -creature, compact of energy and grace. For almost daily that child -grows more beautiful in a way that pulls at my heartstrings. - -I trust I am no idiotic parent, or foster parent, to rave about her eyes -and complexion and the like. I am as dispassionate as any one can well -be. But truly there is something starlike in her eyes and at times, -when she is sewing or reading or working on my eternal catalogue, I -surprise her pensive, absorbed in some long thoughts of her own that not -for worlds would I disturb. At such moments I am absolutely fascinated -by those soft pools of light that irradiate her face. - -Are other girls like that at her age, I wonder? It seems scarcely -conceivable. At any rate, I have never seen any others like her. But -then, I have seen so few. - -The truth remains, however, that I positively must dress her better. -Even my dull fancy joyously leaps at the vision of Alicia beautifully -dressed and diffusing sweetness and fragrance through the house. Of -course, I cannot single her out. There is Laura, too. And it might -seem invidious, although as the eldest of them all, Alicia is entitled -to especial consideration. I cannot moreover allow Pendleton to observe -that I have kept his children shabby. Few are the claims that Pendleton -can legitimately array against me, but the shabbiness of the children -would too flagrantly proclaim my failure. Nor does Dibdin know as yet my -rake's progress since Fred Salmon made a business man of me. - -But where am I to get the money for clothes when the mere routine of -subsistence absorbs it all? There is still Dibdin's yellowing cheque -intact, but I cannot use that--no. - -Ah--I have it! I shall sell "Alastor!" - -Since I had overlooked it, I shall merely assume I never had it. In its -Riviere binding "Alastor" should bring at least two hundred dollars and -may bring more. Heaven knows it cost me more. It holds some marginal -memoranda by Leigh Hunt, which should not detract from its value. Since -Alicia opines that my life is more laudable than Alastor's because there -are those who love me, she shall profit by her judgment. "Alastor" -shall be sacrificed for her soft and lovely frocks. - -Sooner or later I had to come to it. What is a volume more or less -compared to the happiness of a household? I am glad I have decided this. -So farewell, "Alastor, Spirit of Solitude!" - - -I seem to be possessed by the mad feverish spirit of carnival. - -Having sold my "Alastor" by means of an advertisement in the Sunday -_Times_ for two hundred and twenty-five dollars, I experienced a -sensation of richer blood in my veins by that accession of wealth. -"Alastor" has clothed all my family. I am sorry for the old woman who -lived in a shoe. She possessed no library. The moral is obvious. What -though I parted with a little bit of myself when I parted with that -book, I have engrafted something else in its place. For the children -also are myself. - -I do not delegate Griselda any more to do the buying for them. - -First I took Jimmie and Randolph to a men's outfitting shop where the -atmosphere is august. Alicia offered to come along, but though Jimmie -is hotly attached to her, he was vocal with objections. - -"This is men's business," he cried, "and us men must go alone." - -"_We_ men," corrected Laura, laughing and kissing him. - -"_Us_ men know how to talk!" he retorted, violently rubbing the kiss -from his cheek. Kisses, he implied, were all very well in their place, -but not at important crises in masculine lives, not when the _toga -virilis_ was hanging grandly from their shoulders. - -"Come on, old man," Randolph interposed with a wink in my direction, and -Jimmie's wrath was appeased. The "old man" soothed and uplifted him to -the proper pitch of virile dignity. - -The seventy-five dollars laid out upon those two boys have given me more -satisfaction than anything else recently--until I spent the balance upon -the girls. Men's shops are prosaic and dull compared with those Greek -temples that line Fifth Avenue with feminine apparel. As the paymaster -for the boys I was unnoticed. As the "uncle" of the two girls opening -the door to heart's desire, I was an object of almost affectionate -solicitude to the saleswoman. They were alert to help and advise. What -a freemasonry, an empire within an empire, is the domain of women's -clothes! In the latest slang and in words from Shakespeare the jaded -saleswomen were eager to interpret my wishes. - -"I want some frocks and things for these girls," I announced boldly in -one of the great shops. "Not too expensive but things nice girls ought -to wear." - -"I know," nasally asserted an efficient blonde, ceasing her mastication -and mysteriously secreting what she was chewing somewhere in her -capacious mouth. "Somethin' nice and classy--and quiet, but--_you_ -know!" - -"Er--precisely--" - -"Neat but not gaudy?" put in her more pallid, more "cultured" companion, -with a faded smile to complete the specification. - -"Ah--exactly so," I murmured and Laura seemed to experience a difficulty -in restraining herself from giggling. - -Alicia, however, with the simple directness that is hers, proceeded -quietly to mention voiles and organdies and soon the discussion became -technical and I helpless. I thought it wise to whisper to Alicia the -amount of money at her disposal. She gasped her astonishment with a -blush and then a beautiful light of gratitude and pleasure leaped into -her eyes and I believe the child was going to cry. I turned away -quickly, and steadily she proceeded with the business in hand. - -To the lady who quoted Polonius, the neat but not gaudy one, I intrusted -the selection of those things that I was not to see; she was sincerely -gratified at my confidence and, I believe, conscientious. - -There was just about enough change left for refreshments at Huyler's for -the girls and paterfamilias. Gay were the spirits in which we three -traveled homeward. How ridiculous Gertrude would make me, if she knew -it! - -I felt excitement and happiness bounding in my veins, a new quality of -those emotions, the like of which I had never experienced before. And -my heart positively missed a beat when the crushing thought struck me: -Must I now lose these young creatures and pass again into the emptiness -of life? - -We Americans are like the French in that we think our climate the best -in the world. Or, if not the best, at least so far superior to many -others that, like the French, we are steeped in vanity about it. - -Of Saturdays I reach home early after midday, yet it has been -persistently and infallibly raining every Saturday afternoon the entire -blessed spring. If perchance I want to take a walk and breathe some -air, I cannot stir out of the house. - -Yet a nervous restlessness possesses me: I must have some diversion. It -suddenly occurred to me to ask the girls to put on their various new -frocks that came last evening. For a moment I was a little ashamed at -the thought. But at bottom, I suppose, every male is a Persian -Ahasuerus, desirous of displaying and gloating over the beauty of his -women folk. I have no doubt but that the king secretly admired Vashti -even though he was wroth at her disobedience. - -Laura, it appeared, was in the next street at the house of a school -friend, but Alicia complied eagerly, displaying anything but the -suffragette indignation of Vashti. She was, in fact, eager to parade her -frocks with quite feminine excitement. - -In her clinging voile, in soft-tinted organdie, in white slippers and -silk stockings, Alicia appeared,--a vision surprising, disturbingly -radiant with youthful charm. There was something with a blue sash that -made her simply exquisite, the very incarnation of grace. Her hair -gathered tightly at the nape of her neck and then spreading out into a -great brush, a cloud of shimmering fine gold on her shoulders, seemed -the only mark of childhood left that prevented me from being like -another St. Anthony, miserably afraid of her. - -I know not what devil possessed me to ask her to go and put up her hair -before she took off that frock. How different must have been the -character of Persia's queen. For Alicia ran out of the room and almost -in a twinkling she was back with her hair up. - -I sat for a moment staring at her speechless, dry-lipped and -open-mouthed. For before me, flushed and sparkling, stood the most -adorable young creature I had ever seen. Why should there be so much -mystery in feminine hair? - -"You--you--_child_!" I blurted out finally in a sort of choleric -tenderness. "How dare you look so beauti--so grown up in my house!" - -A peal of excited laughter was her answer and she made as if she would -rush toward me with open arms, as might an affectionate child eager to -caress an indulgent parent--and then on a sadden she checked herself, a -blush suffusing her cheeks and her very ears. - -"Go call Griselda," I commanded, to cover her confusion, "and show her -the young woman we've been harboring in the guise of a child." - -Alicia ran out of the room to comply and for a moment I remained sitting -in my chair as under a spell. Then I rose hastily to dispel such -nonsensical emotions and left my room, only to come face to face with -Alicia and Griselda in the dining room. - -"Oh, ay--yes!" muttered my aging Griselda, her swarthy countenance hot -from the kitchen stove, looking more forbiddingly sybilline than ever, -"It's all over!" she added mysteriously. - -"What do you mean--all over?" I demanded a little stupidly, though dimly -I suppose I understood her. - -"The young besoms grow up sae fast, it's a meeracle they dinna wed in -their cradles!" - -"Wed!" I cried in disgust at the word. "You women are always thinking -of only one thing--even you, Griselda. Go," I turned to Alicia, "let -down your hair again this minute, so you won't put such wild notions -into Griselda's frivolous mind." - -Alicia laughed deliciously and even Griselda with a sort of dark twisted -smile reiterated: - -"Oh, ay--the young besoms!" Whereupon my young woman impulsively threw -her arms about Griselda and kissed the brown cheek with gusto. Griselda -returned by pinching Alicia's cheek fiercely. - -My nephew Randolph and a companion, a tall gawky boy coming into the -house at that moment, stood in their raincoats at the dining-room door -and gaped, blocking Alicia's path. - -"I say! Look who's here!" my young hopeful exclaimed with a low -whistle, wagging his head from side to side. The other boy merely -stared in dumb awe, twisting his wet cap in his fingers. That gawk and -Alicia are the same age, yet--the difference! - -"Let her go through and unmask," I waved them aside and Alicia, with her -head down, ran laughing out of the room. - -I returned to my chair and sat down as one dazed. My policy henceforth -will be to frown on suchlike tricks--though I myself had instigated this -one. What an occupation for a man of books and tranquillity--one who -desired to write of Brunetto Latini--to add to the body of scholarship -upon Dante! - -And suddenly I put my head down on my arms and laughed long and I am -sure quite meaninglessly. - -For if I were a woman, I might just as easily have sobbed in a way to -tear out the heart. Decidedly the suspense of awaiting news from Dibdin -regarding Pendleton must be undermining my nerves. - - -I am gey ill to live with. - -I seem to myself like the irascible old gentlemen in the comedies with -the prithees and monstrous fine epigrams, forever taking snuff--save -that there is no comedy about me. - -I take down books and I cannot read them. What pleasure I used to -experience in leaving some of the leaves uncut in fine editions so as to -cut them on further readings! I have tried to extract that joy by -cutting some recently, but there is no joy in it. - -Why am I so certain that Pendleton will take away all these that I love -and leave me desolate? All his past seems to argue against the -probability. Yet constantly I see before me the picture of their going -in a body with that man while I stand speechless, attempting to smile -benignantly. How we dramatize ourselves, even the least imaginative -amongst us! And all the time I feel as though great gouts of blood were -dripping, dripping from my heart in nameless anguish. - -Alicia, that divine child, is watching me unobtrusively though closely, -whenever she can. She surrounds me with comforts and attentions. But -like some sick owl, I prefer to brood alone. - -The somewhat isolated position of my chalet on the rock and the lack of -a wife in the household has saved me from making intimate acquaintances -among my Crestlands neighbors. But there is one young man, Judkins, an -architect in the stucco house opposite, who strides over to my porch and -insists upon talking of his performances at golf. - -"Ought to join the Club," he keeps reiterating. "Nothing like eighteen -holes to take the kinks outa your brain after the hullabaloo in the -city." - -"Er--do I seem to have many kinks?" I ask, whereat he laughs in his -harsh voice. - -"All got 'em!" he cries. "Can't get away from 'em. Books!" he adds -explosively, "books are no good! They give you the willies!" - -And that man claims to have studied at the Beaux Arts! Edmond de -Goncourt, that neurasthenic philosopher, prayed that he might make a -hundred thousand francs from his play "Germinie Lacerteux," so that he -might buy the house opposite and put this notice on it: "To be let to -people who have no children, who do not play any musical instrument, and -who will be permitted to keep only goldfish as pets." As for me, I -should waive the children, the pets and the musical instruments; I would -merely say, "No proselyting golfers need apply." - -Alicia, to mitigate my mood, I suppose, devised a picnic in the woods. -No one was to come save the children and I and that gawky companion of -Randolph's, the boy John Purington, lest Randolph should be bored. -Randolph, it appears, is easily bored. The consciousness of my recent -hypochondriac behavior led me to accept the suggestion with alacrity. - -The luncheon Griselda prepared was packed in paper boxes by Alicia and -together, _en masse_, our little procession set forth and made its way -to a grove less than two miles distant bordering on the great Croton -aqueduct. - -Randolph and the gawky boy fell at once to tossing a baseball, Jimmie -rolled delightedly about the lush grass, still grappling with his -insoluble problem of rolling up a slope and still perplexed as to why it -should be easier to roll down. Laura ran to his aid and Alicia sat -beside me and laughed. - -"That is the whole problem of life that Jimmie is facing," I observed -gloomily. - -"No, it isn't, Uncle Ranny," she put her hand on my arm as she -contradicted. "That is only the law of gravitation. There is a lot -more to life than that!" - -"Yes, Alicia," I lowered my voice, "but when that man comes, how it will -hurt to think of little Jimmie, of all those children of my sister's in -the care of that man who's really her--her murderer!" - -"Please, please, don't think of that!" she begged, with imploring eyes. -"That hasn't happened yet. And we'll--we'll manage it somehow. Maybe -he's a good man, after all--and, oh; we'll watch him--we'll watch him! -Besides, he mayn't come. If he is what you think, then I am sure he -won't come!" - -That proved a very cheering thought. - -Before I knew it, I was myself tossing a ball with Alicia and romping -with the rest of them. - -It was only after the lunch had been eaten under the trees and the egg -shells and papers were gathered and stowed away, and the gawky boy -proceeded clumsily to monopolize Alicia, who has not the heart to snub -anybody, that my depression returned. - -Whereupon Alicia gayly proposed that it was time to think of going home, -because Jimmie was drowsy and must not forego his nap. - -Was it adroitness or spontaneity? I cannot tell, but it is marvelous -how that girl anticipates and understands. - -It was a happy, tired, air-steeped company that returned home. - - -A telegram has just arrived. Dibdin and Pendleton have landed in San -Francisco!... - - - - - *CHAPTER XIV* - - -Pendleton is here. He has been here a week. Like one in the dazed -excitement of some dream, the sort of farrago that leaves you limp and -weakly smiling when you wake up and see the sun, I have been going about -with numb limbs, strangely galvanized, not so much into activity as the -expectation of activity. - -What is it I have been expecting to happen? I hardly know. But perhaps -I have been expecting melodrama. And I am overcome by the obvious -truism that genuine melodrama is anything but melodramatic. That is why -melodrama on the stage, with its ranting and strutting and flourishes, -disgusts one by its bathos. - -The presence of Pendleton in my house, occupying my bedroom while I have -withdrawn into my little study, is the essence of melodrama. - -Yet every one and everything is in a tacit conspiracy to make it seem -natural. There is a tension in the atmosphere, without doubt, but we -are all of us madly, energetically ignoring it, hiding it. - -The man's conduct has been astounding, unimpeachable, unexceptionable. - -He out-Enochs Enoch Arden. Yet--why should I disguise the fact to -myself--I hate him. That, too, I suppose, is melodrama. But do what I -will, he remains detestable to me. I cannot trust him. I try, however, -not to show it. Dibdin has acquired a deep furrow between the eyes, due -doubtless to his sense of responsibility in having resuscitated -Pendleton. He carries the air of some magician or sorcerer who has -evoked a demon and is overwhelmed with terror by the problem of what to -do with him. - -But I must in decency acknowledge that Pendleton's behavior has been -without blemish. - -Dibdin had sent me a long night letter from San Francisco saying he -would remain there a few days, "to give the fellow chance to bolt if he -wants to." There had been other telegrams. I was not to meet them at -the train but to give explicit directions. It was as well. I could not -have met Pendleton at the train even if he were coming from the dead. A -week ago, when Dibdin telephoned from the city, I went so far as to -order a cab to meet them. - -There again the histrionics of the situation were at a hopeless -disadvantage. For what I remember most vividly of that Saturday evening -was the sickness of my soul as I sat awaiting their arrival. Again and -again I had steeled myself to tell the children of their father's -coming. I framed words and sentences in my mind until the cold -perspiration moistened my forehead, but I could not face the ordeal. I -had thought I knew myself--that I was steeled to the tests of life. But -I saw I was still a reed. It came to within a couple of hours before -their arrival and still I had not told them. I found myself on my -two-inch terrace and a stream of profanity was breaking from my lips. -On a sudden I saw Jimmie standing beside me. Shame and chagrin overtook -me and I bent down to him and begged him to forgive me. - -"Don't you mind me, Uncle Ranny," he put his hand in mine. "I'm a man, -and I know a man has got to swear sometimes." - -"No, Jimmie--not if the man has brains enough with which to think." - -That contact with the child, however, seemed to release something in my -clamped and aching skull. - -"Run, Jimmie," I said, "and send Alicia out to me. I wish to speak to -her." - -Jimmie, to whom commissions are delight, was off like an arrow. - -Some moments elapsed before Alicia could come to me and during that time -I had a mad impulse to fly from it all, to, seize my hat and steal away, -to take a train to the city and not to return, until it was all over. -But I waited nevertheless and Alicia, who had been helping Griselda, -came running out flushed, with concern in her eyes. - -"Alicia," I began miserably, "I have tried to screw up my courage to -tell the children about the coming of--of their father. But I simply -can't do it, Alicia; it's--it's beyond me. I--I want you to tell them," -I faltered like a guilty schoolboy. The girl winced perceptibly but-- - -"All right," she answered; "do you mean now?" - -"About half-past six--the train gets here at six thirty-five. You take -them into the garden--and keep them there until after the men come, -and--I call you." - -"Yes--Uncle Ranny," she whispered--"but, oh, please don't worry about it -so much!" - -"No, my dear," I murmured and at that moment I felt closer to her than -to any other living being. To take the children out of the house upon -the coming of their father--it sounded like a funeral. And it was at -that moment--my funeral. And the rest of the afternoon was a blur and -the encompassing world was a shadow. It was broken; no, it was too -insubstantial for breaking. It kept thinning and receding away from me -and I was left a dully throbbing entity in the primal chaos before -Creation. - -I was startled at last by hearing the wheezy groan of an aged taxi -outside and like the galvanized corpse I was, I felt my members heavily -stirring and propelling me to the door. - -On the path in the curiously sickly light of a premature dusk under a -clouded, lifeless sky I saw Dibdin and Pendleton, slightly stooping -forward to the slope, walking toward me. That moment of poignant joy at -seeing Dibdin, of exquisite pain on beholding Pendleton--I shall never -forget it! - -"Dibdin!" I cried, rushing at his hand and clinging to it to defer as -long as possible touching the other's. Then, after ages it seemed, my -eyes slowly turned to the tall figure of Pendleton and rested on the -fleshy face, somewhat loose and pendulous, smooth-shaven and purplish, -with eyes that fell before my own. Finally I disengaged my hand and -held it out to him. I could not do otherwise. - -"Jim," I murmured and my voice had labored over a universe of barriers -to achieve that. But I could utter no more. - -He peered at me from his protruding eyes as though he also were -struggling, struggling with memory and with memories, with a teeming -past, with all that he had been and committed, and for an instant I felt -sorry for him. - -"Come in," I breathed deeply, and we made our way into the house and -into my study. - -"Randolph," Pendleton finally uttered with a profound sigh, and then I -recalled that he was playing a part. To me the appalling reality of the -whole episode had been so excruciating that momentarily I forgot that he -was in all likelihood playing a part. But was he? How could he? In the -face of these children, in the face of all he is guilty of, how could he -play a part, when the truth would raise him almost to a kind of manhood? -I cannot give him the benefit of the doubt and yet I cannot wholly doubt -him. Some idiotic simplicity or imbecility inside me makes it -impossible for me to envisage any creature in human form as so -consummate a villain. Perhaps--perhaps there is something-- - -"Randolph," he murmured in a deep guttural--"I know you--I remember -you--yes, you are--you are--" and he paused. We hung for a moment like -things dangling by threads, like marionettes motionless. Then, with a -prickling sensation of sweat over all my body, I broke the spell by -fumbling with a box of cigarettes and with a hand spasmodically -quivering like the needle of a seismograph, I held them out. - -"Have a good voyage?" I heard myself saying, as we all smoked and -covertly stole glances at one another. I was not flying at his throat. -Dibdin puffed heavily with the crease deepening between his eyes and -Pendleton's gaze roved questing and unsteady about the room. Melodrama! -There never was any except on the stage! In life there is only -drama--and pain. - -"How are the kids?" Dibdin asked abruptly. - -"Fine!" I exclaimed automatically, in an unnatural voice, like a pistol -shot. "They are out in the garden there," and Dibdin nodded. I felt -certain that his mind also was seeing the analogy to a funeral. And now -my brain seemed to be shaking off its dull lethargy. From somewhere in -Maeterlinck the haunting memory of a phrase came glimmering through my -consciousness, like a dim light through a fog, to the effect that if -Socrates and Christ had been in the palace of Agamemnon, the tragedies -of the house of Atreus could not have happened. I longed for a little -wisdom to deal with the situation. - -"Would you like," I turned to Pendleton, "to see the children?" - -"The children," he repeated dazedly. "Yes--yes--I'd like to see them. -But--just a moment. The children," he repeated piteously, "but no -Laura!" - -Sharp, sharp was the stab at my heart when he spoke her name. But -either he is a supreme master in deceit or I am the dullest of -simpletons. For the struggle through clouds of memory that his features -expressed seemed real to me. - -"I told you she was dead!" snapped Dibdin gruffly, without turning to -him. - -"You told me? Ah, yes." And he sighed heavily. "Of course you told -me." And his chin sank weightily to his breast. We remained thus -silent for a space. Then-- - -"Come," I said, standing up. "I'll take you to the children." - -He rose ponderously, his great frame limp and leaden, and followed me -somberly. He seemed sincere enough in his grief, I must own that. -Dibdin did not move. - -I led him into the garden toward the spot where the children were -huddled about Alicia. She was talking to them in low tones and they -were listening in dead silence. Never again, I hope, shall I experience -that sense of going to my own execution that I experienced at that -instant. Execution--no! I could have walked to a gibbet or a -guillotine smiling, I am quite sure. What is my life to me? I was -walking rather to the execution of those four young souls under the -gnarled old apple tree. - -Alicia, too! By Heaven! Like a lightning stroke that fact crashed into -my soul. He would take Alicia also. No--no! He had no claim upon her, -thank God! - -"Not Alicia!" my voice broke out from the turmoil of my thoughts like -the voice in a dream breaking the barriers of sleep. - -"Eh?" said Pendleton faintly. - -"Did you call, Uncle Ranny?" Alicia turned and asked in a clear, steady -voice. - -"Yes, Alicia," I struggled for control. "Here is Mr. Pendleton--come to -see the children." I meant to say "his children," but I could not. - -The whole sickly-colored evening seemed to shudder at my words. The -children seemed like wraiths under the tree to shudder away from the -intruding material world. - -In a moment--what a tragic moment--Pendleton was bending toward them, -peering, peering into their white, frightened faces. Then his gaze -settled on Alicia and hung there for a space. - -"This must be Randolph," he finally turned to the eldest boy, -"grown--grown up--isn't it?" and his arms stirred forward. - -"Yes, sir," the boy answered hoarsely and put out his hand. - -"And this--can this be baby Laura?" Laura hung her head then raised it -bravely and with shy resolution held out her hand. Pendleton took it -and kissed her clumsily on the cheek. - -Jimmie, hanging back, clung to Alicia's skirt and watched the -proceedings with troubled stealth from behind her. - -"And this is Jimmie," I said, taking the child by the shoulder--"the -youngest of them." - -As Pendleton was stooping toward him, Jimmie uttered a wild scream of -heartbreaking terror, wrenched himself from my hold and fled like some -little wounded animal toward the house. Pendleton gave a short, -mirthless laugh. - -My throat was parched, my heart Was thumping like a rabbit's, but how I -loved Jimmie at that moment! - -"He is only a baby," put in Alicia softly. - -Again Pendleton looked at her--obliquely. - -"And this is--" he murmured. - -"Alicia Palmer," I supplied hastily, "who has been looking after them." - -"Ah, Alicia--a little deputy mother--" and he held out his hand with -shamefaced suavity. - -The scene was over--the incredible episode--commonplace enough as I -write it down. But I lived a dozen melodramas in that eternity that a -clock would tick off in three or four minutes of time. - - - - - *CHAPTER XV* - - -Walking about as I do under sentence, I am like a man of my -acquaintance, a stodgy, a terrible Philistine, who cherished for years a -fancy that he could write Gilbert and Sullivan operas. In all his life -he had probably never rhymed anything more subtle than love, above and -dove. Since any fool, in his opinion, could supply the music, he -aspired only to the Gilbertian librettos. Incessantly and hopelessly out -of key he went about humming the Sullivan tunes to the lyrics he alleged -to have in his mind. - -Similarly, I go about with a sense of mendacious buoyancy,--like a -shipwrecked passenger bobbing helplessly in a troubled sea, but still -alive; a flickering glimmer of hope, like a desperate man facing a -tiger, but still undevoured. - -Brazenly I still expect happiness to emerge, somehow, out of -hopelessness. - -It is easy, of course, to lapse into moods of despondency, into wishing -I were dead, since I cannot live in happiness, - - And shake the yoke of inauspicious stars - From this world-wearied flesh. - - -But such moments pass. There is a sort of tonic in the rough of life -when the smooth is absent, and the wits, my poor dull wits, brace -themselves for the shock of action. I feel certain now that in all my -years of tranquillity it is the salt of suffering that was lacking. Yet -who would seek suffering for its own sake? I know, however, that I feel -younger and more energetic to-day than ever I felt five years ago. - -Even Pendleton has his uses. He is the thorn in the side, the fox -gnawing at my vitals under the cloak, but here he is in my house as its -guest. - -He goes with me to the city of a morning on his quest for work, "a -connection" as he calls it, and often I find him at home before me when -I arrive, in my room, smoking, or out in the garden with the children. -I wince inwardly, but I hope I do not show it. - -I spoke of hating him, but that is untrue. You cannot persistently hate -any man, notably a guest in your house. You can only suspect him. Yet, -when I see the children still shy of him, why does it give me a -throbbing sense of triumph? I do not know, but so it is. Randolph alone -seems to approach him nearer as the days go by. They go on walks -together and Randolph confides to Alicia that he is fascinated by the -tales of his father's experiences in the tropics, of ships and islands -and pearl-fishing and native customs. I fancy Pendleton must be -selectively on the alert in his narratives with his young son as the -listener. His past must contain many things that none of us in this -quiet haven will ever hear recounted. - -But I am indifferent to his past. I could listen and even tolerate him -as my guest, if only the children were not passing to his care. He -talks of "relieving" me of the burden. - -"Don't hurry, old man," I answer casually, "they are no burden to me." - -He gazes at me and lowers his eyes. - -"I tell you, Randolph, you're a revelation to me. I never knew a man -like you before. They don't make them like that these days." - -"Praise from Sir Hubert," occurs to me, but I don't say it. I am in -reality at his mercy, I suppose, but I often feel as though he were at -mine. The glossing over of his atrocious conduct, the taking him at his -word on the subject of his lapsed memory, which we either slur or don't -refer to at all, seem to give me a tremendous advantage over him,--the -commonplace advantage of simple honesty over mendacity. Not for a -moment do I now believe in his lapsed memory story. I cannot deny, -however, that his air is one of repentance and, as Dibdin has said, who -in this world is so hard but he wouldn't give a fellow man a second -chance? - -Jim Pendleton, now that he has been to a New York tailor's, appears as -impressive and debonair as ever. He must be in the middle forties and -he is not ill-looking. It is chiefly his eyes that seem changed to me. -Do what I will, I cannot look at them. There is a certain disturbing -obliqueness about his gaze that makes me turn mine away in a sort of -vicarious shame. - - -But, again, _C'est un mauvais metier que celui de medire_. And conscious -of that truth, I mean to speak or think no more ill of Jim Pendleton. -After all, his large contact with the world has given him something that -I lack. - -Last evening at dinner he was regaling us with an experience of his of -spearing fish in the Marquesas. - -"I was in the back of the boat," he was saying, "with a torch in my -hand, and my islander, who was an expert at it, held his spear ready for -the first fish that leaped. Several of them leaped and fell again into -the water round us churning it up, so that we were wet with spray. -Suddenly I saw a huge mass glistening in the torchlight, falling, it -seemed, right on top of us. - -"The native buried his spear upward in the thing as it fell. I tell you -that man was quick! But it was too late. The huge fish flopped into the -boat with its great head on my knees and the full weight of his body on -the man, sending him overboard and splintering the side of the boat. In -just about a second we were in total darkness, floundering in the water, -with an overturned boat. I was badly bruised and the native had both -legs broken. - -"In spite of his broken legs, however, he offered to swim ashore, to the -nearest projecting rock. But I was sure he couldn't make it and very -certain I couldn't. It was a job, I can tell you, righting that boat, -helping that man into it and scrambling in myself; and then with a piece -of splintered oar rowing ourselves in. The fellow with his broken legs, -worked just as hard as I did and never uttered so much as a groan. It -did me up for some time. But that fellow was spearing fish again in ten -days or so." - -Jimmie, who is sometimes allowed to take his supper with us, sat gazing -at his father, fascinated by the narrative until the last word. Then -seemingly jealous that any one, even this strange father, should exceed -me in prowess, his little face clouded and he demanded: - -"Uncle Ranny, didn't you ever spear a big fish?" - -"No, Jimmie," I laughed, "but maybe you and I will go there one day and -spear some together." - -"Well, anyway," he retorted stoutly, "you took us on a picnic." - -Whereat we all laughed, albeit my own laugh was rueful. The thought -flashed through my mind that Pendleton was certain to win them to -himself the moment he decided to do so. The very memory of me would -become ridiculous to them. - -"Uncle Ranny," spoke up Laura, "has been too busy feeding us and buying -us clothes to go traveling." - -Alicia smiled radiantly at Laura across the table, and Griselda, who had -just come in with the dessert, nodded her head with somber emphasis as -she placed the bowl before me. - -I could have hugged them all three in gratitude, but nevertheless I -pressed Pendleton to narrate more of his experiences. - -"No," he shook his head, evidently taking the children's comment to -heart. "That's yarn enough for one evening." - -That seemed to me very decent of Pendleton. - - -I could not help laughing at Dibdin to-day. I called him up on the -telephone and demanded what he meant by coming from devil knows where -after more than two years' absence and virtually cutting me. - -"Come to lunch at the Salmagundi Club," he growled. - -"Does it pain you as much as that to ask me?" - -"Don't be a damn fool," he retorted. - -"Don't be so wickedly witty," I replied. - -"At twelve-thirty," he muttered and hung up the receiver. From which I -gathered that he was out of sorts. - -In the hall of the Club where he was waiting, I greeted him with, - - "'Is it weakness of intellect, birdie,' I cried, - 'Or a rather tough worm in your little inside?'" - - -He stared at me. - -"How you can be so light and idiotic in the face of circumstances," he -began, "passes my comprehension." - -"Circumstances, my dear fellow, are all there is to life." - -"Want to wash your paws?" - -"No--I am as clean as I shall ever be." - -I put my arm through his and allowed him to lead me to a quiet table in -the rear of the billiard room, softly illumined by a shaded lamp at -midday. - -"What a delightful place!" I exclaimed. "Residence of Q.T. -tranquillity." - -"Tranquillity be blowed," he grunted, as he sat down facing me. "What -are you going to do about that Old Man of the Sea of yours?" - -"You mean Pendleton?" - -"Whom the devil else can I mean?" - -"Why, nothing of course, but give him a leg up if we can. What else is -there to do? I just received a letter this morning from an insurance -company asking for confidential information about him. He's given me as -a reference and they're evidently considering him." - -"The Danbury and Phoenix?" he asked. - -"Yes. How did you know?" - -"I got one, too." - -"I suppose we are really his only two possible sponsors at present." - -"I'd as soon recommend a convict from Sing Sing," he muttered. - -"Oh, no!" I protested. "Not as bad as that. Besides, sometimes you -have to recommend even a convict." - -"I'd much rather recommend a convict. I hate to lie about this man. -I've been asked whether I would trust him and I have to say yes. But -you know dashed well I wouldn't. Give me a cigarette," he ended -savagely. - -"I think he'll go straight now," I murmured dully, passing my case to -Dibdin and looking away. "The children will no doubt have an influence -on him." - -"You judge everybody by yourself." - -"How d'ye mean--myself?" - -"The long and the short of it is," he declared, putting both elbows on -the table, "I had no idea what the children would do to you." - -"What did they do to me?" I queried, mystified. - -"Made you over--that's all." - -"Explain," I said, gazing at him stupidly. - -"What is there to explain?" growled Dibdin, when the waiter was out of -earshot. "You were always a decent sort of idiot--bookworm, muddler, -dilettante, whatever it was--afraid of real life, fit only to collect -pretty little books or old musty volumes that nobody really cares to -read in--a drifter, with about as much knowledge of the problems of -existence as a stuffed owl in a glass. - -"What happened? Your sister's orphans come to you. You plunge into -life, go into business which you detest, lose your money, go to work as -a clerk, by George! You of all people!--Keep a roof over them, bring -them up and hang me if I don't think you were idiotically happy in it -all until I brought this Old Man of the Sea!--What right had I to pick -him up and bring him and bungle it all? And why the hell didn't you -warn me not to fetch him? I thought I was helping you out. I'd sooner -have chucked the brute overboard--I would, by Heaven!" - -For a moment I could reply nothing at all to Dibdin. His estimate and -account of my actions were natural enough to him who, despite his burly -manner, exaggerates everybody's qualities. It seemed the more -remarkable that he who so firmly believed in the second chance should -now find no word to say in Pendleton's favor. But I could see clearly -enough that what troubled him was the pain he instinctively realized the -departure of the children from me to Pendleton was certain to bring me. - -"Why didn't you cable me, 'Lose the brute?'" he took up his argument. - -"Because, my dear fellow," I put my hand on his arm across the table, -"it was too late; once you had found him and told him of what had -occurred in his absence, it was too late. Would you like to live with -the menacing uncertainty of him overhanging in space? Rather have him -here and face him. Besides, the children are his"--I knew I must state -my view squarely on that head--"If he is fit to take them, then have -them he must, regardless." - -"Regardless of you, you mean?" He put it darkly. - -"Yes--regardless of me, certainly. I don't count." - -"By the Lord!" and his fine head shot upwards in a gesture that was in -itself invigorating. "D'you know you are twenty times the man you -were?" he cried. "I couldn't have believed it. You--you're -stupendous!" - -I laughed and waved him away with a "_Retro, Satanas_." - -"You're going it blind like that," he ran on, disregarding me,--"Salmon -and Byrd," with a laugh--"losing all your money and -then--Visconti's--slaving for the kids--meeting it all--by gad, you are -living life!--heroic, I call it--I take off my hat to you!" - -"Put it on again," I murmured, moved by his vehemence. It was certainly -agreeable to hear such words from Dibdin, who never lied. Praise is a -savory dish, not a thing that my misspent life has been surfeited with, -and it was exquisitely soothing to one's vanity. But it was clear -enough that Dibdin was wrong. His usually lucid view was obscured by -the tangle of circumstances that weighed upon him. Naturally, I could -not leave him in his error. - -"If you knew," I managed to stammer, "the malignant fear that is eating -my liver white, you--" - -"Fear of what?" he broke in. - -"Of turning those kids over to him;" I lowered my voice--"just that -and--nothing else." - -"Just that," he repeated gloomily, nodding his head. "Who would have -supposed it? By the Lord! If ever there was a bull in a China shop, I -am that bull. Why the devil did I ever pick the brute up? Look here!" -he flashed with sudden inspiration, "why not deport him as we imported -him, eh? I might manage it--I might!" - -"No--no, Dibdin--neither you nor I would do such a thing." - -"Why not?" he growled. - -"That would make us--worse than he is, or was," I explained sadly. For -I must own that for an instant my heart leaped at his suggestion. -"Besides," I went on prosily, "it's not so easy to lay a ghost when once -you've raised it. We've got to believe him, Dibdin, my boy--if only for -the young ones' sake. He will probably get his job, and the thing to do -now is not to arouse his suspicion of how we feel about him. Believe -everything he says--believe in him. Thousands every year, according to -the newspapers, turn up willfully missing! He was tired of the humdrum -life and lit out; that is all there was to it. Now he wants to try -back. You yourself thought he ought to have another chance." - -There was genuine pathos in old Dibdin's voice when he spoke out with a -humid somber look: - -"By George, that chap's the Nemesis of us all! By his one willful act -of destructive irresponsibility he has affected all our lives -destructively. It's maddening that one worthless brute should be able -to do all that. He killed Laura, damn him; he orphaned these kids; he's -upset your life--he makes wretched conspirators of you and me--g-r-r-r! -I'd like to pound him to a jelly!" - -I laughed joylessly. - -"What would that undo?" - -"Nothing, I dare say," snapped Dibdin. "Besides, you really have no -complaint, boy. You tower, Randolph, my lad; yes, by George! you tower -head and shoulders above any one I know! His very villainy has made you -over--blown the breath of life into you." - -I believe I answered something flippant. - -"Look here!" he cried, with a sudden movement upsetting a glass of water -and disregarding it. "If those kids go over to him, we can keep an eye -on him--just the same--as though we were with them!" - -"How d'you mean?" I queried, puzzled. - -"That girl--what's her name--Alicia! She'll keep an eye on him--and -them. She's sharp, I tell you, with her innocent blue eyes. Give you a -daily report like--like--" - -"No!" I emphatically interrupted him. "That, never! She is not going -from my house--certainly not to him!" - -I was the more abashed by my own vehemence when I saw Dibdin staring at -me with lifted eyebrows. - -"Why--you are not--" he began blankly--but I interrupted him hotly. - -"I am nothing!--She is to me just as Jimmie and Laura and Randolph are, -but they are unfortunately his. Don't you know the meaning of -responsibility for young lives, Dibdin? I want to give her her chance, -educate her, make a fine woman of her. They have a father; she has no -one but me. I can't turn her out--and I wish," I added lamely, "I had -as much right to keep them all." - -"Whew!" he whistled in renewed astonishment. - -"I can only say I don't know you any more. I used to know you, but I'm -proud to make the acquaintance of the new Mr. Randolph Byrd." - -"Don't be a damn fool, Dibdin," I mumbled in exasperation. "You know -you are talking rot. Why the devil are you so interested in the kids? -There is that cheque you sent--!" - -"You haven't cashed it," he interposed, moving his shoulders as one -shaking off something. "Why the deuce haven't you?" - -"I will some day," I grinned at him feebly, "when I need it more. But -you haven't answered my question." - -I felt I was goading him brutally but for once I seemed to have the dear -old tramp upon the hip. For all his gruffness he was as full of -emotions as anybody. It seemed to me absurd for a man to hide his -implanted instinct, one of the noblest of all the little hidden -root-cellars of our instincts, under a false shame or indifference. -Women are wiser--they don't hide theirs; and I had become shameless -about mine. - -"Why," I repeated, "are you so much interested in those kids?" - -"Don't be an ass!" he grunted, looking down upon the wet tablecloth, and -a spasm as of pain crossed his countenance. - -"Ah, you see!" I laughed, attempting to lighten his mood. - -"Randolph," he uttered in a strange solemn tone that sent a slight -thrill through me. "I told you once there was a woman I had cared -about--and only one." - -"Yes--but you never married her." - -"No," he continued in the etiolated tone of a dead grief. "She was -married already when I knew her." - -And then my sympathy went out to grizzled old Dibdin. - -"I am sorry," I murmured, touching his hand across the table. "Did I -know her?" - -"Yes," he said quietly, "you knew her. It was Laura." - -In a flash of poignantly bitter and vain regret I saw the vista of the -dead years--of what might have been! ... - - - - - *CHAPTER XVI* - - -Miracles--miracles are common as blackberries! - -Pendleton is once again a faithful worker in the vineyard of the -insurance company. - -A commonplace miracle enough, but all miracles, I suppose, are -commonplaces that happen to surprise us or that we don't understand. - -The abstract office, I am sure, has more joy over one sinner that -repenteth than over ninety and nine--but I do not wish to be -blasphemous. Like Death, it claims us all in the end. A voluptuary, an -idler like myself, or a renegade who broke from it indefensibly like Jim -Pendleton--all, sooner or later--turn or return to its yoke like starved -runaway slaves--the unrelenting office! What a change it must be to Jim -after the beaches and the barrooms of the gorgeous East! But for one -closely relevant circumstance I could find it in my heart to be sorry -for him. - -What a strange and wonderful institution is the family! Another of those -commonplace miracles so charged with mystery, like birth and death. If -I were a classical writer or a Sir Barnes Newcome I might expatiate at -length upon the subject. The things we swallow and condone and cover up -for the sake of its ties! - -Suffice it, however, that Jim Pendleton is quietly working out his -salvation, a salary and plans for re-creating his dismembered home. - -The children are becoming quite used to him. Randolph seems to be the -nearest to him and Jimmie remains stubbornly farthest away. It is -painful to think however that Jimmie's youth will the more certainly and -completely detach him from me in the end. - -When is it all to happen? I for one dare not fix the fateful day which, -with every passing hour, draws nearer. No one fixes the day. It is left -dangling in the air by an invisible thread of uncertain length and -strength-- - -There are times when I could cry out in my anguish, my agony of nameless -pain, fear, apprehension. But what a spectacle I should make of myself -if I gave vent to emotion! We humans are not so much whited sepulchers -as masked and silent volcanoes. - -And Jim Pendleton--what is he thinking, feeling? He is suave, quiet, -controlled. He is very gentle with them all, and particularly -soft-spoken with Alicia. He has taken to consulting and confabulating -with her touching the characteristics and the needs of the children. At -times it seems to me that I cannot bear it and once at least I have -called her and spoken harshly to her, and charged her with having -mislaid a volume of _Book Prices Current_. - -How childish on my part! But my nerves are not what once they were. -They are tetchy and fractious. It has been decreed that I am to have a -vacation and go away for a fortnight--go to Maine or New Hampshire. If I -were to burst into laughter at the thought, I might end like an -hysterical woman, in uncontrollable tears. I could no more go now than -I could spread my arms and fly. I am as remote from the holiday spirit -as from the North Star. - -Poor Dibdin--how mistaken he is in me! He blathers of my "towering head -and shoulders"--b-r-r-r! it makes me shudder with shame. What a -weakling I am in the face of life! - -No--I am a toiler in Bleecker Street, of its reeking pavements, its -fly-infested purlieus, where the Italian children grub and shout and sun -themselves in the gutters, in the air of a thousand smells throbbing -under the noonday sun. The homecoming to the third-rate suburb used to -be refreshing and soothing like a delicate perfume. To see the children -laughing and rosy in the square inch of garden, to see Alicia, sparkling -with her young energy and enthusiasm,--it had all been like coming into -a cool temple filled with shapes of beauty, after wandering in some -fetid bazaar. Now it is dust and ashes. I could never convey to Dibdin -or to any one else how alone I feel in the world, what chill and cutting -blasts of desolation sweep into my life every time I think of its -present or its future. - - -Minot Blackden came in to Visconti's at noon to-day to drag me out to -lunch. - -"Let's stop in at my studio for a minute," he proposed as he steered me -round a corner. "Something for you to see." - -He showed me a small rose window designed for some church in Cincinnati -and turned expectantly to catch my exclamations. I gasped out some -inanities. - -"Art, my boy!" he gloated. "That's art for you!" - -"It is, indeed!" I assented helplessly. "Only surprising thing is how a -real artist can acquire so much fame. Seems to me I see something about -you in every Sunday newspaper I take up." - -"Ah, that's business instinct," he chuckled. "I am no amateur, I can -tell you. I live this thing. You may think it insane, but sometimes I -think I am Benvenuto Cellini reincarnated." He was not laughing; he was -in deadly earnest. "Come in," he added solemnly, directing me to a door -in the rear of his shop. "I want to introduce you to my press agent." - -I was duly introduced to a plain bustling Mrs. Smith of perhaps -thirty-five, who rose from a typewriter and spoke with a devotional, a -reverential fervor of "our work", while casting worshipful glances at -the artist. How do the Minot Blackdens inspire such adoration? I know I -have rediscovered no lost art and it is plain I am no incarnation of -Benvenuto Cellini. No one will ever worship me. - -"Have you seen Miss Bayard lately?" Blackden inquired as we sat down to -an Italian luncheon, beginning with sardines and red pepper. - -"No--I haven't," I answered, surprised. "Do you know her?" - -"Do I know her! Don't you remember introducing us in front of -Brentano's?" - -I had forgotten it, and it seemed to hurt him that I did not regard his -movements and events with the devotional attention of his press agent. - -"Of course," I murmured lamely. "You've seen her again?" He smiled a -detached, superior smile such as the immortals might smile over erring, -unregenerate humans, and ran his fingers through his dark, artistic -hair. - -"I see her quite often," he explained. "Very wonderful woman, Miss -Bayard. She is a great inspiration to me in my art. My art has taken -strides and leaps since I met her. Surprised you don't seize the -opportunity of seeing her oftener--a truly artistic nature!" - -"Ass!" I thought. But aloud I explained that domestic preoccupations -left me little time for social or any other visits. The casualness of -my answer seemed to brighten Blackden perceptibly. - -I recalled, incidentally, that I had promised Gertrude, though heaven -knows why, to let her know the upshot of Pendleton's return. - -"Tell her, when you see her, that I am coming very soon. I've had a -good deal on my hands. She will understand." - -"She understands everything," murmured Blackden absently. "Ah, there is -a woman! Yes, I'll tell her." And his eyes glowed in anticipation. - -He was positively affectionate to me, this austere artist, when he left -me at Visconti's door. - - -To come home, as I have said, used to be a delight. The presence of one -person in it has changed it to a torment. - -This evening when I approached my chalet on the rock, I found Pendleton -in high good humor playing a game with the children on the lawn. - -A flap of canvas, making a sort of pup tent, had been fastened to the -tree for Jimmie, to give him that touch of savage life which even at -Crestlands little boys seem to crave. Savage life at Crestlands! Yet -once the Mohicans roamed here and the Mohican that is in all of us -craves an outlet in Jimmie. It craved an outlet in me when I saw the -great hulk of Pendleton squatting tailor-fashion in the tent entrance, -enacting the role of cannibal chief. I stood unobserved for a moment, -watching the scene with bitterness in my heart and shame on top of the -bitterness. - -"Bring the prisoner before me," grunted Pendleton in the character of -the chief. - -Tittering in suppressed glee, Randolph and Laura marched Jimmie up to -Pendleton, who measured the child with a fearful frown and demanded -where were the other prisoners. - -"They escaped, your majesty," exploded Randolph with stifled laughter. -"This white man alone dared to remain and brave your power!" - -"He should be boiled and eaten by rights," Pendleton growled -truculently. "He dares to face the Big Chief of the Cannibal Islands! -Because of his great courage, however," he added as an afterthought, "we -shall spare his life. Of such stuff great warriors are made." - -"Beware, your Majesty," giggled Laura, "he might treacherously plan some -harm to you. He is very brave, this white chief!" - -"We see he is a desperate blade," answered Pendleton judicially. "But -we admire bravery. He shall be our spear-bearer in battle." - -"No, I want to be eaten!" shrilled Jimmie in his excitement, whereat the -others shrieked and shook with laughter. - -Alicia alone seemed moderate in her merriment. I hugged it to my heart -that she appeared to look a shade sadly upon the scene. But I am -probably wrong. I went indoors and sank my chin upon my hands with a -turmoil of emotions which I wish to forget. - -Pendleton is winning them, there is no doubt about that. In all the -world there is not a soul who would cling to me, excepting possibly -Griselda. Shakespeare never uttered anything truer than that life was -"a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." - -I wish I had never been born. - -This morning I longed to romp and riot with the children, to shake off -every atom of care, to laugh and roll on the floor with them, to be -happy as I have been happy, but I could not. Held in the grip of a -heartache that permeated every fiber in my body, I slunk sullenly away -to my study after dinner to be alone. But even that I could not have. - -Pendleton followed on my heels, lit a cigar and inquired whether he -could have a talk with me. Naturally I could not prevent it. I can -prevent nothing, for I am no longer master in my own house. - -"Old man," he began in his suave thick voice, which he means to be -friendly, which to me seems orgulous with triumph. "Seems to me you're -about due for a rest." - -"What d'you mean?" I faltered, wincing, though inwardly I knew well -enough what he meant. - -"Just what I say," he smiled. "You have worked hard enough--supporting -my family. Time I took the load off your shoulders--that's what I -mean." - -I waved my hand in a gesture of deprecation, but I could not speak. - -"Oh, I know," he insisted doggedly, though even now he cannot look me in -the eyes, "you didn't do it specially for me. You did it because you -are a man--you--bah! they don't make 'em like you, as I've told you. -But you don't want praise from me, I know that. You don't need it. -What's more to the point is, it's time I took a flat or small house in -one of the suburbs and had the lot of them move over and live on me for -a while. About time," he nodded his head and shifted his cigar, "about -time!" - -Every word was a stab, but I steeled myself for the ordeal. Wasn't that -what I had been expecting all this time? - -"When--do you want to make the change?" I endeavored to speak crisply, -as when I address the National City or the Guaranty Trust over the -telephone at Visconti's. - -"Well, I thought I'd begin to look round to-morrow. There'll be the -place to find, some furniture to get--the installment plan will -help--whole job ought to be fixed up in two or three weeks, I guess," he -added with a laugh. "Uncle Ranny will have to come to supper pretty -often to keep the kids as happy as we'd like to see them, eh?" - -"But a going household--" I spoke quickly in a sort of last spasm of -pitiful expostulation--"it's quite a--an undertaking to set going?" - -"Yes--I know," he nodded soberly. "Don't think I don't know I'll have -to push the wheel hard--with both shoulders. But d'you know," he lifted -a confidential eyebrow, "that young woman--Alicia--will be a great help -to me--quite a little housekeeper, she is--quite a kid--I hope Laura -will take after her." - -My heart was of lead. If he was watching my face, he must have -perceived a deadly pallor sweeping every drop of blood away from it. -There was a pounding in my ear's like rushing waters. - -"Alicia," I heard myself saying as one speaking after being rescued from -drowning, "Alicia, you know, isn't my child--or yours. I can't send her -to you. She--there are formalities--but, anyway, her wishes are a -factor in the matter. I'll do anything, old man," my head seemed to -swell suddenly and shoot upwards like a cork from an abyss, and my face -was damp with perspiration--"anything, but I can't send that child to -you unless--unless she is keen--you see that, don't you?" - -"Oh, yes, I see--certainly." He was looking away as he spoke. I have a -lingering hope he had not been watching my face. "That's all true, of -course. But put yourself in my place, Randolph. Here are three -motherless children. She, that girl, has been a kind of mother to them. -Seems to have a born faculty for it. What would I do without her, just -starting in like that--you understand!" - -"Surely, surely!" I hastened to assure him, because I felt slightly -more master of myself. "But you see my point--she doesn't belong to me. -And even if she did--I can't just pass her about--it's a -responsibility--her wish--what I mean is, I can't coerce her in any -way." - -And suddenly I saw the children away from me, with this dubious, -mysterious man, alone, and my heart was wrung with agony. With Alicia, -at least--but, no! I could not acquiesce so completely. - -"Coerce--certainly not," was his wholly reasonable comment. "I reckon a -word from you would go a long way, though. But I see your point, -Randolph, I see your point. Tell you what!" he began in a new tone. -"Suppose we put it this way. I'll speak to her myself--I'll put it up -to her--leave you out of it altogether, see?--leave it to her to -decide--so you won't have to--you'll be neutral, you see?--What's the -matter with doing it that way?" - -A thousand devils within me moved me with all but irresistible force to -jump at his throat, to stifle his words, to choke the beastly life out -of him, to end the torment then and there. But I could not--I could -not. I knew he was expressing by his words his sense of certainty that -he could win over Alicia, as he had won the children--that I was -helpless in his hands--that I was a weakling whom he was making the -barest pretense of respecting--that he could strip my household of all I -held dear with an ease so laughable that he could not even bother to -ridicule me. And yet I could not rise up and strangle him. - -As one in a vise, I sat for a moment chained by wild conflicting -passions, and then--a strange thing happened. A feeling of nakedness, a -sense of being stripped of everything like another Job, of being utterly -alone in the world fell about me like an atmosphere. I felt deprived of -everything, though not bereft. It was an odd feeling, a sort of -involuntary renunciation of all that was my life in which yet I calmly -acquiesced. I faced and addressed Pendleton almost with tranquillity. -Certainly I experienced a strange new dignity that was very soothing, -very grateful, as water to the thirsty after battle. - -"Very well, Jim," I heard myself saying quietly. "Go ahead your own way. -That perhaps is best." - -All that I remember is a gleam of triumph in his eye. No word of all his -chunnering and maundering afterwards do I recall. He talked on, -smoking, for perhaps four or five minutes and then he left me. - -By myself I felt at once strangely heavy as a mountain and insubstantial -as the shadow thereof. - - - - - *CHAPTER XVII* - - -Again and again I have been told that I am a fool. But not even my -dearest friends have called me mad. - -Are the gods then really so anxious to destroy me? What have I done to -deserve it? - -This morning, after last night's interview with Pendleton, I saw -Alicia--suddenly saw her as it seemed for the first time. And yet an -overwhelming realization flooded me like a tidal wave that through -countless ages she and she alone had been inexpressibly dear to me. She, -the divine ideal I had been pursuing, catching fitful glimpses of in -glades and forests, on mountain tops, in palaces, in fantastic -surroundings, amid incredible scenes of a dim and ancient dream-life, -more real than any reality--_she_ was Alicia, this child Alicia. - -And I am more than twice her age! - -Nothing can come of it but misery and wretchedness for me. By no word -or sign dare I convey such a thing to her or to any one else--to no one -except these pale pages that receive my poor motley confidences with the -only discretion I can trust. - -She is dearer to me than all the worlds. Yet not only must I remain -dumb but I must guard my every word, gesture, thought even, as never -before. - -In the midst of all else this is a catastrophe. Yet it overshadows and -overbalances everything. - -Let me disclose the truth by so much as a sign, and every act and motive -of mine becomes abruptly suspect, and I shall stand revealed for the -immoral, shameful creature that I suppose I am. - -I could face that, I believe, if there were any possibility--but there -isn't. - -I must hide and cover and conquer the feeling by inanition. But how can -I, when she is so untellably dear and precious to me? - -No, no! A thousand times no! I cannot let Pendleton try to inveigle -her to leave me. No! - -And all I have to do is to betray this garish resolution and my secret -will be out, and all that I am and have done will stand forth as naked -pretense and I shall appear stripped and manacled like a common criminal -too good for the hangman. - -And I have dared to judge Pendleton! - -The time-honored remedy in fiction, when a man finds himself in love -with any one he has no business to love is, I believe, to go away, to -travel. How ridiculous that sounds to me. The only place I can go to -is Visconti's. To Visconti's! And now I have come back from Visconti's -and I cannot stay in the house. - -I cannot stay in the house because Alicia is in it--and Pendleton! - -Oh, he will have his way, I am sure! The Old Man of the Sea infallibly -has. Why should the unscrupulous always have the advantage? I abhor to -think of him. - -It is Alicia that is filling my mind, my heart, my life. I have been -trying to think of her even until yesterday as a child, and I know I -have been deceitful. She is a woman--she is womanhood. I see her now -in her radiance and every movement and gesture of her, every act, every -glance speaks of the freshness and youth of life, of a supreme, a divine -beauty. I have called her a child and I yearn to sink at her knees and -cry out my anguish and my adoration. I am the child, helpless before -her. Whatever I conceal, I cannot conceal what her going would do to -me. It would shatter what remains of my life. And I suffered Pendleton -yesterday to propose calmly that she go over to him--trafficking in -Alicia!--and with Pendleton! It is stifling to think of. I must go out. -But I cannot let any of them see me. I feel like a thief in my own -house. The window--ah, I can slip out for at least a solitary hour -under the stars! - - -I did not manage to get out under the stars after all. Just as I began -to fumble with the screen Alicia asked leave to come in. No presence -could have been more welcome to me, but the dark thoughts under which I -had been brooding made me wince with pain as she entered. Nevertheless I -contrived to greet her with almost normal cheerfulness. - -"Uncle Ranny," she began hurriedly in an undertone, coming close to me, -"is it really coming, then?" - -"What do you mean, my dear?" I asked her, though such subterfuges are -quite useless with Alicia. - -"Oh, he's just been telling me that he has his eye on a flat near -Columbia University in New York--that he expects to have it going by the -time the schools open--hasn't he told you?" - -"What else did he say?" I queried breathlessly. - -"Nothing much--only he asked me whether I didn't think it was wise to -get settled there as soon as possible. He is very nice to me." - -"Is that all?" I breathed. - -"Yes, that's about all--but isn't that enough?" - -I smiled feebly and sank into my chair with immense relief. - -I longed to draw her to me, to enfold her, to rest her head against my -heart, to hold her close and to exclude thereby all black care and -worry, all overhanging shadows, all the threatening and looming clouds -of existence--to make my world blissfully complete. But I am only -"Uncle Ranny" to her--and I felt a shudder pass down my spine. - -"And you, Alicia," I managed to say. "What did you answer?" - -"Of course, I said that was true--what could I say? But oh, Uncle -Ranny," she leaned toward me as she stood at my desk, "I am afraid, -Uncle Ranny! They are ours--aren't they--I know he's their father, but -I can't help feeling as though we were--handing them over to a -stranger--Oh, I suppose I ought not say it--some one we don't know at -all!" - -And she burst into tears. - -Blood and flesh could not bear it longer. I twitched and writhed in my -chair for an instant, then I leaped up and threw my arms about her and -strained her to me. - -"My darling," I murmured brokenly, "and how do you suppose I feel?" - -"I know," she sobbed and gently, very much as Jimmie or Laura might have -done, she put her arms about me and nestled as though I were some one -old and fragile for whom she had a deep affection--but that was all. -Alicia's first embrace! - -And then I knew also. She did not, I trust, for an instant suspect the -bitterness of the cup I was that moment draining. But why should I -expect anything else? The guilt in my own heart tells me enough,--and -too much--of exactly where I stand. Alicia is still a child. As yet -evidently she did not even suspect that Pendleton was bent upon taking -her also. Suppose I prevented that, then what of the other three whom, -in another way, I love no less? My head was throbbing dizzily, my -pulses were beating like drums. For me this was the supreme moment of -anguish and sacrifice, the dark night of the soul, that _noche oscura_ -that St. John of the Cross knows so well how to describe, that shakes -one's being and changes one's life forever more. My lot seemed to be to -sacrifice and break myself in final and complete renunciation, to drain -my cup of bitterness to its uttermost dregs. - -For a moment the world was as a shadow, swaying, airy and insubstantial. -The cowled monk that is buried somewhere within me was suddenly -uppermost and the life of the world seemed sordid and leprous; a deadly -thing rotted with lusts and passions, a thing to run away from--that was -pulling me into its sensual center. But only for a moment. - -Then suddenly the blood surged to my temples, as Alicia lay in my arms, -and the ancient cunning of a thousand male ancestors, of savage hunters -and crafty warriors who died that I might live, swept into my thews and -nerves and brain and I crackled with eagerness to fight for my own. - -No!--I would not--could not give up all that I held dear. I would -fight! I gripped Alicia's shoulders in a spasm of fierce joy and in a -hoarse guttural voice that surprised her no more than it surprised me, I -breathed out: - -"Never fear, Alicia--it can't be! It won't be. He hasn't done it yet. -I'll do something--I don't know what as yet. But give me time--a little -time--I'll work it out. We'll fight if we must--but we won't give up -tamely!" - -Alicia's warm cheek against mine, though with a trust that can only be -described as childlike, was reward enough for victory, let alone for -this still empty challenge. But an irresistible, throbbing feeling of -confidence tells me that something will happen--that I shall win! - -Is it simply the confidence of a fool, and the surge of melodrama that -is never very far from any of us? Possibly. But my blood still throbs -and my muscles still crackle with the strange eagerness and lust for -battle. It may be that the fragrance and the starry look of Alicia that -linger with me yet, the sweet joy and pride of Alicia when she returned -my good-night kiss before she left me, the affection with which she -clung, the reluctance with which she went, all have something to do with -this new accession of courage. But I do not comfort myself with vain -things. Alicia happens to be a girl whose affections have never been -pampered by any doting parents. If she looks upon me _in loco -parentis_, that ought to be enough for me. It is not enough. And the -pain of that leaves a barbed sting in my breast. But that wound I shall -carry gladly--I shall wear my hair shirt like the girl wife of Jacopone -da Todi--if only I can play the man. - - -The evening and the morning were a day--the first day of a new life, and -what a day! - -I went down in the train with Pendleton and briskly suggested that he -need not hurry with his arrangements. - -"I thought," said he, with a furtive, sidelong glance at me, "that my -first duty was to ease you. I owe you too much already," he added, -looking out toward the drabness of the Mt. Vernon right of way. - -"It's only strangers and enemies that owe each other things;" I -countered easily. "Friends owe each other everything and nothing. -There is no audit for such accounts." - -He laughed out of proportion to the deserts of this lump of wisdom and -exclaimed: - -"You're great, Randolph--great!" - -It was my turn to laugh, and I felt that I had the advantage of him. -With the sixth sense, or the pineal gland, or whatever it is, I was -conscious that he was a little afraid of me--and that did not damage my -temper. - -"Your experience in life has been so--peculiar," I told him, "that -anybody would be glad to be of any service possible. And you must -remember that Laura was my only sister. Tell me," I added -conversationally, "don't you find the harness galling at times after -all--you have been through?" - -"Galling! Say, Randolph, those little machine people in their -skyscraper beehives--cages--don't know what living is!--Freedom!" ... - -For the first time I had noted the light of spontaneity glowing in his -eyes, and my heart bounded: I was about to hear a confession. But on a -sudden he checked himself and looked away. "Of course," he added in a -forced tone, "one has to face one's responsibilities. No--take it all -in all, I am glad to be doing my share of the work and carrying my -burden." - -I knew he was lying. I knew that his first outburst was the true -Pendleton; that the addendum was meant, as politicians say, for home -consumption. - -"Of course, of course," I muttered hastily, "but we're only human." And -alternately I cudgeled my poor wits to stand by me and prayed to them as -to deities to light my way. - -This lawless spirit, Pendleton, I had a vague gleam of intuition, was -repenting his return to the yoke of duty, to the restraints of -civilization. What, then, was it that held him? It was not a suddenly -developed conscience. Of that I was certain. There was a problem I -must solve and solve immediately. - -We parted with cordiality at Grand Central station and twenty minutes -later I was one of those little machines functioning at Visconti's. - -"I want a draft at thirty days," I was saying, "for ten thousand lire on -Naples. Your best rate at that date." And with the receiver to my ear -I heard a voice within me, independent of the telephone, whispering: - -"Could it be that he too is bewitched by Alicia?--with all his roving -and experience--or is it his sense of duty to his children?" - -"Four ninety-eight," said the exchange man, Hoskyns, at the National -City, and "four ninety-eight," I repeated after him automatically. -"Can't you do better--at thirty days?" And the independent voice in my -brain put in: "Perhaps I am hipped upon the subject of Alicia?" And so -the morning wore on. - -Gertrude, to my surprise and confusion, rang me up at eleven. - -"Good morning, Ranny," she opened sweetly. "You haven't kept your -promise, have you?" - -"Promise?" I repeated dully. "What promise?" - -"You said you would keep me informed about Pendleton's return. You -haven't done it--have you?" - -"But you have been away for the summer, haven't you?" I ventured -desperately. - -"Yes, and I am back," she murmured gently, "and still--better come and -lunch with me to-day--don't you think so?" - -If there's any one thing that my career as a business man has done for -me, it is to implant in my heart a hatred for procrastination and -shiftiness. I had no luncheon engagement, and yet I despairingly told -her I had. - -"Dinner," she answered, "would suit me even better." - -"I ought to go home," I protested feebly, with a sinking instinctive -feeling that I really ought not to resume such relations with Gertrude. - -"We'll have an early little meal, at six-thirty," she smoothly ignored -me, "Until then, good-by." - -I clicked the receiver angrily for a moment, but Gertrude had hung up. -Her high-handed manner irritated me, but that was her characteristic. -We were more leagues apart, Gertrude and I, than ever she or I could -travel backward. And though the results of our meeting seemed to be -unsatisfactory to Gertrude, I must in justice to her admit that she is -always an admirable hostess. - -I had telephoned to my house that I was not to be expected to dinner, -and when Griselda had dryly answered, "Ye don't know what ye'll miss," I -thought with a pang that I knew more about that than she did. Gertrude's -calm and comfortable atmosphere, however, her deep chairs and sofas and -the air of excluding a disorderly world, were not disagreeable to one -fresh from the filthy pavements south of Fourth Street. Could those -junk shops, paper-box factories, delicatessen "garages" and machine -shops be in the same world with Gertrude's flat, in Gramercy Park? Yet -they were only a little more than a mile away, and those were my real -world, my daily environment. Gertrude's flat was now foreign ground. - -"Yes--goose of a man!--don't you see? What could be better? The man -comes back anxious to reassume his responsibilities. You have had a -Hades of a time, but you have done the square thing, acquitted yourself -like a man and a hero. And now the little romance ends happily and -everything is satisfactory and you are free again--what could be more -delightful?" - -The heaviness of my heart portended anything but delight, but I remained -silent. - -"Don't think I am being trivial, Ranny," she resumed with a more sober -vehemence. "It was a wonderful thing to do. I feel I was wrong in what -I advised in the past. Your sticking to the children has done heaps for -you--for your development, I mean--more for you than for them, perhaps," -she inserted as a parenthesis with a laugh. "But don't be quixotic now. -Everything's coming right in the best of all possible worlds. So don't -go throwing a wrench into the machinery just because you've had the -wrench in your hand so long you can't think what else to do with it!" - -"I am not good at changes," I murmured gloomily. "I was catapulted from -one kind of life into another by main force of circumstances. Now I -don't feel I can stand being shot back into something else. The wear -and tear, the strain is too great." - -I will not deny that what I chiefly saw at that moment was a disruption -that would rob me not only of the affection of the children of which I -could not speak, but of Alicia, of whom I could speak even less. - -Gertrude graciously lit a cigarette for me and sat down beside me. She -herself, however, was not smoking. - -"There is one change, Ranny," she began in a new and strange voice that -was almost tender, "that would do you more good than anything else in -the world--can you guess what I mean?" - -"A trip abroad?" I fumbled uncertainly. - -"No"--smiled Gertrude quietly laying her hand on mine, "I -mean--marriage." - -"Oh, my God!" I exclaimed in an agony of apprehension, and a cold -perspiration bedewed my forehead. That was one thing I never had -expected Gertrude to discuss with me again, even in the abstract. - -I do not remember what I ate, except that the dinner was dainty and cool -and exquisite. There was a dewy cup of something light and refreshing -and Gertrude's frock was charming, her eyes were bright and there was a -touch of color in her cheeks. She did little talking herself at first, -but pressed me to tell her all I could of Pendleton. - -I told her. I told her of his coming, of his air of penitence, of his -returning to the offices of the insurance company and of his present -effort to reestablish a home for his children. The only suppressions I -was conscious of were any references to Alicia or to my own somber -emotions on the score of the children. Otherwise I was frank enough, -Heaven knows, for it is hard for me not to be. To the very end Gertrude -did not interrupt me. Only when I had done she made one crisp, incisive -comment with a faint smile that was merely a lift of the upper lip. - -"The one thing I cannot understand, Ranny," she observed, "is your -unreasonable skepticism." - -"You feel you could trust such a man implicitly?" I demanded. - -"Yes," was the firm reply. "If there is any one thing clear, it is that -Jim Pendleton is genuinely penitent. Suppose that lost-memory story is -all moonshine, as you and Dibdin seem to think. By coming back that way -doesn't the man really display more character than if it were true? He -really shows that if he's gone wrong he has the stamina to come right -again--and that's a good deal in this wicked world, Ranny." - -"I had not looked at it in that light," I muttered, disturbed. - -"I know you haven't," she gave a triumphant laugh. "You couldn't be calm -on the subject. You really are an emotional, high-strung romantic, -Ranny, and I don't altogether blame you for being prejudiced. But any -dispassionate person knowing the facts will tell you I am right." - -"It would be difficult for me to feel dispassionate on the subject," I -returned doggedly. - -"Certainly it would," was her ready reply. "That's why I am glad I -captured you. Some friend had to show you your own interest." - -"My interest?" - -"Ranny," she cried in a voice charged with purpose if not with -emotion,--with an intense, a vibrating resolution that impinged like a -heavy weight upon my senses. "Ranny--don't let's be children--we are too -old for that. Let bygones be bygones. I'll humiliate myself before -you. I--I love you, Ranny--" and her lips really quivered--"I have -always loved you--will you marry me, Ranny?" - -Her face seemed strange, transformed by the force of an irresistible, a -final compulsion. I writhed under her gaze as one on a rack. She hung -for a moment, her eyes glittering into mine, positively tremulous; I had -never seen Gertrude so serious. I could not bear it. It was -excruciating. I know Gertrude was not herself. I leaped from the sofa, -her hand still clinging to mine. - -"I can't--I can't, Gertrude," I whispered hoarsely. "Oh--I--wish--but I -am horribly sorry--I can't!" - -Gertrude's nerves are strong and her control over them is stronger. She -gazed at me for an instant, intently, searchingly, dropped my hand and -turned away. - -"There is some one else," she murmured in level tones to herself; "there -is some one else now." - -"Yes," I breathed, "though it won't--it can't--" and I paused. - -"You needn't tell me," she turned, smiling harshly. "I know--it's that -girl--the gutter-sni--but it doesn't matter. Every man is a fool--and -you are the least likely to prove an exception. Oh, I always knew -that--felt it--but never mind. I can't humiliate myself any more, can -I?--Ranny," her voice suddenly struck a quieter note. "One thing I must -ask for our old friendship's sake: You will forget this--episode--will -you not? And I shall try to." - -"My dear Gertrude--" I threw out my hands in a gesture of helplessness. -If there was any humiliation it was I who was suffering it. She looked -at me calmly, stonily. The color in her cheeks was exactly the same as -before. Had Gertrude stooped to rouge? - -"Your dear Gertrude--yes; then that's all right. Have a drink before you -go? No? Very well. You will remember some day that I have given you -my best--done my best for you." - -It seems inherent in the nature of woman, so cosmic is the sweep of her -outlook, or else so near to the earth, that when her desires are -frustrated she feels the laws of the universe are frustrated. I did not -make this comment to Gertrude, however; I could only murmur an entreaty -for her forgiveness--which she ignored. Her only answer was a brief -hard gesture of the head, a sort of jerk that expressed at once -futility, contempt and dismissal. - -As one dazed and paralyzed I must have made my way somehow downstairs, -into a street car or some other conveyance at Fourth Avenue and into the -babel at Grand Central station. But of this I have no recollection -whatsoever. It is a blank. I must have walked like a somnambulist. I -never came to until I left the train at Crestlands about a quarter past -nine, and the first thing I was conscious of was the pain I must have -inflicted. - - - - - *CHAPTER XVIII* - - -I can write this almost calmly now because so much has passed since that -dreadful evening and details begin to emerge cloudily from the fog of -that confusion. - -I remember striking out homeward from the station down our drably -progressive suburban Main Street, following the bumping, grinding, -loitering trolley across the little bridge over a stream that sends up a -dank, fishy odor, though all the living things I have ever seen in its -neighborhood were mosquitoes and water snakes. - -Over the rusty iron parapet I stood leaning for a few minutes and the -original thought feebly stirred my dazed brain that life was not so much -a dream--as the Spaniard Calderon would have it--as it is a stream. -There is no knowing what it may not bring upon its bosom. - -"That's it," I muttered to myself aloud. "Life is a stream within a -dream." - -"That's about the size of it," gruffly remarked a passing laborer behind -me, his dinner pail clanking against his side, and he burst into a -hoarse guffaw. - -I laughed too, and concluded that I was still maudlin at the end of my -perfect day. - -I left the bridge and the highway, turned to the right and began to -climb the ill-lighted crooked street, anciently a Dutch cattle track, no -doubt, that leads to my isolated chalet upon the rock. - -With all geography, history, the visible and invisible universe to draw -upon, the fathers of Crestlands had denominated this obscure street -Milwaukee Avenue. Milwaukee Avenue put the last touch to my nightmarish -state. A sickly laugh escaped me as I bent my back to the ascent. - -A young mounted policeman, who rode like another Lancelot by this remote -Shalott, interrupted his tune long enough to give me a cheery greeting -and rode on humming to himself. - -The September evening was mild and I vaguely purposed walking past my -house and strolling about for a bit before I went in. It was early for -returning from dinner in town, and I was not overanxious to encounter -anybody. A sudden sense of something eerie and awesome came to me as I -looked at that deeply shadowed cottage. It appeared unfamiliarly -remote, detached, and I gazed upon it with a weird sense of foreboding -that sent a slight shiver down my back. The window shades of the chalet -were drawn with only their rectangular lines of light showing -through,--light, I reflected bitterly, by which Pendleton was no doubt -beguiling Alicia to desert my house and follow him. - -This thought lodged like a barb in my heart and my feet suddenly turned -to lead. I could not go on farther and irresistibly I felt myself drawn -homeward. - -The somber habit of my recent reflections urged me with a plausibility -strange and inexplicable to enter my study by the window instead of the -comparatively public door. The window nearly always stood open. In -case of storm Griselda or Alicia would dash about the house and close -the windows, beginning always with my study. But this day had been -clear. - -I tiptoed around through the garden to the side upon which my study -window gives. From it the land slopes away under a covering of trees -until it reaches the stream. - -There was a light in the study, though the shade was drawn, flapping -gently against the rusty wire screen. This shade, as it happens, does -not quite fit. It is short a full half-inch on either side, so that the -peering observer can see as much as he pleases of what is going on in -that room when it is lighted. - -Automatically, without any premeditation that I can now recall, I gazed -into my own room like a prowling thief. The picture I saw riveted me to -the spot with an irresistible magnetic force. - -Alicia was reclining on my leather couch, seemingly asleep. -Instinctively I knew that she had decided to wait up for me and with -some book in her hands had nodded in her vigil. It was still early, but -Alicia's day began early and was always charged with activity. What an -exquisite picture she made as she lay there in her thin frock, with a -look of childlike trust and unconsciousness--radiating beauty. - -Pendleton, who at that moment entered the door of the study, possibly to -find Alicia, stood for a few moments spellbound by the picture, even as -I stood outside. My burglarious entry was now frustrated. I must make -use of the door. But I could not move from the spot. Somehow I could -not let Pendleton out of my sight. - -How dared he look at her in that manner! - -My nerves were suddenly tense and my muscles quivering. Strange -unfamiliar thoughts of savage acts, of sudden violence, of thrusts and -blows, of blood-lust seethed and bubbled within me like a lurid boiling -pitch. The inhibitions and restraints of a lifetime, however, held me -writhing as in a vise. - -I turned away for a twinkling as though to gather resolution from the -murmurous night. - -On a sudden, as I peered again eagerly, I saw Pendleton's great hulk -bending over her, with a look peculiar and intense, with a strange -speculation in his eyes that froze me. His huge hands were -spasmodically, irresistibly hovering as if to embrace her delicate -unconscious shoulders. Before I knew it he was kissing her cheek and it -was I--I--who felt his hot vile breath as though Alicia's face and mine -were one! - -I cried out in a torment of fury and pain, but only a hoarse distant -sound as of some night bird issued out of my parched constricted throat. - -I rattled the sash violently, seized the screen and ripped it out, -tearing my hands with the cheap twisted screen frame, though I was -unaware of it then. The thin opaque shade flapped defiantly in my face. -And all at once I heard a piercing scream--the terrified voice of -Alicia! - -Rage maddened me. And because of my state, I experienced difficulty, -this time of all times, in entering the window out of which normally I -stepped with ease. I stumbled, slipped, fell, rose again and leaped into -the room like a maniac. - -But Griselda, drawn by Alicia's scream, no doubt, was already filling -the doorway, facing Pendleton, and with a look of concentrated hatred -that remains engraved in my memory she was saying: - -"Ye blackguard! Ye vile, black-hearted blackguard!" - -With a wild leap to my table I seized a pointed bronze paper cutter. I -should have plunged it into his heart, but for the swift intervention of -the aged Griselda. - -"No!" she cried huskily, seizing the blade, "we need nae add murder to -this!" - -I dropped the paper cutter to the floor and threw myself at the purple -throat of the beast Pendleton. For a moment the guilty hang-dog look -left his eyes and with an oath he thrust out his open hands against my -face to throw me off. I was blinded by his huge hot palms against my -eyes but I clung convulsively to his throat. His hands spasmodically -closed about my neck; a momentary blackness fell upon me but I clung, my -fingers eating more savagely into the hateful flesh of his throat. The -pent-up force of years of hostility was that instant in my destroying -hands. He gurgled and gasped and reeled backward. - -In the meanwhile Alicia, emerging from her bewilderment and realizing -the scene enacting itself with lightning-like rapidity, gave a low cry -and sat up, moaning with terror. This vision of Alicia recalled me to -myself. I flung his head away from me and I myself staggered backward -with the force of my effort. I was breathing like a wrestler as I stood -leaning with one hand upon the table. I could not speak. - -My desire was to fold Alicia in my arms, to press her to me, exulting in -her safety. But I dared not move for fear I should topple and fall, -with the sheer working of the rage that was tearing me. - -"Go--Alicia!" I gasped out finally. "Upstairs. Leave us!" Dead, banal -phrases, when I panted to pour out endearments! - -With a look of wild anxiety from Pendleton to me, like a terrified doe, -Alicia rose, stood for a moment irresolute, then suddenly throwing up -her hands to her face, she ran out of the room with a piteous stifled -cry. - -We stood for a space silent, all three of us, Griselda, Pendleton and I, -after the door had closed. - -"Now, Pendleton," I said finally, when I was a little more sure of my -voice, "nothing you can say will matter in the slightest. We saw. -Question is what d'you mean to do?" - -He glanced hostilely toward Griselda. She, interpreting his look, -flashed defiantly, with arms akimbo. - -"Look, ye villain, look your fill. I will na leave the master alone -with a murderer, the likes of you! No, I will na!" How often I have -wished since then that she had not been so zealous. - -"Talk about murder!" Pendleton, with the ghost of a grin, pointed at -the paper knife still clutched in Griselda's hand. - -"You needn't be afraid on my account," I told Griselda quietly. "I -don't fear him." - -"I will na go away," obstinately retorted Griselda, moving forward, -pushing Pendleton aside like a man, and placing her back against the -door. - -"Very well, Griselda," I said. "I have no secrets to hide from you. -And this man has betrayed what he can never hope to hide. Pendleton, -what do you mean to do?" - -"Do--" muttered Pendleton, with a dark abstraction in his look, "I'd -like to tell you what I'd like to do to such as you--but it isn't worth -while. This namby-pamby, mollycoddle, rotten doll-life favors you. Do! -If I had the money, I'd get so far away I couldn't even think of insects -like you." - -"Then you realize you are no more fit to take Laura's children than -you're fit to live among decent people?" He was silent for a moment, -with the abstraction merging into cunning in his eye, and that in turn, -as though cunning were of no avail, fading into heaviness. - -"They'll become like you," he finally answered with the somber trace of -a sneer. "There's the oldest boy--I wish--I'd make a man of him." A -snort of derision from Griselda interrupted. - -"You mean a criminal," I put in, in spite of myself. "Well, you can't, -Pendleton. Lift a finger and as surely as you sit there, I'll prosecute -you--children or no children. Don't forget I have witnesses." - -He gazed at me open-mouthed with half-defiance, half-alarm on his moist -fleshy countenance. - -"That's your little scheme, is it?" he muttered sardonically. - -"Only if you drive me to it!" - -"Blackmail, eh?" - -I laughed at him. "What's the use of being melodramatic, Pendleton? -You are hardly the one to talk like that." - -"Where's the money Laura left?" he snapped with truculent sharpness, and -I experienced a pang of pain to hear her name upon his lips. -Nevertheless, I answered him evenly: - -"That exists intact--about nineteen hundred dollars. It's the -children's, unless I should need it for their education. I am the -executor." - -"Give me a thousand of that!" he cried passionately, yet with a -tentative uncertainty in his voice, "and I'll go where I'll never see -your face again!" - -"That's a consummation, Pendleton--but of that not a penny!" - -"Executor!" he repeated with vicious bitterness--"with your little laws -and safeguards. God! How I hate you all! God! To be again where real -men are--who move--and laugh--and live! Peddling mollycoddles--caged -white mice! Damn you! I wish to God I had never met any of you!" - -"You don't know how often I have wished that," I murmured, but he paid -no heed. - -"Lord! I want to be again where the sun shines, where a man can take a -chance! I wish to God I had never met that moldy old rotten Dibdin! I -was going into the commission business with an Englishman at Osaka--or I -could have gone into one of the mines of Kuhara in Korea--copper--made a -fortune!"--he spoke as if he were vehemently thinking aloud--"but that -plausible rotter Dibdin came along--dragged me away--and I had a -hankering for the lights of Broadway. Broadway! What have I seen of it? -Want to put me in a cage--in a flat! Hell, man! Give me a thousand -dollars--and let me--I'll pay it back!" - -I did not laugh at his last words. His mention of Dibdin suddenly -brought to my mind what was like a flash of light. To be rid of him was -my paramount desire. Dibdin--Dibdin's check--_to be used for the -children_! It lay yellowing in my pocketbook. Now if ever was the -time. Never, I felt certain after Pendleton's confession, could I -benefit the children more with a thousand dollars! - -"Yes!" I cried explosively. "I understand you, Pendleton. I'll give -you a thousand dollars. You don't belong here--it was a mistake -bringing you--go where you came from--where you'll be at home." It was -only afterwards I recalled that he had mentioned blackmail. - -"You'll give it to me?" he exclaimed avidly, thrusting out his hand. - -"Yes--I will!" - -"Now?" - -"To-morrow morning." His face fell. - -"Some trick? You'll go back on it." I ignored him. - -"But you can't sleep here," I went on. "I'll meet you in town anywhere -you say. No, I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll come with you to town -now, to-night. To-morrow morning we'll settle it." - -To be rid of him--to get him out from under this roof--seemed suddenly a -great, a priceless boon. - -"God! I could kiss you!" he cried in derisive exultation. - -"Go pack your things," I said, through the tumult in my brain. "I'll -call a cab--or better still, you telephone Hickson, Griselda. I'll go -and help him." - -Pendleton nodded with grim insolence and shouldered out of the door. - -"A better night's work ye've never done in your life," flashed Griselda, -with a look of approbation that pleased me as much as any praise I have -ever received; and she shuffled out to the telephone. - -For one moment of silence I stood alone in the middle of my study, -throbbing with a jumble of half-formed thoughts and racing flashes of -ideas upon none of which my mind was able to fasten. But this single -fact finally emerged from the welter: It was I, by my own act, who was -now sending the father of Laura's children into exile. But on the heels -of that came the certain conviction that never had any judge since -justice was invented made a more accurate decision. And it seemed to me -then as though something new and massive and stubborn and hard was born -in my bosom that solidified and toughened me: That, come sorrow or joy, -I should be able to present a surer front to their encounter, a greater -certitude in meeting them. I felt myself at last an active, fashioned -and tempered part of the machinery of life, and all my past seemed as -chaff that had been blown by the winds of circumstance. - -Alicia! My heart cried out for her! But I could not go to her now. I -must clean my house for her and when next I saw her it should be in a -cleared and wholesome atmosphere that no longer reeked of Pendleton. I -made my way to his room and opened the door. - -"Have you packing space enough?" I asked him coldly. - -"I could use another suit case," he muttered. - -"I'll give you mine," I told him and brought forth my bag from a closet -in the hall. Whether Alicia had heard any or all of our words I could -not tell. The children were evidently sleeping. I walked on tiptoe. - -"Where d'you intend to go?" growled Pendleton, without looking at me. - -"To an hotel," I told him curtly--"any hotel you like." - -"Go to the Hotel de Gink for all I care," he muttered and went on with -his packing. - -"Do you want to see the children before you go?" - -I could not forbear asking him that. He paused for a moment and -straightened up, breathing heavily. Then he shook his head. "No--I -guess not." - -The tin taxicab was rattling at the door, and Griselda came futilely to -announce it. - -"You'll hear from me to-morrow morning some time," I whispered to her -quickly, as Pendleton, stooping under his bags, lumbered on in front of -me. "Look after Alicia--and the others." - -"Ay," she murmured, "have no fear." - -There was a train, and in the longest half-hour of any journey we were -at the Manhattan Hotel. Adjoining rooms were assigned to us with a -bathroom between. There had been a sort of intoxication about the entire -business that had carried me on with a blind nameless force as one is -carried in a dream. Once I was alone in the four walls of the -impersonal chamber, a sudden lassitude fell upon me, followed by an -immense wave of dreariness. How somber and sinister was life, full of a -drab and hidden tragedy. Trafficking with Pendleton--slaving at -Visconti's--the dreams that had been mine! And this was the life I was -living. Suppose in the morning he should refuse? On a sudden my door -opened and Pendleton's hatless head appeared. - -"Sure you won't back out in the morning?" - -And again my nerves snapped back into their steel-like tension. - -"Not even doomsday morning." - -"Will you have a drink on it?" - -"No," I told him, "but there is no reason why you shouldn't have one." - -"I think I will," he said, and with a malign gleam of triumph he -approached the telephone in my room. - -"The bar!" he demanded, and when the connection was made he added: "Two -rye highs for 436." Then he turned his face toward me and grinned. - -"Now, Randolph," he began quite amicably, "why keep me here any longer -than you can help?" - -"What d'you mean?" - -"This: It's only about half-past ten--quarter to eleven. There -is--there must be a train for the West round midnight. Why prolong the -sweet agony of parting--why not let me go?" - -"Now? You must be crazy!" I exploded nervously. "How can I get the -money for you? Besides, there's another thing--I want you to sign -something--something a lawyer must draw up--a paper of some sort--so you -can't repeat this business." - -"So that's it--is it?" he nodded his heavy head up and down, as though -thinking aloud. "Well, put that out of your mind. I'll sign nothing. -Take me for a fool? Here's your chance. Give me the money now and let -me go or the deal's off. See? I'm just as anxious to go as you're to -have me go. But I wasn't born yesterday. I'll sign no papers in any -damn lawyer's office. Take it or leave it. That's that!" - -There was something unspeakably horrible to me about sitting there and -chaffering with this man whose every word breathed contamination. For a -moment the thought of Dibdin came to me. I would call upon Dibdin in -this emergency. Dibdin had hardly been near me of late. Excepting for -an occasional luncheon together or a sporadic telephone conversation, I -had scarcely seen him. It was as though he dreaded to encounter the -monster Pendleton, whom, in a sort he had himself brought into being, -and was only waiting until I should be free of him. But somehow I could -not then call Dibdin. This was _my_ crisis and my mind revolted at -dragging any one else into it. Oddly enough it was not the children -that seemed to be the barrier, but Alicia. The picture of Pendleton -obscenely hovering over her came scorching, before my vision and I at -once, dismissed the thought of calling upon Dibdin. The club,--that was -my one chance of getting cash at that hour. - -"What's the matter with your club?" Pendleton snapped me up so suddenly -that I was startled. Could that fleshy brute read my thoughts? - -"Just what I was thinking of," I murmured excitedly and snatched up the -telephone. "Give me 9100 Bryant." - -"Damn it--you're a sport! I like a dead game bird like you." - -When the club answered, I asked whether Mr. Fred Salmon happened to be -in and was informed that the doorman thought he was and that he would -page him. I sat waiting with the receiver to my ear. - -"Tell you what I'll do," said Pendleton, under the stimulus of -expectation. "If you pull this off for me so I can start to-night, -while the mood's on me, I'll sign any damn thing you please." - -"Hello!" I suddenly heard in Fred Salmon's deep voice, "Salmon -speaking." - -"Fred," I told him, "this is Randolph Byrd." - -"Hello, Ranny!" he broke in exuberantly. "Well, of all the ghosts--" -but I checked him. - -"--I want to cash a check for a thousand dollars right now, Fred. I am -at the Manhattan Hotel. The banks are closed. Will you do this for me: -Ask at the office and turn out your pockets and get what you can from -any of the card players there and anybody else you know. Do you follow -me?" - -"I get you all right--all right--" said the voice of Fred, hardening to -a businesslike tone now that money was in question. "Hold the wire a -minute, Ran. I'll see what I can do." - -Fred's raucous voice was as plainly audible to Pendleton as it was to -me. - -"Get it," he muttered. "Get it. I'd hate to wait till to-morrow." - -I nodded. To be rid of him to-night would be a vast relief. And I -longed to return home. - -"I guess we can fix it all right," came Fred's voice in the telephone. -"But you'd better come over with the check. There's about six hundred -dollars in the club till. I have a couple of hundred with me. And we -can raise the rest." - -Pendleton heard him. - -"Go ahead," he said. "I'll fix up about a berth with the head porter in -the meanwhile." - -"What's the big idea?" was Fred's greeting, as I entered the club. - -"Private," I told him laconically. "Sending a man to the antipodes -because he's unfit to live in this climate." - -"Oh--sick man?" Fred was sympathetic. - -"Very sick," I told him. "Incurable," - -Fifteen minutes later I was in the hotel, handing Pendleton the money. - -"Now what d'you want me to sign?" he queried carelessly. - -"Not a thing," I answered. For on a sudden the futility of holding -Pendleton to any bond overwhelmed me. Any respite, even a few weeks -from his presence, seemed a paradise. Paradise seemed cheap at a -thousand dollars. And who can safeguard paradise? Besides, if I knew -my man at all, it would be some time before he would return to an -environment he so thoroughly loathed. I was no more safe with his -signature than without--and no less. - -"That's about all, then," he said, and he had the decency not to hold -out his hand. "Good luck," he added in an undertone. - -I made no answer and turned my face away from him with a wonderful sense -of relief. - -No sooner had the porter bustled out with his things and the door closed -than I looked toward my own small bag with the dominant thought of -returning home. But I could not move. I found myself shaking like a -leaf and I sank down in the nearest chair, quivering as though the -vibration in my nerves would hurl my body to pieces. No, I could not go -home in this state. And taking off my coat with hands that shook as in -a palsy, I threw myself upon the bed. But before I passed into the -sleep of stupefied exhaustion a single insistent foreboding kept dully -throbbing through my brain. - -"He will come back--Pendleton will come back!" - - - - - *CHAPTER XIX* - - -Exultation filled me when I awoke late in the morning. - -Though I had slept in my clothes and felt particularly disheveled, I -stripped with the joy of an athlete after a victory and plunged into the -cool invigorating bath. - -Pendleton was gone! I do not remember the emotions of Sinbad when he -had rid himself of the Old Man of the Sea. But his emotions must have -resembled mine. My heart sang, I sang myself. I was manumitted. I was -free. To my intimate journal may I not say that I felt myself a man? - -I had fought the beast at Ephesus, my pulses blasphemously and -jubilantly informed me, and by the Lord, I had won! - -The children were mine! Alicia was mine! Would that I could bind them -to me with triple brass. But I have bound them. In ridding myself of -Pendleton, I had made them securely mine. Suppose he should return one -day? They would be grown--reared by me. He would be merely the family -skeleton. What is a family without a skeleton? He was that now. He -wouldn't matter. It is human destiny to revolve about the child, about -children. With the exception of Pendleton the outcast and Gertrude -the--well, Gertrude--every one attained completeness only in rearing the -next generation. And as I rubbed my body with the coarse towel I felt -complete! - -As for Alicia--ah--well, who was I to expect from life _everything_? At -any rate she was mine, now, even as the children were mine. And the -very first thing I would do--oh, jeweled inspiration--is to adopt her, -legally and formally. That thought suddenly made the blood sing in my -ears to so delicious a tune that absurdly, ridiculously, I began like -some pagan or satyr to dance about the room. _Mine, mine, mine_! I -danced into the room in which Pendleton had not slept and with crazy -gestures made as if to sweep his memory out of the garish window. I had -saved the children and safeguarded Alicia. - -I felt I had played the man. And let no man say he has lived until he -has fought for those he loves. Inevitably my mind dwelt upon Alicia. -Who is that child? What were her beginnings? Did she come out of the -sea and chaos of life only to vanish in some bitter poignant dream like -that of last night? I only knew that she was mine now and that I would -bind her to me yet more strongly. I would not ask for too much; I would -be humbly grateful. She had come into my life as a divine offering and -I would not question overmuch. There is no other origin. I felt -supremely, tremulously content. If only she would abide and never leave -me! - -And it occurred to me, as I stood shaving before the mirror, that life -is a beleaguered city, with deadly arrows falling over the wall, and the -great enemy, death, certain to enter in the end. But by virtue of the -love implanted in the human heart, one may snatch many hours of -happiness amid the tumult and the shouting in the winding ways. - -Over my hasty breakfast I recalled with a shock of guilt that I had not -yet communicated with Griselda. But as I was already late I decided I -should call her from the office. - - -How swift is mischief to enter in the thoughts of desperate men I -discovered bitterly only a few minutes later. - -For the first word I received upon entering Visconti's was that Griselda -had called me repeatedly and Griselda's news chilled and numbed every -fiber in my body. - -Alicia had disappeared! - -Pendleton! That was the thought that seared my brain. - -"You--don't think"--I stammered brokenly to Griselda, "that she--that -Pendleton--" - -"I have thought of that," was her reply. "But--no! It canna be -possible. She hated him--no! She must hae gone before ye left the -house. I looked into her room soon after and she wasna there. I -thought the girlie was hiding somewhere--or maybe she had run out into -the garden until the mischief should blow over. I looked high and low; I -called her in the garden. But she was nowhere to be found." - -"Did she take any things?" I queried huskily. - -"A wee bundle--" said Griselda--"night things and the like." - -The shuddering dismay of that moment I shall never forget. - -"Did she talk with--with him at all during the evening?" The words -struggled out of my parched throat in spite of me, and I should have -hated to see my own eyes. - -"Ay," said Griselda, "that he did, the leper! All the evening he was -wheedling her to come to him with the bairns when he set up his house. -She was weeping sair to me in the kitchen afterward. It was to ask you -if you wanted her to go that she waited for you in the study--and fell -asleep, the poor maidie!" - -"And what did you say to her?" I all but whispered into the mouthpiece. - -"I told the lass not to greet," shouted Griselda. "I told her I could -nae believe it would happen. He would never take the bairns. And if he -did he would nae keep them. He was a bad one--the evil brute! But she -was frightened, the puir lassie!" - -"Very well, Griselda," I muttered stonily. "I must think. I shall call -you a little later. Don't alarm the others." - -She hated him, had said Griselda! There was a meager ray of comfort. -But do what I would, my stunned mind continued to flutter heavily like a -half-scorched moth around the ugly, sinister vision of Pendleton. Could -he be at the bottom of Alicia's disappearance? How had he contrived the -trick? If only I had gone to the station with him! Was it that that -accounted for his hurry to be gone? No! It was impossible. Ought I to -start in pursuit at once? No, no, no! I could not believe it. It could -not be--not of her own free will! Yet my heart was lacerated by the -possibility. When I lifted my head from my bosom, I gasped in a -desolation of emptiness. - -I had stifled the prompting to call Dibdin last night, but now I felt I -must find him. I needed the solace and advice of a friend. I rose -heavily and put on my hat. Visconti had not yet come in. - -"Tell Mr. Visconti," I said to Varesi, my young understudy, "that I have -been called away suddenly, on a serious private matter. I shall -telephone him later." - -"Yes, Mr. Byrd," responded Varesi, his lustrous Italian eyes flashing -sympathy. He thought, no doubt, from what he must have overheard, that -some rascal had run off with my younger sister--a killing matter, very -possibly, to a properly constituted male. Had he known the truth, his -Latin mind would have been shocked at my seeming Anglo-Saxon composure. -Out of doors I heaved a deep sigh and boarded a north-bound elevated -train for the eighties, where Dibdin has his lodgings, near the Museum -of Natural History. - -I found Dibdin not at his lodging but at the Museum, directing the -rearrangement of the Polynesian section in the light of his additions to -it. - -He turned one intense glance upon me without speaking, hurriedly gave -some directions to the men at work, and led me to an alcove where there -was a bench. - -"Now, let's hear--" he said. "What's he been doing?" He concluded at -once that Pendleton was at the bottom of whatever wild appearance I must -have presented. - -Briefly, but without omitting any essential detail, I gave him an -account of all that had happened the previous evening, including -Griselda's announcement of the morning. - -"And you think he enticed her to go off with him?" he demanded. - -"Well--what do you think?" I queried. - -"I think no," said Dibdin. "What does Griselda say?" - -"She says Alicia hated him." - -"Then take her word for it!" snapped Dibdin. "But why the devil didn't -you call me last night from the Manhattan?" he turned upon me angrily. - -"Why didn't I?" I murmured. "Maybe it's because you've done -enough--maybe it's because there are some things a man wants to do -without assistance." - -Dibdin glanced at me sharply and gave a low whistle. - -"Oh, that's it--" he muttered--"I see," and he looked away. - -I am certain that at that moment Dibdin read my secret. For his -expression swiftly changed. He grew suddenly warm and friendly, more -than his usual self. - -"A fine job you did there, Randolph," he cried, clapping my shoulder; -"an excellent piece of work. I certainly admire your technique. As for -Alicia--she didn't go with him--of that I feel sure!" I could have -groveled before him in gratitude for those words. - -"But where do you suppose she is?" I could not help eagerly asking. -There was a gleam of amusement mingled with the sympathy in his eyes. - -"Not very far, I imagine. We'll find her. Have no fear. Young girls -are funny things. The instinct of sacrifice and the instinct of -independence are always struggling in a woman like the twins in -Rebekah's womb. When they're young it hits them very hard. Some notion -like that must have swamped Alicia--sacrifice--earn her own -living--ceasing to be a source of trouble--who knows? They don't think -when they're young--or even when they're old. They feel. We'll find -her--but we've got to think. Pull yourself together, old man." - -"How," I asked in stupefaction, "do you come to know all that about -women?" And my heart felt perceptibly lightened at his words. - -"Oh, I've been studying them all my life," he laughed. "Never having had -one of my own, I've been watching and thinking about the whole sex all -over the earth. We'll find her. Have you communicated with the police?" - -At the word "police," my heart turned leaden again. - -"The--p-police!" I stammered aghast. "Invoke the publicity that -means?--Horrible!" A shudder ran down my back. - -"Right again!" cried Dibdin, nudging me. "Young man, you have an -appreciation! Quite useless--the police. But you still--have a -suspicion of Pendleton, haven't you?" I found myself wishing that even -the best of men weren't so ready to imagine themselves amateur -detectives. The very core of my heart of hearts, Alicia, had -disappeared, and I wanted swift concrete help, not speculative -questions. - -I admitted that I had a lingering suspicion of Pendleton. - -"Then, this is what we do," Dibdin rubbed his forehead as over a problem -in chess. "We see a private detective agency here and acquaint them -with the facts. Have them pick up Pendleton on the way--he hasn't -reached Chicago yet, you know--and see if he's traveling alone. If he -is, let him go on his way. If not--then, a description of the girl--you -understand--" - -A livid fury possessed me suddenly as I saw the all too vivid picture -that Dibdin had evoked and was now trying to believe. - -"No, no!" I cried. "I am going myself. I dare not--I cannot trust -anybody else to do this. You don't know--you can't understand--" - -"I know only too damned well," growled Dibdin staring at me quizzically. -"But I am trying to show you sense--difficult, I admit, to one in your -condition. However, I must try again," he went on with the patience of -resignation. - -"You are only one man--don't you see? A detective agency is an -organization of many men in different places who can concentrate on the -same job simultaneously. At this minute they would know on which train -he might be traveling and some one or several could already be watching -for his arrival. Suppose they miss him. There are many hotels in -Chicago--there are many trains leaving for the coast--don't you see?" - -"Yes," I breathed brokenly. "Then it's useless." - -"Far from it," he laughed. "Come with me." - -Less than an hour later we were at the Mahoney Detective Agency and a -suave young Irishman was listening without emotion or eagerness to my -story supplemented by Dibdin's interpolations. He seemed to care little -for what concerned me most, but he was keen for personal details of -Pendleton's appearance, height, build, clothes, lettering on his luggage -and so on. - -When it came to giving a detailed description of Alicia, my confusion -was so pitiful that even the young detective glanced at me only once and -then, like the gentleman he was, looked sedulously down upon the paper -before him. - -"Sixteen--in her seventeenth year!" he murmured in astonishment. - -"But she is an unusual girl--well grown for her age," I caught him up. - -"I see," he murmured gravely. "What's the color of her hair?" - -I went on as best I could with the description. - -"I could save you money," he smiled blandly, "by telling you that the -girl is not with him--" and I could have wrung his hand like a -brother's. "But," he added, "it won't cost much to pick him up. I'll -have news for you to-morrow this time, I'm thinking." - -As I sat down to lunch with Dibdin at his club, though in truth nothing -was farther from my cravings than food, he suddenly burst forth into -hearty laughter. - -"So it's my thousand you gave Pendleton?" he chuckled. "That was sheer -inspiration, Randolph--sheer, unadulterated genius! If you weren't so -lugubrious just now, I could accuse you of a high ironic sense of humor -that only a great man would be capable of!" - -How terrible were the next twenty-four hours, in spite of Dibdin's -companionship and his efforts to cheer me, no one will ever know. No -funeral could possibly have darkened my household to such an extent. I -dreaded to be seen by the children, who walked about like wraiths under -the sense of tragedy. I dreaded to tell them lies and yet I could not -tell them the truth. Finally I felt I must say something to Laura and -Randolph. - -The departure of their father they received without the least surprise. -Randolph inquired where he had gone, but this, I answered, I could not -tell him, save that he had gone West. But the absence of Alicia left -them puzzled and strained and awed. Alicia's disappearance shook them -almost as it had shaken me. - -"When will she be back?" demanded Randolph. - -"I don't know exactly," I answered miserably, "soon, I hope." - -The following morning I gave up all thought of going to the office. If -my mysterious truancy should cost me my job, then it must be so. I -hovered in the region of the telephone. Again and again I was about to -call up Mahoney's, but I forebore. Finally, toward noon, I could wait -no longer. When the connection was made, I gave my name and asked for -the young man who had charge of my case. - -"Was just going to call you," was the bland apologetic answer. "Your -man is at the La Salle Hotel, going out on the Santa Fe to-night. He is -alone and arrived alone last night. We'll see whether he starts alone -to-night." - -Then, of course, I cursed myself for my folly in thinking that it might -be otherwise and realized that I had really thought nothing of the sort. - -But where in the meanwhile was Alicia? - -I had believed myself by now schooled to emergencies, but here was an -emergency that left me dazed and helpless. I had fondly thought myself a -match for life, but life was crushing me with pain like a blind force. - -I leaped up suddenly and wandered about the house and the garden like a -dog searching miserably for a departed loved one. There was the -stream--but I turned from it shivering. No--that was impossible! The -sense of life in Alicia, her vitality, was too potent, too radiant to -suffer extinction. I looked up at my little nest from the edge of the -muddy stream, that frail eyrie upon the rock that I had felt so -nestling, secure; barred by the trunks of intervening trees, it now -seemed a prison. A faint breeze that was stirring the leaves made them -murmurous with secret things which my heart cried out to interpret. Was -it a litany, a dirge, or a whisper of hope? I could not read the -riddle, but my bruised spirit was passionately clinging to hope. - -Dibdin pretended not to observe my vagaries; when I returned I found him -absorbed in Epictetus. - -"This is rather good," he growled, pointing to a passage and puffing his -pipe as he spoke: - -"Have you not received facilities by which you may support any event? -Have you not received a manly soul? Have you not received patience?" - -"Yes," I muttered dejectedly, "all very well, but Epictetus never lost -Alicia." - -Dibdin laughed shortly. "Now," he said, "we must start out to find her. -Though my feeling is she'll come back of her own accord very soon. The -girl was frightened--no more." - -I ignored the last part of his speech but leaped at the first. - -"How would you start?" I queried sharply. - -"What is the high-sounding name of that institution where she was -brought up?" - -"Oh, don't tell them, for Heaven's sake," I cried out in alarm. "If she -is not there and they learn I have lost her, they'll never consent to my -adopting her; they'll consider me irresponsible." - -"Don't let's be fools," retorted Dibdin. "Those people are not. Do you -know how many boys, girls, men and women turn up 'willfully missing' -every year?" No, I didn't know. - -"But, by George!" he suddenly clapped his forehead in a burst of -inspiration--"Sergeant Cullum! Ever hear of Sergeant Cullum?." I shook -my head. "He is a policeman I know who has a genius for finding missing -persons. It's positively a sixth sense with him. He's a prodigy--has -traveled everywhere--a human bloodhound--he is the man to go to!" - -"But--the police!" I stammered. - -"Yes, I know--but we'll see whether we can make him take this as a -private case--out of hours--I'll find him!" - -The surge of hope to my eyes must have told Dibdin better than any words -I could have uttered what I felt at that instant. - -"But first we'll call that institution," he directed. "You put in a call -for the number and I'll tell you what to say." - -"You needn't," I decided after a moment's reflection. "I know. I shall -simply inquire about the regulations governing adoptions. I can so word -it that if Alicia is there they will tell me." - -"Ah, now your brain is functioning again," he concluded. "That being -so, I shall leave you and look up Cullum at the bureau of missing -persons." - -Then I recalled that I had met with the phrase in newspapers. The fact -that missing persons were so numerous that a bureau of the metropolitan -police was required to handle them cheered me more than any other single -fact. It was consoling to feel that even, in my peculiar misery I had -joined a great multitude who suffered the loss of loved ones, even as in -toil and labor and poverty I had merged into the vast majority. - -When Dibdin left me I learned that I might adopt Alicia without any -great obstacles, if she were willing, but I was no wiser as to her -whereabouts. The Home, in the person of the Matron, inquired how "she -was getting along." She was obviously not there, and I experienced a -misery of guilt as though I had robbed the world of its dearest -possession and then lost it. - -Alone and bereft I sat, sinking to a mere pin's point in my abasement. -I had begun to believe myself schooled in life, something of a man among -men. But my own ineffectiveness was now dismally revealed to me. I had -proved myself incapable of guarding even what was dearest to me in the -world. I was at the bottom of an abyss from which I now felt hopeless -to scramble upward. The sheer and beetling walls of granite were -overpoweringly steep and forbidding. For the first time in long years, -I believe I mentally prayed. I waited for Dibdin. - -And then suddenly, as is the way with me when I am at the bottom, my -spirits bounded upward. Alicia would come back to me, I felt in a -sudden surge of assurance. At that moment I felt sure that she was -thinking of me, that she was yearning to return. And before I knew it, -I was blocking in magnificent plans for her education, for making a -splendid woman of her, even though she already seemed perfect, of -supplementing nature's handiwork with all the force that was in me. I -saw her resplendent, a shining creature, the woman of my dreams! What a -florid designer is hope! - -But why should she have been taken from me so abruptly? The vast -mystery of life encompassed me again like a shell, impenetrable--a -carapace through which nature must supply the openings--and she had -evidently not supplied them. Would Dibdin never come with his -policeman? - -Books, for so long my mainstay and support, were now useless to me. I -turned over many volumes idly but my mind no longer reacted to that old -and magical alchemy. The volume of Epictetus that Dibdin had fingered -might have been a seed catalogue, so remote it seemed and so null. I -was now a ghost among my books: I was plunged in "The Woods of -Westermain," and my memory flung me the lines: - - Enter these enchanted woods, - You who dare. - Nothing harms beneath the leaves - More than waves a swimmer cleaves. - Toss your heart up with the lark, - Foot at peace with mouse and worm, - Fair you fare. - Only at a dread of dark - Quaver, and they quit their form; - Thousand eyeballs under hoods - Have you by the hair. - Enter these enchanted woods, - You who dare. - - -It was clear. I must toss my heart up with the lark to fare fairly, -even though my pain was great. - -Late that afternoon; Dibdin returned, bringing Sergeant Cullum. - -That excellent policeman gave me more hope than any one, excepting my -own heart, had yet succeeded in doing. He insisted upon being made -privy to all the circumstances, to which he listened, his broad shaven -face turned ceilingward, with the rapt air of a mystic, expecting -momentarily that lightning flash of inspiration that would reveal all. -Then he asked to be allowed to wander by himself throughout the house, -over which he went pointing and sniffing like some well-trained hound. -In the end he declared himself satisfied. - -"Now give me a little time," he said. - -"But what means--how do you go to work?" I asked, nettled that he should -see possibilities regarding Alicia that I had overlooked. - -"I swear, Mr. Byrd, I don't know," he answered reverently. "I wait for -guidance." - -"Guidance?" I faltered. - -"Yes--from on high." - -"You depend on that--only?" - -"Only!--Well, yes and no. I pray, Mr. Byrd--I pray." - -"You have no other means?" I queried, with a sinking heart. - -"What other means are there," he demanded with glowing eyes, "that the -Lord can't supply? What detective in the world can equal the Lord--tell -me that, Mr. Byrd." - -I saw that I was in the presence of a fanatic and I stood abashed. - -"The best man in the Department," Dibdin put in encouragingly. -"Sergeant Cullum _is_ the bureau of missing persons." - -"Give me a little time," he urged again, with the fervid intensity of -prayer--Time! And it was Alicia who was missing! - -I shook his hand and gave him time and parted from him with a hope that -I should not have to wait for his ecstatic visions to restore her. - -"He'll find her!" Dibdin exclaimed reassuringly. "Never fear. If there -is one thing I've learned, it's to accept the methods of people so long -as they produce the results. Let them use the divining rod if they want -to, or incantations with henbane and hellebore, or trances and visions, -or prayer. This almost human race of ours is made up of some very odd -fish," he added with a laugh, and he looked at me quizzically as though -I were the oddest fish of them all. - -"But an ecstatic policeman"--I murmured-- - -"Yes--queer--I know," said Dibdin, "but I don't care. And now, old boy, -I've got to run back to the museum and take a squint at the work. Cheer -up." - - -I was alone in my study after a pretense of eating supper with the -children, when Jimmie burst in and flung himself upon me. - -"I want to know where is Alicia," he demanded with quivering lips, and -he burst into a pitiful freshet of bitter weeping. His childish tears -fell like scalding lead upon my hands and I hugged the quivering small -figure to me in an anguished embrace. - -"Don't you want Laura to put you to bed?" I murmured with my lips -against his ear. - -"Don't want Laura," he sobbed chokingly; "want Alicia to give me my bath -and put me to bed. Where is she? Why don't she come?" - -It was a cry that tore at my heart as it echoed there and reverberated. -I hugged him closer. - -"I'll give you your bath, Jimmikins," I endeavored to soothe him, "and -we'll float ships." - -"'Licia--tells me--stories!" he sobbed out, as one broken with tragedy, -and I declare I came very near to joining him in his grief. - -"I'll--tell you a story--Jimmie," I gulped foolishly, "and until Alicia -comes back you must be the fine little man you are--and let me." - -"When is she coming back?" - -"I am not sure, Jimmie--possibly to-morrow." It was my throbbing hope. -For that we could go on any longer without her was simply inconceivable -to me. - -Gradually his paroxysm subsided. He grew quiescent in my arms and -heaved a deep sigh as we nestled against each other in silence. It is -fortunate that the grief of children is like a summer shower. For so -intense is it while it lasts that any serious continuation of agony -would rack their small frames to pieces. - -"All right, Uncle Ranny," he murmured finally. "Will you come in and -give me my bath? I'll go and run it--I know how, first the hot and then -the cold. And I'll put the ships in and undress. Then you come in and -tell me a long story while I sail them." And he ran out of the room in -a little whirlwind of energy. - -I sat bowed in silence for a few minutes and then heavily made my way to -the bathroom. - -"Is the temp'ture a'right?" queried Jimmie, with an intense air of -responsibility, his erect nude little figure standing with a ship under -each arm, like a symbol of man adventuring his petty argosies on this -storm-beaten planet. I put my hand judicially into the water. How -important is the temperature of a child's bath! It must be neither too -hot nor too cold, or disastrous results might follow. - -I began to tell him an ancient story of an island that proved to be a -sleeping whale, but he was impatient of that. - -"'Licia," he informed me in deprecating protest, "tells me stories of -Mowgli in the jungle--out of the 'Jungle Book.'" I endeavored with a -heavy heart to match Alicia, and gradually I became absorbed in my task -and in Jimmie, so that the darkness of life fell away from me. The -water splashed and the ships tacked about in wild maneuvers, while -Jimmie kept reminding me that "he was listening, Uncle Ranny." - -The great mystics are those who submerge their intellect and senses into -night so that their souls emerge before them like the full moon out of -the blackness. Every parent, I suppose, must be in part a mystic: for -by centering his heart on little children he discerns the pulsating -irresistible life of the universe, the past and the future, alpha and -omega. - -At least Jimmie was courteous enough to assure me, when he hugged me for -the last time, with sleepy eyes, that my tale was won'erful. "But, oh, -Uncle Ranny," he whispered, "say that Alicia will be back to-morrow." - -I kissed him but made no promise. In the dining room Laura and Randolph -were sitting over their books,--Laura grave with an anxious pucker in -her white forehead and Randolph with dilated, somewhat fevered eyes. He -was obviously thinking rather than reading. But I dared not enter into -any more discussion of Alicia's absence that evening. - - -Only now after many days can I write down the events of the day -following my last entry with anything approximating composure; and even -now my fingers are tremulous as they hold the pencil. - -I had risen early, for my sleep had been broken and fitful--as, indeed, -how could it have been otherwise? - -I was parched and burning within, to act, to do something, to range the -city, the country--Good God, I thought, can a person like Alicia -disappear in that way like a pebble in the sea? But my frenzy of -thought, that seemed as if it would burst the poor narrow limits of my -skull, produced no definite idea. I lashed against the bars of the -brain like a beast in its cage. - -I entertained no thought of going to the office that morning, but half -an hour after I was up, that was the only thought that flooded my mind. -There are blessings in a routine of daily labor that those engaged -therein can hardly understand. The treadmill, I imagine, leaves the -mule but little time for speculation or grief or any other emotions. I -was that kind--or, rather that mule let loose--that could find oblivion -nowhere better than in the treadmill. For routine can dull despair. - -It was still half an hour before breakfast when my nephew Randolph came -clattering down the stairs, meticulously dressed, though somewhat -wild-eyed. He gave me the impression of having--he also--slept badly. -"Uncle Ranny," he approached me, "are you going to the office this -morning?" - -"Yes, I think I am. Why, Randolph?" - -"I'd like to go in to town with you--and go round--look around." - -"What do you mean, my boy?" - -"Somebody ought to be looking for Alicia all the time--don't you think -so, Uncle Ranny? I'd like to try," and he looked away shamefaced. - -A boy in his sixteenth year can be a considerable pillar in a household. -I had somehow overlooked Randolph in that role. Perhaps I had been -inclined to treat Laura's children too much as nestlings all, wholly -dependent upon me? I experienced a thrill of pleasurable surprise in -the boy's words and manner. He had said no word concerning his father, -had asked no disconcerting questions. He merely desired to help. - -"But of course there is somebody looking for Alicia," I informed him. - -"Yes, I know, Uncle Ranny--a policeman! What does a policeman know -about girls like Alicia? I--we talked a lot, she and I," he stammered. -"I have a hunch I could sort of tell what she'd _think_ of doing if she -left home. Let me have a try at it, Uncle Ranny, please. It'll only be -a few nickels in carfare." - -"Certainly, my boy," I put my arm about his shoulders. To frustrate -young intentions simply because they are young has never appealed to me -as wisdom. "Come into town with me by all means. I am certain Alicia -will come back"--he could not know the effort this easy answer was -costing me--"but there is no reason why you shouldn't try to find her." -I had thrown off any mask of secrecy with all excepting Jimmie. -Insincerity is a difficult habit to wear. - -"Thanks, Uncle Ranny," he answered with suppressed jubilation, and for -the first time in our common history I suddenly felt that I had a -companion in Randolph--that he was growing up. - -When he left me at the station, charged with avuncular instructions that -he was to telephone me at various times of the day and that he was to -lunch with me if he could, I had a tender impulse to embrace this lad, -Laura's first-born, before all the concourse. But I knew he would be -shamed to death by such a demonstration. So I tapped him on the shoulder -and we parted grinning to keep each other in heart. I experienced a -fleeting intuition that Alicia would be restored to us, but I expected -nothing at all from Randolph's romantic quest for her. - -My heart went out to the boy as I saw him merge and lose himself in the -crowd; I felt very tenderly not only toward those of my flesh, but to -all young things facing the hurly-burly of this oddly jumbled sphere. - -I was becoming an ogler in my old age. Every young girl I saw in the -streets, in cars, at crossings, I scrutinized searchingly, with painful -leapings of the heart, when any of them in the slightest particular -resembled Alicia. And the melancholy truth came to me that you can build -a life to any design you please, but only a miracle will keep it intact. - -Visconti was in the office when I arrived and he was kindness itself -when he saw my face. - -"_Caro mio!_" he grasped my hand. "Something serious?" - -"Some domestic trouble--a little painful," I stammered, and he saw that -I did not wish to speak of it. And the vast loneliness of human beings -traversing their orbits on earth struck me as I sat heavily down to my -work. What did I know of Visconti--or Visconti of me? For ages I had -worked near him and I knew he trusted and had what is called regard for -me. Yet the planets in trackless space knew more of each other. I -believe he knows that I am a middle-aged bachelor and I know he has a -daughter who is the apple of his eye--and he pays the wage by which I -live. But what else did we know? He had lost a deeply loved wife and -remained a widower. My heart warmed to him in a sudden sympathy. As -though reciprocating, he came bustling to my desk a minute later and -bending toward me whispered: - -"Do not forget that your time is your own--if your _demarches_--private -business--do not forget!" I thanked him but he waved his pudgy hand in -sign of friendly deprecation of formalities. - - ... com 'e duro calle - Lo scendere e il salir per l'altrui scale, - -lamented Dante. Yes, hard is the path, the going up and down other -people's stairs, when you depend for your livelihood upon them. But -Visconti in his manner endeavored to make his "stairs" those of a -friend. - -There was no word from Randolph that morning and my heart grew every -moment heavier. - -I seemed to require no food. I straggled aimlessly during the noon hour -through mean streets, from Bleecker Street to Abingdon Square, in a -world of listless women and dirty children, a desert, ghostly world, -drab and wretched. - -Shuttling back and forth, all but inanimate, I passed Minot Blackden's -studio, but with sudden horror recoiled from entering. I was driven -about like a leaf. I was a shadow in a world of shadows. - -Towards four o'clock I rose heavily from my desk, determined to drag -myself to police headquarters in search of Sergeant Cullum. I expected -nothing from him, but, still, he might utter a word of hope. - -At that moment my telephone rang. It was Randolph! - -His voice was charged and crackling with excitement and importance. - -"Will you meet me at Brentano's, corner Twenty-sixth Street and the -Avenue right away?" - -"Why," I said piteously--"tell me, in God's name--have you news?--what -d'you mean?" - -A swirl of hope and apprehension swept me like a wave and left me -gasping. - -"Yes, Uncle Ranny," was the chuckling reply. "I have news--she's--I -know where she is--Come right over!" - -And without giving me a chance to say more, the young devil hung up the -receiver. I cursed the boy in my heart for being a boy--for his -callousness to another's suffering. - -Exactly how I reached that corner, I cannot now remember. I did not -walk and yet I cannot for the life of me recall what manner of -conveyance I used. So much happened in my mind during that transit that -external matters left absolutely no impression upon it. The first -impression I do recall is the shock of blank chagrin that struck me like -a shot in the vitals when I saw Randolph standing jauntily alone at the -corner, staring at the passing crowd. Alicia was not with him. - -Yet how important the young rascal suddenly seemed in my eyes. He alone -in all the world had present knowledge of her. I could have fallen upon -him and hugged him then and there--and shamed him to death. - -"Where--where is she?" I blurted out. "I thought you--tell me, in -heaven's name!" and I seized hold of him fiercely, as though he were a -pickpocket caught in the act. He glanced at me with humorous cockiness -and laughed. Then suddenly conscious that people were staring at us, -and that a policeman was speculatively watching our encounter, he -hastily put his arm through mine and drew me away. - -"Come on, Uncle Ranny, I'll lead you to where she is." - -"You amazing boy!" I muttered. "But are you really sure?" - -"Sure I'm sure!" he crowed. "I think it's nothing to be a detective. I -believe I'd make a good one," he bragged. - -"Brag, you young devil," I thought indulgently, but I made no audible -reply and merely made him walk faster. - -He was leading me into Twenty-ninth Street beyond Brentano's and to my -amazement I found myself at the well-remembered door of Andrews' -bookshop. - -"Here!" I cried in stupefaction. He nodded, grinning as though he -expected an oration of praise for his acumen then and there. He did not -get it. I rushed in wildly, like a mad man, into those silent precincts -where so often I had passed blissfully silent hours. Who would desire a -garish light in this pleasant temple? For a moment I seemed to be in -utter darkness. - -"Kind of dark," murmured Randolph, "but I spotted her." - -On a sudden my dilated eyes encountered two human beings simultaneously -in their line of vision. Andrews was standing in dignity in the middle -of his shop like a monarch about to receive royalty, and behind him, at -a desk in the rear, a girl was bending over some writing, an electric -light illumining her fair head. - -The girl--yes!--It was Alicia! - -I felt the effect of a sharp blow over the heart and, brushing the -astonished Andrews aside, I made a crazy leap toward her. - -"Why, Mr. Randolph Byrd!" began Andrews. "Haven't seen you--" - -"Alicia!" I cried out in what sounded even in my own ears like a sob. - -"Oh, Uncle Ranny!" She jumped from her chair with a little scream, and, -before I knew it, I was pressing her to my heart with a quivering -convulsive joy that choked all utterance. - -She gasped in pain, the poor child. But when my arms relaxed, she lay -sobbing happily against my heart. - -Randolph was so scandalized that he sullenly turned his back upon us. -Andrews was watching us with discreet and sober interest. - -"My dearest child!" I whispered, still in a sort of trance of ecstasy, -and Alicia, with the tears trickling down her face, murmured softly. - -"Oh, how glad I am I'm found! And there's Randolph," she added with a -happy laugh. - -Her last words suddenly woke me out of my trance. I loosed my arms and -stood for an instant baffled, uncertain, shamefaced. - -"What are you doing here?" I then brusquely demanded with stupid -severity to conceal the turbulent emotions within me. - -"I--oh, didn't you get my letter?" she faltered. "I tried to explain--I -had nowhere to go--" her lips were quivering--"he told me what a burden -I was--I seemed to be only making a lot of trouble--and I had nowhere to -go," she wept. - -"He? Who? Andrews?" I demanded harshly. - -"No, no!--Mr. Pendleton," she was sobbing again. - -"Ah, of course, Pendleton." I felt myself turning livid with hate for -the man whose purpose in life seemed to be to wreck my own. - -"And did Andrews know you were my--my ward?" - -"Oh, no, Uncle Ranny," and her voice was like a child's tired of crying. -"I meant to tell him later--after I told you. He just took me -without--anything." - -Glancing now toward Andrews, I found him discreetly standing, still in -the middle of his shop, but somehow he had managed to draw my -scandalized nephew into conversation to afford me the courtesy of a -greater privacy. My heart went out to him in affection as never before. - -"Andrews!" I called, pulling myself together to a semblance of dignity. -Andrews gave a nod to Randolph and without any unseemly haste approached -me, pleasantly smiling. - -"This is my ward--Miss Alicia Palmer," I managed to say with forced -calmness. - -Andrews bowed ceremoniously as though he were meeting the owner of the -Huth library or Bernard Quaritch. Yet there was a curious twinkle in -his shrewd old Scotch eyes. - -"Like all young women of the present day," I went on, with astonishing -glibness--that is at its best when a man is lying for a woman--"she -wanted to prove her independence by scorning my poor protection, -Andrews--to earn her own living--you understand, Andrews?" - -"Indeed--indeed?" said Andrews. "And she can earn it, too. Now I -understand the mystery. She recognized a second edition of 'Paradise -Lost' at a glance. Your training, Mr. Byrd--your salary is advanced, -Miss Palmer." - -Alicia smiled, blushing faintly, and in that smile I suddenly realized -how much of the child still clung to this well-grown young woman--how -much of the child, no doubt, remains clinging to every woman. She was -pained, distraught, suffering, yet she seemed to feel that she had done -something very courageous and dignified. And it was to her dignity I -hung on with tenacity, for instinctively I recognized that this was a -turning point in her life--that the woman was now putting away the child -in the cradle of the past. - -"I think I shall ask you to release her, Andrews." I laid a hand upon -his shoulder. "Some day I shall explain to you more fully. It's -been--but never mind that. I should like to take my ward home--with -your permission?" - -"Certainly, certainly," he affirmed with spontaneous vehemence. "But -come in soon, both of you--she's of our stripe, Mr. Byrd--she loves the -good things!--come in both. I expect to have some new things from -Professor Gurney's library that'll delight you." - -"We shall indeed, my dear Andrews. Get your hat, Alicia." And as she -turned away for her things, I managed to murmur this much to the kindly -Andrews: - -"I shall never forget your conduct in this matter, Andrews--you're a -great bookseller, but, man dear, you're even a greater gentleman!" - -And with as little delay as possible we left the shop. - -A spate of questions boiled in my brain and foamed up like turbulent -waters backed by a dam. But all at once I came to a sharp decision. - -I knew enough. It was that devil Pendleton that had filled her mind -with the thought that she was a burden until the poor child was wild -with a frenzy of distraction. But he had not been able to trust to his -persuasions. Then there was the scene of that dreadful evening when, in -her bewilderment, she realized herself as an apple of discord, a -shatterer of families. I believed I understood enough. - -"Where did you sleep, Alicia?" I asked her nonchalantly. - -"I have a little room in Twenty-fourth Street," she answered simply. "I -haven't paid for it yet. The landlady wanted money in advance, but I -told her I didn't have it, so she let me stay, anyway." - -"Let us go there, my dear, and settle it now." - -"Yes, Uncle Ranny," she murmured low. - -"I've got to hand it to you, 'Licia," broke out Randolph, emerging from -his silence. "You're a true sport--for a girl!" Whereat we all burst -into happy laughter. - -And for the rest of our peregrinations as well as in the train, the lad -could not take his eyes from Alicia in sheer amazed admiration. It was -as though he were seeing her for the first time. - - - - - *CHAPTER XX* - - -Had I time to speculate philosophically, I could expend much of it in -wondering why pure joy cannot be recorded. Perhaps because we -experience so little of it. - -Of sorrow and tribulation we strange creatures that are men can give a -pretty fair account. From Job down we have excelled in it. But before -sheer joy we are dumb. I can only repeat to myself the poor colorless -words that I am happy, happy, happy as the day is short. - -For one brief space of reaction after finding Alicia, the senses reeled, -the worn body and mind swooned into a sort of deliquescence of -lassitude, the eyes smarted with unshed meaningless moisture, the -overdriven heart throbbed with a vast supernal relief, coextensive with -the universe. Then, swiftly, with an almost audible sound, that -unnerved brain slid into its customary shape of health, more wholesomely -joyous than ever before, and all the world was bathed in freshness. - -The blue of the sky was fairer, the sunlight purer, and even the poor -suburban grass of Crestlands autumnally waning, glistened with the -verdure and brightness of a new creation. But who can describe -happiness? - -Pendleton is gone, Alicia--the children are here. - -No eight words in the language of Shakespeare and Milton have ever -breathed to me the same meaning as those eight words. Yet what do they -signify on paper? - -All Europe is in a turmoil, and the Germans have all but taken Paris, -yet this, I perceive, is my first mention of a vast catastrophe. What -tiny self-absorbed creatures are men! People are dying and suffering by -the thousands, yet we cisatlantians scan the headlines and pursue our -own ends in the accustomed way. What though half the planet is in -peril--I have reconquered my home! - -Why, I wonder, had I ever imagined myself to have a horror of home? A -home is a little island of personal love in the vast impersonal chaos of -existence--and pity him or her who never lands upon that island. - -Of nights, occasionally, I now indulge myself in a fire on the hearth. -The wood that burns brightest, I note, leaves only a little heap of -white ashes. When my eyes rest upon Alicia, or I see the children -flitting about, or hear their ringing voices through the house, I -experience a wonderful contentment that I am the fire at which they may -warm their hands. I, who once entertained fantastic visions of future -greatness, of name and fame, now feel content to become a little heap of -white ashes. - - -Sergeant Cullum, excellent man, journeyed out here two days after I had -found Alicia, a day after the legal ceremony of adoption, to apprise me -that "he believed my ward to be in Baltimore." I was about to burst -into uncontrollable laughter, but my conscience smote me and I was -ashamed. In my vast relief I had wholly and selfishly forgotten this -good man who was still upon the quest. What power of divination or -answer to prayer had directed his thoughts to Baltimore, I cannot -imagine. But with my contrite apology and thanks went a gift that I -trust has soothed his ruffled feelings. We parted in friendship. Oh, -excellent thaumaturgic policeman! - -Randolph burst into a loud sniffing laugh when I told him and Alicia of -Sergeant Cullum's visit and the Baltimore "clew." - -"Oh, cops are idiots!" he chuckled arrogantly and looked toward Alicia -with a haughty proprietorial air. "They don't know _anything_! Didn't -take me long to dope out where to look for 'Licia," he boasted. "I -figured it out like this: 'Licia is bugs on your old books. She was -looking for a job to earn her own living, wasn't she?" Alicia bent her -head, still shamefaced over the episode. "What'd I do? I'm strong on -engines. Wouldn't I go to a place where they make or sell engines? -Well, with her it was books. I went around to some book places--'n' -then suddenly I had a hunch: Andrews--that you and she always jaw about. -I looked him up in the 'phone book. An' sure enough, when I went round -and peeped in through the door, I saw Alicia upon a ladder handling some -of those old books there. I thought I'd go in and call her down, but -then I thought 't would surprise her more if you and I came in on her -together--and I beat it hot-foot to a 'phone. Cops!--They'd say, -Baltimore--South America--anything, so it sounds good!" - -And again his glance wholly appropriated Alicia. The youngster seems to -think he invented her. But I am full of gratitude to that boy. - -The closure of the Stock Exchange and the abrupt slowing up of financial -business has filtered like a shadow even into Visconti's and is giving -me some unhurried hours in which to ponder the future. - -How many middle-aged bachelors, I wonder, have conjured similar visions, -constructed the same castles of thin air? To educate Alicia, to serve -and to love her until my love surrounds her so that she cannot choose -but return it--to create a woman Pygmalion-like out of this very sweet -Galatea--what could be more blissful? Alicia is now in her teens. But -suppose she were sweet-and-twenty, could she ever think with anything -but filial affection of a man nearly twice her age who stands to her in -_loco parentis_? - -Like a lovesick boy who pulls at the faint intimations of his mustache -and searches the newspaper for cases of marriage at seventeen, I eagerly -scan the prints and cudgel my memory for such unions as ours would be. -But the papers are filled with war and rumors of war. It comes to me -suddenly that a certain aged Senator has not so long ago married his -ward, under even a greater disparity of ages--and I am absurdly happy. I -see myself with Alicia matured and radiant, ever young--living a life of -bright serenity, calling endearing names. - - "Did I hear it half in a doze - Long since, I know not where? - Did I dream it an hour ago, - When asleep in this arm-chair?" - - -But this is folly. Tennyson is out of fashion and there are greater -fools than old fools. I ask too much of the high gods. Enough has -already been given to a crusty bookworm like me. Suppose I had married -Gertrude! The children's voices would never have made music for my ears. -Nevertheless, Alicia shall have the best education I can give her. - - -Visconti must be aging, I fear, for he has taken to repeating himself. -He has told me often before that his daughter Gina is the apple of his -eye, but during these somewhat listless days in the office in which -"extras" figure largely and strategy is the one indoor game, he has been -going into more detail. - -I dined at his house last night and to-day he asked me again to dine on -Saturday. I dislike refusing him and I like lying less. But I declined -on the plea of an engagement. - -"I always forget," he returned with a laugh, "that a young man is not -_un' burbero_ of a widower like me--that a young man, in short, has -engagements." - -I made some sort of deprecating noise. He talks as though I were -twenty-two, and I like him for it. - -"But you see, _amico mio_," he went on explaining, "it is like this: -Gina, the _carissima bambina mia_, is the apple of my eye. And she must -be--what do you call it--amused--amused, made gay, bright--you see?" - -I signified my clairvoyance. - -"She is nineteen--a _fanciulla_ of nineteen, she must have -much--eh--amusement, not so?" - -He is fond of the Socratic method and I humored him. - -"But doesn't she go to parties--has she no girl friends?" - -"Ah, _sicurissimo, sicurissimo_. But a girl--nineteen years--it is -young men in the house that amuse her, eh?" And he slapped me on the -back and roared with laughter of a boisterous heartiness that somewhat, -as novelists say, "took me aback." - -I have not exactly been seeing myself in the guise of a youth cut out to -amuse Gina Visconti. - -"How of Sunday?" he asked, with a sudden quizzical soberness. "Sunday -you can come?" - -I regretted his insistence, but somewhat laboredly I explained that I am -weakly addicted to books; and that Sunday was the single day when I -could sit among my books and-- - -"Ah, but of course!" gravely. He understood full well that I was a -student, a scholar, who outside office hours pursued a higher life, and -so forth. - -I felt mawkish and mean but I clung to my Sunday. - -"Monday, then--shall we call it Monday?" he pressed. - -I could not be so churlish as to decline further. But I hardly knew why -a sense of uneasiness stole into my bosom after his subsequent words. - -"The _fanciulla_," he went on, thoughtfully vehement. "She is all I -possess--all in the world. At my death she shall possess everything I -have. She has it now! For whom then do I work if not for Gina? As for -me, I could go back to Italy--maybe. I have enough. But Gina--she is -American girl--ah!" and he kissed his finger tips with unction. "She is -fine American girl!" - -Having said that, he veered into talk about Belgium, Von Kluck and -general strategy. - -But why should he so persistently sing the praises and prospects of his -daughter to me, a clerk in his office? - -I had a sudden impulse to go to him and unbosom myself on the score of -my own _bambimi_ and my own aspirations for them--but somehow I could -not. That is an island girdled, not only by ordinary reticence, which -is with me a vice, but by a host of emotions like those flames that -circled the sleeping goddess. I am not a Latin; I cannot bubble forth -my inmost hopes or flaunt my heart upon my sleeve. - -Sunday evening--after a wonderful walk with Alicia through the already -waning woods of Westchester. There has been a certain air of gravity -overhanging her, of contrition perhaps, that stabbed with pain. I -realized then to what degree her blithe spirit and the starry laughter -of her eyes had been the wine of my recent life. I could not tolerate -her seeming depression. Besides, there was the matter of her education -to be discussed. Jimmie clamored to go with us, but this time even his -privileged position did not avail him. I desired to be alone with -Alicia. - -Was it my mood, I wonder, or do the woods in reality begin to whisper a -farewell in the decline of the year? Every tree, even to the youngest -sapling, seemed to nod to us as we walked and to rustle a murmur like -the leavetaking of a pilgrim bent on a lengthy journey. I have ever -been impatient of reading descriptions of nature and have chimed with -the scoffers at the pathetic fallacy. Nevertheless, I can bemuse myself -for hours listening to the wind among the tree tops or gazing at the -haze upon the hills; and in a slow measured rhythm, as if having endless -time before them, they invariably spell a message,--a message infinitely -sad, but for the creative laughing sun that rides triumphant, high over -all. - -"Come, Alicia!" I broke out brusquely, joining the sun in his laughter, -"we have some bright things to talk over. Don't let us allow the woods -to lull us. They are going to sleep; we are not. Here you are ready -for college. Isn't that soul-stirring?" - -She emerged from her reverie as a person shaken from a drowse and smiled -with, a distant look in her eyes. - -"Bright things," she murmured pensively; "everything that has happened -to me since I came to you has been bright, and everything soul-stirring. -That's what makes it so hard, Uncle Ranny--I have been so useless. What -good am I?" - -I laughed uproariously enough to make the woods shake. Did Alicia know -how much I enjoyed combating such statements or did she really mean it? - -"You have been--" I wanted to tell her banteringly that she had been a -burden and a drag upon my household, a weight not to be borne--but I -perceived that she was more than serious. She was sad. - -"Now you are, of course, talking nonsense," I answered flatly. "But -there is college before you; that ought to cure all that. Perhaps -you're a little morbid. Bright associations will change that." - -"But how," she protested, "can you talk of sending me to college--with -all the expense? And I so worthless?" - -"We won't discuss that, my child," I broke in. The expense had indeed -occupied my mind--but I had formed a plan for that. "Tell me what you -would like best to study--to be?" - -"That's the trouble, Uncle Ranny," she replied pathetically. "What can -I be?--Perhaps I might work for Mr. Andrews?" - -"Modern girls," I informed her, "judging by our fiction, invariably -develop literary, dramatic or histrionic talent. She must act, write -fiction, or preferably plays. Journalism and settlement work are no -longer fashionable. If the worst comes to the worst, they turn militant -suffragists, but even that is on the wane; but the two careers are not -incompatible. Don't you feel the urge in your young bones? Which of -the arts is it that is calling you? The pen? The stage? Speak, -Alicia--for this is the critical hour!" - -She detected raillery in my voice and laughed softly. - -"I know you are making fun of me, Uncle Ranny," she said, "but it's not -of me alone. All the same, I wish I did have some talent, but, oh, I -know I haven't! Sometimes--I wish--I think--oh, Uncle Ranny, I am -ashamed to tell you what I--" and without finishing her sentence she -covered her face with her hands and I noted that her neck was suffused -with a deep blush. - -"But you must tell me, my dear," I gently took her hands from her face. -"Haven't I just become your parent and guardian by ironclad legal -adoption? And a terribly stern parent and guardian I am--make no -mistake about that!" - -"Well," she gazed downward shamefacedly, still exquisitely blushing, "I -suppose I must, then. Sometimes I think, Uncle Ranny," she went on with -deliberate firmness, "that there is one thing girls always think of, but -never talk about--that is more important than any of the others. Oh, I -suppose I am terribly improper and immodest, but if I am, it's -because--I don't know any better--so you'll have to forgive me. But, -oh, I suppose--he'll come some day and--to--to make a home and--and to -bring up children seems--more wonderful than anything else! You've made -me say it, Uncle Ranny!" she turned away with tears of vexation--"I -suppose I am horrid--but you've made me tell you and I told you. Can't -a girl study to be--for that--as for anything else?" And still -tormented by her brazen immodesty, she plucked yellowing leaves -agitatedly and scattered them to the winnowing breeze. - -As she was turned from me, she could not have seen my arms going out -suddenly as if to take her, and then falling again to my sides. I -longed to embrace her and to crown her with all the glory of womanhood. -But my conscience warned me away. In my heart, however, happiness -leaped up like the lark I have never seen and warbled joyously a divine -melody that I had never heard. It required courage for Alicia, a young -girl, to confess what she had confessed. And courage joined to all the -other qualities I knew her possessed of must produce the best that is in -womanhood. - -It is a commentary on our times that Alicia, a girl ready for college, -was ashamed of what she had told me! - -I was a fool to press her further, I suppose, but then and there I -determined to be at least as brave as was Alicia. - -"Have you," I asked, hoping my voice was not shaking, "have you already -some one in mind?" She shook her head vehemently, still plucking at the -leaves, I could not repress a profound sigh. "What does he look like in -your mind's eye, Alicia? What is your vision of him?" I knew I was -courting pain, but there are moments when even torture is irresistible. - -"I hope he will be strong--and fine--and manly," she murmured as if to -herself--"and have at least some of your--goodness, Uncle Ranny." Every -attribute of that hypothetical "he" was a reproach to my infirmities--a -blow at my peculiar weaknesses. But I had invited it. The ideal of a -girl never errs. It is her emotions that may lead her astray. Oh, -yes--she credited me with some "goodness." Few are the women, however, -who choose a man for his goodness. In my quality of "Uncle Ranny" I was -"good." I stood for a moment in silence, writhing with anguish, -alternately conjuring up and banishing the hatefully magnificent -creature of Alicia's dreams. But at last I gripped my soul with sudden -resolution. Now at least she was mine; and I must accustom myself to -the idea of her being some one else's at the earliest moment--to the -inevitable renunciation. She had innocently and adorably honored me with -her greatest confidence: For the present, at least, I must make the most -of my little happiness. - -"Come, dear," I gently touched her on the shoulder. "You have told me -what I wanted to know." I put her hand through my arm and we strolled -on slowly. "We are horrible old fogies, Alicia, and we mustn't tell a -soul about our views--or we should be ostracized and possibly jailed. -But nothing you could have said would have made me happier than what you -have just told me. I know of no greater career than the one you have -chosen. And college, much or little as you like of it, can serve you for -a finer womanhood no less than it can for anything else. In fact, more, -I think." From still swimming eyes she gave me a sidelong glance -mingled so much of gratitude, shame and pride, that I laughed aloud. - -"There is one thing you've got to make up your mind to, Alicia." I drew -her close to my side. "You must come and tell me everything that's on -your mind without repression. Don't forget, my dear, that I am your -father, mother and most intimate friends. Think how sorry we should -both have been if you had suppressed and hidden what you have told me." - -"Yes, Uncle Ranny," she breathed and very sweetly in a way to melt the -heart of a man, she lifted my hand to her lips and kissed it. I was -irreparably "Uncle Ranny!" - -I dared not make a movement in return. At that moment I might have -betrayed more than ever again I could hide. But the woods were now of -another hue; the invisible lark was still singing, albeit a sadder -strain. - -We decided that Alicia is to enter Barnard next week and commute with me -on the daily train. - - - - - *CHAPTER XXI* - - -Dear God! How I cry out for peace, and there is no peace! - -Who would have looked for disaster at the plump hands of Gina Visconti? -Yet, as though she had willfully shut the door of my livelihood in my -face, that innocent girl has abruptly cut me off. - -I cannot go back to Visconti's. That accursed dinner, which instinct -made me shun, was the cause and occasion of it all. - -I had begun foolishly to feel myself at home in the Visconti household. -When the housemaid informed me that the _signorina_ would be down -directly, I strolled into the drawing-room leisurely, not in the least -surprised that I was apparently the only guest, and gazed again at the -shining new furniture, costly and glistening, for the _n_th time -wondering how it continued to stay so new. There is a scattering of -saccharine pictures on the walls that invariably make me smile: Cherry -Ripe, the Old Oaken Bucket, Sweet Sixteen; a glittering small marble of -Cupid and Psyche and a crayon enlargement of the very stout lady that -was Gina's mother. Why, I wondered, do not modern Italians stick to -their own old masters? I once bought a very fair copy of Pope Julian II -in Florence for fifty lire. Even Gina's energetic modernism, however, -seemed unable to exorcise the peculiar airless odor of an Italian's -drawing-room, due largely, I suppose, to hermetically sealed windows and -constantly lowered shades. - -Gina came down directly, as had been promised, in a very pretty satin -evening frock that struck me as too light for a girl as full-bodied as -she. That is a detail, however, which was superseded in my mind by the -query as to why she should feel it necessary to romp into a room rather -than walk. But I know she aspires to be hyper-American. Her greeting -is always warm and her energy was the one touch of ozone in that stuffy -drawing-room. A moment later entered her father, his dark-red face -pardonably gleaming like a moon through the haze at the charms of his -only daughter. For Gina is not only pretty--she is eminently modish, to -the last wave of her rich black hair. - -"Is she a fine American girl--or is she not, eh?" Visconti's half-proud, -half-defiant look seems to challenge all present. - -The dinner was more than usually exuberant with a wealth of champagne -for so small a company and hothouse grapes; indeed the exuberance itself -seemed of the hothouse variety. We jested, we laughed at nothing, we -were gay as old friends at a reunion. At the Visconti's I am always -foolishly like that Byron-worshiping lady who could not long abstain -from referring to Missolonghi. Somehow I find myself caressingly -touching the subjects of Dante or Petrarch or even Leopardi, and -invariably Gina caroms against me with a thrilling cabaret, a new dance -or the latest "show"--and I am nowhere. - -After the coffee Visconti, whose mind seemed preoccupied, rose abruptly -and with one of his gleaming smiles left us on the hackneyed plea of -letters to be written. - -Gina was restless for a minute or two after her father's departure. She -walked over to the piano, struck a chord standing, then suddenly sheered -to the phonograph and asked would I dance if she turned on a lovely fox -trot. Apologetically I was compelled to inform her that the fox trot -was as foreign to my accomplishments as an act on the trapeze. - -"I know you could learn to be a lovely dancer," said Gina, She then sat -down beside me on the expensive tapestry davenport, with one foot under -her and one ankle to the wide world and leaned forward on her elbows so -that the slender shoulder straps of her frock pressed upward four little -mounds of pink flesh toward her ears. She has very pretty ears, has -Gina. A very engaging child, I thought. Holding this soulful attitude, -Gina queried softly, - -"Don't you love the movies?" - -"Yes," I said. - -"What have you seen lately?" she pursued. - -"I have only seen one--it was a series of pictures of the South Sea -Islands." - -"You mean you've never seen any others?" - -"No--I'm afraid not." - -"Oh," she gasped, "I've loved the movies since I was that high"--and she -pointed to a somewhat excessively oily portrait of herself painted at -about the age of ten or eleven. - -"I believe in having a lively time," she ran on. "When I was in public -school some of them called me the 'little guinea girl.' I cried -terribly--but I made up my mind I wasn't going to be a 'guinea girl.' I -was going to be an American. Wasn't I as good as any of them?" she -demanded passionately. "What was the matter with me? Then I found out -what was the matter with me--American girls are always having good -times. So I thought I'd have as good a time as anybody. - -"I cried until my father let me go to the movies nearly every afternoon -and twice on Saturday. And I always treated some other girl--an -American girl--to a ticket to go with me. They were friendly then, you -can bet. They stopped calling me a guinea girl." - -Gina could not possibly know how pathetic that sounded to me. The -curious savagery of children toward those alien of race, I reflected, is -one of the last survivals of the tribal state of mankind. The somewhat -overpowering scent she used struck me as a survival also, though I could -not remember of what. - -"There is my cousin, Jennie--her name is really Gemma"--the girl warmed -to her story--"she tried to be American, too, but she gave it up. When -I went to finishing school in Darien, she was already married. Four -years she's been married and has three children. Now what's the use of -that? She can't have a good time now! Babies--babies--babies!--she -hardly ever goes out. And her husband's quite well off, too. He's a -contractor. But he's an Italian--and thinks that's the right way for a -girl to live. Uh-h!" and she shuddered slightly. "I'm going to marry -an American!" - -A fierce light of resolution leaped to her liquid dark eyes and I own I -felt terrified. - -"But--but aren't you young to think of marriage?" I murmured lamely. - -"Young!" repeated Gina in surprise. "I've been thinking about the kind -of man I'm going to marry since I was thirteen years old!" - -Obviously that was one subject she had given mature reflection. - -"Haven't you?" she demanded. - -"No," I laughed, "not as young as that." - -"Do you like Italian girls?" she leaned toward me abruptly, wistfully. - -"Yes, indeed!" I answered her, laughing. "There is Dante's -Beatrice--and Petrarch's Laura--and even Raphael's Fornarina must have -been--" - -"Oh, I don't mean those," she cried, flushing excitedly. "I mean -Italian-American girls--I love American men! The man I'm going to marry -is--something like you." - -I like simplicity, and disingenuousness in the young--or in the old, for -that matter--but her attitude was now so--so unconventional, with her -large ankle rocking to and fro and her bosom, as she leaned forward, -almost touching my shirt front--that I feared her father might be -displeased were he to enter the room suddenly. The scent, moreover, was -clouding my wits. With my hand to my forehead I rose ponderously. - -"Let me see--" I mused with heavy facetiousness, as though cogitating a -deep problem, "do I like them?" I walked a step or two and faced her. -"You are the only one I know--and I certainly like you," I added mildly. - -She uncoiled herself, rose up swiftly and took a step in my direction. -On a sudden she stumbled, gave a little cry and pitched forward, so that -I barely had time to catch her. - -"Did you turn your ankle?" - -"No--yes," she gasped and lay for a moment in my arms breathing heavily, -her bosom pressing against mine. - -"Let me lead you--" I began. - -"It's all right," she whispered thickly. "Just let me rest a minute." -And then that astonishing girl suddenly lifted up her hand, passed it -lightly over my head and murmured that she loved the color of my hair! - -"It's light brown," she explained, "not pitch black like mine," and then -she rested her head lightly on my shoulder. "And I love your name--it's -so nice--_Randolph_!" - -"Let me lead you," I murmured, as though I were the helpless one. - -"_Ecco!_" I suddenly heard the voice of Visconti laughing behind me, -and Gina's hand clutched my shoulder convulsively. I confess that at my -heart was a clutch of sheer blue funk. - -"She has just turned her ankle!" I exclaimed mechanically. - -"It's all right, papa," put in Gina's cheerful voice. "It's these old -slippers. I'll go and change them." And to my amazement she -straightened up, flashed a radiant smile at both of us, and walked to -the door with only the slightest of limps. - -"Sure you can walk alone?" I managed to stammer. - -"Oh, yes!" Gina waved her hand at the door. "I'll be down soon." - -The father laughed loudly and put his hand upon my shoulder. - -"Come, _caro mio_, let us have a little smoke." I followed him dazedly. -"Wonderful girl, Gina!" he exclaimed. "High spirits, eh?" - -"Er--yes, indeed--very high." I felt as though I had emerged from a -severe physical struggle. - -"I can see--oh, even an old man like me can see," he chuckled jovially, -as he held his cigar box toward me in the smoking room, "that you young -people like each other--eh? Oh, sit down, sit down, _amico mio_. It is -all right--all right. I must get used to the idea of the bambino, being -grown up," and forcing me down into a leather chair, he continued to tap -my shoulder by way of emphasizing his words. "I have been young--yes! -I understand--and trust me, my boy, you cannot do better. Gina--Gina is -one treasure for a man. Ah--yes! No love like the Italian woman's love. -She will make you the best--" - -"But wait--for God's sake, Mr. Visconti, wait," I cried in agony, -leaping from my chair. "I can't--I mustn't even pretend to think of -such a thing. Gina is far too--" - -"Say no more!" he interrupted vehemently, tapping me with the back of -his hand on the chest. "You are a fine, gooda young man!" - -"Thanks!" I gasped, "but you don't understand. I am in no position to -marry any woman at this time. I'm--" - -"Hold on!" he flung me back into the chair with an exuberant force that -would have made me laugh if my vitals had not been chilled by terror. -"Is it that I do not know? Do I not know how your capital did go--pouf! -like that? But all that I have--Gina has it. She will have enough," -and he nodded his head with pregnant emphasis, "enough, my friend. And -Gina's husband--he will be my son!" He struck his large chest a mighty -blow and threw back his head with triumphant finality. - -I attempted no more to rise. It was useless. - -"Signor Visconti," I began huskily, "you do not understand me. I cannot -marry anybody, ever. I have four children to bring up--educate--to be -responsible for. The youngest of them is eight. I--you honor me -greatly by your kindness--but marriage is not for me." - -He stared in speechless stupefaction at me as though I had revealed some -incredible horror to his eyes. - -"Four children!" he whispered, with dilated eyes. "But who--but I -thought you have never been married?" - -"I have not," I replied with an intense relief that was like a -restorative. Then, catching his meaning glance, I went on hastily; -"They are my sister's orphans. I am responsible for them. They have no -one else." - -"Ah!" he drew in his breath with the sound of a syphon. "That is it, is -it?" - -"Yes," I murmured, rising, resolved to put an end to this ghastly -episode. "Now, if you will excuse me--" - -All at once his hands shot out and clutched both of mine. - -"You're not good man!" he shouted vehemently. "No--not only good--you're -a great man! _Caro mio_--ah, I never make mistake--no!" And before I -knew what he was doing, he had embraced me in Continental fashion and -large tears stood in his eyes. - -The cup of my torment was complete. A mad desire to get away possessed -me--only to get away. I stirred to move but he held me resolutely. - -"We will think it out, my friend," he announced with sober energy. "We -will talk it over--work it out. I, too, am a man with a heart, _caro -mio_. It is I who understand--Have I not lost my poor Giovanna--Gina's -mother? If you two love each other--well--we must find--a way." - -Hope bounded in my pulses as I noted that his enthusiasm was now -tempered by thoughtfulness. - -"No, Mr. Visconti," I murmured with painful firmness. "I have no right -to love Miss Gina--and I wouldn't dream of telling her so, even if I -did--I am not free--" - -"You--you're not _promesso_--what d'you call it--engaged?" - -"Oh, no, no! It is only my heart that is engaged--not my word--there is -some one else--but it can never be anything--" - -"But what does it mean?" he flashed, dark anger purpling his features -and kindling the air like a torch. "What did I see! My girl in your -arms--what was that!" His eyes now darted fiery anger and his arms were -arrested in the midst of a violent gesture. - -I shook my head slowly. His anger was infinitely more agreeable to -me--like manna--after his parching enthusiasm. - -"There was nothing," I answered quietly. "Miss Gina really turned her -ankle on the rug. And I caught her as she fell--just as you would have -done." - -He stood panting for a moment, his gaze riveted upon me. At last he -turned away, with a pitiful movement of regret, apology, resignation. -The excellent man gave me the benefit of the doubt. - -"Ah, _Dio mio_," he muttered. "_Poverina_! Go, my friend, now. I must -think. _Bellessa mia!--cara mia!_--what will I say to her? Ah, _Dio_! -what a bitter world!" - -"I am more distressed than I can say," I murmured, with the crushed -voice of poignant suffering, "but what can I do--or say--more?" - -"_Niente_--nothing, nothing," he muttered. "Good night!" and my -admiration for his spirit was high when he held out his trembling hand. - -I tiptoed to the door like a thief and as I took my coat and hat, Gina -called out from the top of the stairs in uncomprehending astonishment. - -"Not going--Randolph!" And like a small avalanche she shot down the -stairs. - -"Yes--yes--he is going, _bellessa mia_!" firmly shouted Visconti as he -came running towards us. "He is called away--good night--good night!" - -"Good night," I said and held out my hand to Gina. But Gina's manners -are more modern than her father's. She was dumbfounded and she turned -her back upon me angrily, registering doubtless some standard emotion -from a favorite movie. It was useless to try to placate her. I slipped -out of the door which will never more open for me. - - -The nightmarish quality of the episode persisted in my consciousness -like a drug throughout the passage homeward, and it was not until I -entered my door and saw a light in my study that reality began to assert -itself. - -Reality meant the end--the end of my livelihood, the end of my hopes and -plans--the end of the tether. Like an unfledged boy I must begin to -breast the future all over again. A hero of romance would doubtless at -that moment have thrilled to the struggle with new and seemingly -insuperable obstacles. But alas! I am not a hero of romance! As I -threw my coat upon the hatstand, a great weariness and a deep dejection -fell upon me. - -Alicia came out of my study to greet me. As usual she had been waiting -up for me. - -"Why on earth aren't you in bed?" I growled irritably. Alicia scanned my -face amid the shadows cast by the lamplight. "Go to bed, child," I -repeated; "go to bed." - -"Something has happened," she murmured, frightened; "something has -happened. Oh, tell me--what was it, Uncle Ranny?" - -I looked down at her with a scowl that was meant to be forbidding--a -warning that I was in no mood for triflingness. - -She seized my hand, still holding my gaze with that starry look in her -eyes that invariably probes deep and rests in my inmost soul. - -"Something has hurt you, Uncle Ranny," she whispered tremulously, "and -you must tell me." Our eyes dwelt together for a space. "Oh, tell me!" -she gulped, with a sudden terror dilating her eyes. "It isn't--it isn't -that--man come back!" - -"Oh, no!" I shuddered involuntarily at the image she evoked of -Pendleton. "Not that. Thank Heaven, Alicia, you're no Pollyanna; you -see the worst at once." - -"No," I finally muttered, looking away, "I have hurt somebody." - -"I can't believe that," she retorted vehemently. "But if you think -so--Please, please, tell me. It will be so much better, for you, Uncle -Ranny." - -I had a sudden impulse to take her in my arms, but the emotion was not -paternal. And--I was to her "Uncle Ranny." All unconscious she was -guarded by her circle of sacred flames. Spasmodically I tore my hand -out of her grasp and walked unsteadily across the room to my table. - -"Sit down over there," I motioned her as far away from me as possible. -She stood still without complying. - -"What was it, Uncle Ranny, dear?" she breathed. - -A sort of bittersweet pain went through me at the epithet and I reviled -myself inwardly for the impurity of my dark mind in the presence of this -simple, lovely purity. A profound sigh escaped me as I leaned my elbows -on the table and made a feeble effort to smile at the mocking visage of -Fate. - -"I cannot go back to Visconti's any more, Alicia," I told her. -"Something has happened. That is ended. I must look about for something -else." - -"Oh!" she gasped, "is it as bad as that?" - -"As bad as that," I repeated mechanically. - -"Then I know it was nothing you could help," she answered with a sudden -radiance that was like a benediction. - -"So there is no use worrying about that. But you mean the money," and -her face clouded anxiously. "But I know what I'll do, Uncle Ranny," she -came gliding toward me. "There is always Mr. Andrews for me, you know. -You remember what he said: He'll take me back any time." - -An instant of blackness was succeeded by a sudden burst of illumination. -Andrews! Andrews and the library--the library, all -catalogued--complete! Andrews would either buy it or help me to dispose -of it, and Alicia and the children need not after all suffer by my -catastrophe. My books were more like my flesh and blood, and to part -with them---but that consideration was of singularly brief endurance at -the moment. Those books, like a troop of old friends; would rescue us -all from disaster--come like a phalanx between us and defeat. - -"You amazing child!" I cried, leaping to my feet. "Light!--You've -brought me light! Andrews!--The very man! To-morrow I am going to -Andrews!" - -I seized her by the shoulders and whirled her about the room like a -marionette in a savage burst of energy. Alicia gasped and, spinning -away, laughed wildly with a laughter that bordered upon sobs. I dread -to reflect what our neighbors would have concluded, had they observed -through the windows the strange Dionysian rite of the quiet middle-aged -bachelor and his youthful pretty ward. - -"Now go to bed, child," I commanded brusquely. "I have some thinking to -do." - -"Shall I make you some coffee?" she pleaded, coming toward me, still -laughing. - -"No--go to bed!" Before I was aware she had left a darting birdlike -kiss upon my cheek and fled like a breeze from the room. - -My eyes dwelt upon the door for a space where she had vanished, and then -they turned involuntarily to the serried peaceful rows of books that had -been my life,--that now, in the last extremity of need, must, like the -camel in the desert, yield up their blood to be my livelihood. - - -The following morning, that is to-day, I made my way to Andrews, armed -with my catalogue, and greatly to that good fellow's astonishment -offered him the sale of my library. - -He stared at me in blank amazement for an instant and then, recovering -himself, declared that he would like to see it. - -"Come back to lunch with me," I suggested. - -He could not do that, but agreed to come to dinner in the evening. - -His shrewd old eyes took in much more than the details of my copies and -editions during his two or three hours at my house. With discreet but -observant gaze he followed the children about and measured, more -accurately no doubt than I could have done, the worth and solidity of my -household. He had seen something of my easy bachelor life in the old -days and, doubtless, was now drawing his contrasts and conclusions. - -"What do you think you can offer?" I queried with some anxiety, as he -stood carefully fingering the books which, like Milton's one talent, it -were death to hide--for they were bread. - -Andrews sat down and stared for an interval thoughtfully before him. - -"I'll tell you what I'd like to offer you before we talk about the -books--" he spoke with an even, a studied deliberation. "I'd like to -offer you--a partnership!" - -It was my turn to stare in stupefaction. - -"It would be a great thing for me if you came in with me, Mr. Byrd," he -now spoke more quickly. "You see, I'm an old man, getting on, -sir--getting on. I want some new blood in the place--new blood--a fresh -point of view and young enthusiasm. That young lady of yours coming in -the way she did woke me up to that. And whom could I leave it to when it -comes to the end?" he speculated wistfully. "I have no relations." - -I opened my mouth to speak, but Andrews took the privilege of age to -disregard me. - -"I want a man with the tender touch for books, Mr. Byrd--the tender -touch. It's a beautiful business," he smacked his lips--"beautiful! -The hunting for them--it's--it's a knightly quest. And to find homes -for them--it's like placing bonny children. The bookmen of America are -generous. We ought to go to England--buy libraries--increase our -treasure." - -"But, my dear Andrews," I spluttered, in agitated protest. "Do you know -what you are offering me? A career, a livelihood, life itself--the -future of those children of mine--what can I contribute, except these -books--and compared to your business and good will!--" - -"If you were rich," he interrupted, "do you suppose I'd have the -effrontery to make you the offer? You see, I've known you a long time, -Mr. Byrd--and it's been a great pleasure to me. If I had a son--but," -and his voice struck a harsher note with things repressed--"it's no use -going into that. That is the business for a man like you. - -"We all need money," he pursued with new energy. "It's a thing to -despise if you can--a thing for sentimentalists to drivel about. But so -long as our present social and economic system continues, only a fool -would decry money. It's no good to you when your heart is breaking, but -neither is food nor water, nor shelter nor leisure. But when you want -food and shelter and leisure, that is as long as you're above ground, -you want money. I have prospered--done well. Will you come with me, -Randolph Byrd?" - -"My dear good Andrews," I paced the room agitated, exultant, terrified -by this stroke of good fortune. "But how can I take advantage of your -unheard-of generosity? What can I offer? Will you take my books as a -contribution to capital?" - -"No," he shook his head, with twinkling eyes and a queer crinkling of -the crow's-feet about them. "I don't think we need them. Books are -always--books," he concluded oracularly, with a ring in his voice of the -true bibliophile's reverence. - -"Say you will come." - -My heart was suddenly flooded by a rich inundation of hope. This was -permanence that Andrews was holding out--this was an anchorage. It was -neither Salmon and Byrd, nor Visconti's. This was my own peculiar -realm, and only a snob or a fool could reject it. _Ca me connait_. All -the turmoil and troubles of the past seemed to be melting rapidly away -like the shapes in dreams or unsubstantial clouds. My life would be -secure, the children nourished and educated. Alicia should have her -chance unchallenged--should be prepared against the advent of that -dream-hero of hers,--when he comes--when he comes! What else was I now -living for? I felt as might have felt the old woman of the nursery -rhyme, who lived in a shoe, had any one suddenly offered her a vine-clad -well-stocked cottage of many chambers, with a future reasonably safe for -her progeny. I saw on a sudden the clamorous city that had more than -once droned forth my doom, now rich in prospects and gayly reciting the -flattering tale of hope in my ears--the hope of becoming a bookseller in -face of my dreams of scholarship, eminence--fame, possibly! But this was -no dream. With a flitting smile I recognized the wayward cynicism and -irony of it. And in deep gratitude I gripped the hand of Andrews to -seal the bargain. - - - - - *BOOK THREE* - - - *CHAPTER XXII* - - -In returning to this all but neglected record of the things that made up -my life I realize with incredulity the passage of time. I realize, too, -that when you live the most fully, you write, reflect and record the -least. It was _after_ his years of slavery that Cervantes wrote Don -Quixote and inside a prison house that Bunyan and Sir Walter Raleigh -composed their best-known works. - -I shall never compose "works", I am certain now, for my lot is business -to the end. Three times during the past two years I have been in -England and in France, attending sales, buying books, manuscripts and -libraries, and very narrowly I escaped sailing on the _Lusitania_, which -would probably have been the end of these memoirs and of me. Would it -have mattered? To the children, possibly. Not to me, certainly--except -in so far as they would have suffered by my exit. For though the -business of books is to me the one nearest akin to pleasure, it is -nevertheless a chaffering and a haggling in the market-place--the -reverse of all my tastes and aptitudes. - -It is odd that externally I bear few of the marks of the indolent -lotus-eating soul that possesses me. People viewing me superficially -might think, with Andrews, that I am fitted for stratagems, spoils -and--business. - -Yet how happy I was when Andrews made me his offer! How I plunged into -his affairs--our affairs--and gave them all my energy! The children, I -exulted inwardly, the children are now safe! - -But nature abhors anomalies. To work for children alone is not enough. -One desires to work for a bosom companion, for some beloved woman, whose -breast is home, whose warm arms are the one refuge against the world, -whose eyes are the bright gateways to heaven. That fulfillment I never -had and never shall have. Hence the anomalous sense of frustration, of -incompleteness. Some psychoanalyst would doubtless brand this as a -well-known middle-aged complex, call it by name like a familiar and -proceed to "cure" me of it. But I am not going to any psychoanalyst. I -know my trouble and also its name---though I cannot call it after King -OEdipus or King David or the like. - -_Galeotto fu il libro e chi lo scrisse_ mourned the flame-like Francesca -da Rimini. And the name and the author of my trouble is not Galeotto -but--Alicia--Alicia whom I did not take and now can never have. - -I am no romantic Paolo to Alicia's Francesca. I am a business man--yes, -a middle-aged, almost alert New York business man of the approved -hard-varnish variety--with good, pat stereotyped phrases and a show of -manly sincerity. Who does not know that straight talk of most of us -modern business men, under which we can hide so much cunning, shrewdness -and chicane? Could I not have simply taken possession of Alicia by a -sort of eminent domain? Oh, I don't mean anything improper! I mean by -all the astute and usual methods, the bell--book--candle and -orange-blossoms sort of thing, like the hardheaded Mr. Pettigrew of -American novels, or the wicked marquess or baronet of the English. - -But I could not--I could not. - -Under the carapace of the turtle or the armadillo is a body of flesh -with nerves and blood and viscera--a soft living part. So also under -the shell of the maligned business man. - -An infinite pity and tenderness stir me at the thought of Alicia. I -suddenly feel in my inmost soul the softness of her cheek and it touches -me as the delicacy of one's own child's flesh must touch one. If I had -a child of my own--but on that I must not let my mind dwell even in -dreams. - -Yet, why not? Dreams are all I am going to have and, pardie, it is more -than I deserve. Much, very much has been given to me and I ought to -feel profoundly grateful. And I do feel grateful. - -But--Alicia--is engaged. - -I can hardly write the words, though these are the words that have -driven me to writing again. - -I have been happy these two years and more--happy in my fashion. In -midst of the tumult and throb of the war spirit I, in common with other -business men, have been buying and selling and chaffering and -huckstering, rearing Laura's children, educating Alicia and prospering. -If newly rich labor has been buying motor cars, it must be admitted that -some abruptly enriched business men and their wives have had time to -turn from furs and bric-a-brac and interior decorating so far afield as -my own remote specialty. They have been buying books--libraries by the -yard, classics and first editions by the hundred. The fact that that -admirable American book-man, the young Widener, had managed to gather a -magnificent collection during his all too brief life, has stimulated -many to emulation. Shelley need no longer weep for Adonais. I have -sold collections of Keats _en bloc_ to gentlemen who have probably never -read Endymion in their lives, and even now I am holding a set of Shelley -first editions only because I could not bring myself to part with them -to the very crude, almost illiterate, customer who proves to be the -highest bidder. Rather would I sell them for less to a more enlightened -bookman. Oh, yes, I have been happy in my fashion. Yet, glancing over -the few brief scattering entries in this record, why does the tinge of -melancholy persist? - -I find a quotation from Anatole France under date of some twenty-six -months ago to the point that "even the most desired changes have their -sadness, for all that we leave behind is a part of ourselves. One must -die to one sort of life in order to enter another." - -What is it that I regret or regretted--unless it is the mere passage of -time that makes me older and older? And again I find: - -"Life is a game best played by children and by those who retain the -hearts of children. To those who have the misfortune to grow up it is -often a nightmare." There it is again--the persistent note of regret. -Time will take them all from me--all, including Alicia. And then?--How -did I ever come to let passion steal into my heart? - -I find some phrases from Hazlitt to the effect that "we take a dislike -to our favorite books after a time," and that "If mankind had wished for -what is right they might have had it long ago," and then later, a sort -of credo, or confession or apologia _pro vita mea_: - -"This is a commercial age. If business is the path of least resistance -to a livelihood, so that a slenderly endowed creature like myself may -cling to the surface of the planet and pass on what has been -accomplished to the generations that must accomplish more--if that is -the easiest way, then that is the way of nature, my way. All business -may be more or less ignoble. But, if so, who in the present state of -evolution can wholly escape the ignoble?" - -Yet I have not altered in essentials. Who shall say how I thrill at the -sight of beauty, or the rare work of a master? I cannot declare how my -pulses throb when a new author swims into my ken--his new voice, his -fresh note catch at my throat like a haunting melody and I have known my -eyes to fill at the sheer joy of the discovery. - -Oh, you, Randolph Byrd, aged seventy, when you come with your white hair -and purblind eyes to scan these notes, will you receive them at their -face value? Will you believe that the sense of frustration underlying -them has to do with careers and fame and lives of Brunetto Latini? No, -my septuagenarian self--I have a respect for you and a warm pity. I -cannot so coldly gull you--take advantage of you! Damn careers and -business and Brunetto Latinis! I want love, passionate love and -children of my own loins and the beloved on my heart, and just the -common run of happiness that a thousand thousand men are at this moment -enjoying. Then why have I not taken it? Why have I not taken Alicia as -King David took Bathsheba, or whatever the lady's name was, in virtue of -sheer desire and power? Because I have been a finicking, hyper-refined, -hyper-sensitive fool, my aged friend; and now that she is engaged to be -married I should be--but now it's too late! Always, always, Randolph -Byrd, you have been too late! - -All the world can give me advice and analyze me, yet nobody really knows -me. Dibdin, who knows me best of all, in reality knows me least. He -summed me up, or thought he did, before his periodical departure for -parts unknown, some twenty months ago. - -"You see," he said, "you've really got a genius for kids. I told you -how I felt about Laura. Yet what do I do? I go off to the devil knows -where, because I am a tramp. That is stronger in me than anything else. -But you, you see, gave up everything else for them--everything. Who but -a fool could blink the meaning of that?" - -Who but a fool, my dear old Dibdin, could be so blind as you? Who but a -fool could fail to see that I am consumed with passion for Alicia and -had only been waiting, dreading, hoping until she might be old enough to -know her own mind and heart--and waiting too long? - -And now Alicia is engaged--and to my own nephew, Randolph--and life for -me, life in the rich, vivid, colorful, romantic sense of the word, is at -an end. - -My nephew Randolph--a sophomore at Columbia--engaged to Alicia! - -Flashes of savagery strike into my heart when I could find it possible -to hate that youth--notably when I catch the Pendleton expression in his -face, the Pendleton shiftiness in his eyes. At such moments I -experience an intense, all but irresistible desire to grapple with him -as on a certain occasion I grappled with his father, to knock his head -against the wall and choke that brazen-faced, insolent temerity out of -him with his last breath. - -But I am only Uncle Ranny--and I don't suppose I shall do anything of -the kind. Have I not brought him up? Have I not labored and toiled for -him, watched over him? Is he not my child like the rest? There is -something about the person, the very flesh of the child one has reared -that disarms one's anger and turns the heart to water. His bad manners -hurt more deeply, yet they are not like the bad manners of a stranger. -His transgressions are not like others' transgressions. In God's name, -your soul cries out, there must be redeeming features, extenuating -conditions! Have I not had a hand in shaping him? And was he not -ineffably endearing as a child? He may be somewhat wild now, but is not -all youth like that on its path to manhood? - -This is a parent's point of view, I see, not a rival's. Why, why did -that boy, of all the males in the world, take Alicia from me? - -It was only yesterday that it happened, but already it seems like an -ancient calamity that stamps its victim with the slow grind of years of -pain, blanches his flesh and presses him down into the limbo of those -undergoing the slow drawn-out tortures of life. - -Yet I was happy yesterday. I came home at one, as I do of Saturdays, -and the early April sunshine, while still treacherous, was nevertheless -full of dazzling promise of spring, of relief from the dread winter we -have endured. My head had been buzzing with schemes like a hive. The -lease of the chalet expires in May and I was full of vain notions of -taking a larger, more attractive house that should be a suitable setting -for Alicia. Only one year more of college is left for Alicia after this -and then--and then--Alicia had talked of entering the shop, and I should -have her with me all the time. How I longed and looked forward to that -day! Alicia my constant companion, sharing every moment of the day, -going and coming together, lunching together, discussing everything. -Who shall blame me if I saw visions? - -And then, perhaps an hour after lunch, they suddenly entered my study -together--Randolph a half-pace or so behind her with something hangdog -in his look--an expression I detest in him--and Alicia, head high, -flushed with a look of desperate resolution about the somewhat haggard -eyes that startled me. - -I had been occupied in turning over the pages and collating a Caxton, a -genuine Caxton that I meant later to show to Alicia--"The Royal Book," -(1480, 2d year of the Regne of King Rychard the thyrd)--a beautiful -incunabulum. - -Randolph moved abruptly forward with a jerk of the head, and, his eyes -failing to meet mine, he blurted out huskily: - -"We're engaged, Uncle Ran--'Licia and I!" - -"What!" I yelled harshly as one in pain and fell against the back of my -chair. "What--what on earth do you mean!" - -But he merely looked away, making no response. - -"Is this true, Alicia?" I shouted, as if to overtop the tumult in my -breast. - -"Yes, Uncle Ranny," breathed Alicia, her eyes gazing into mine with a -look so poignantly sad and charged with pain that it froze me as I was -about to speak. I sat for a space, my mouth open, our eyes dwelling -together for an instant. And then, as by a sudden effort, Alicia smiled -valiantly, laid her hand stoutly on the shrinking boy's arm, and then -abruptly she lowered her gaze. - -"But--but why--why now?" I spluttered. "You are both so young--you only -a sophomore, Randolph--and you, Alicia--in God's name, why now?" - -Alicia glanced at Randolph as though depending on him to speak and then -contemptuously giving it up as hopeless, she straightened her shoulders -bravely and murmured in low distinct tones: - -"I promised Randolph. He wants me to be engaged to him and I promised -him I would." - -"You--you mean you--you love each other?" I stammered miserably, for -every word was a knife thrust into my own heart. - -The lad Randolph was now shamed into a little manliness. - -"Yes, we do, Uncle Ranny," came forth in his throaty voice. "That's -just it--we--we love each other. And--'Licia has promised to be engaged -to me 'til I am through college and get a job." - -"I suppose it had to come, Uncle Ranny," explained Alicia with what -seemed to me a very labored serenity. "We grew up together. We have -been such chums and--and Randolph seemed to--to need me. Don't you see, -Uncle Ranny?" There was a piteous note of appeal in her voice which -only seemed to lacerate me the more. But I could not speak. - -The sunshine had gone out of the April afternoon. Waves of darkness -seemed to be beating over me, and the strength and energy of a few -minutes back had oozed out of me like so much water. So weak and -shattered did I feel that on a sudden I was seized by a panic fear of -collapse. - -"Please leave me now," my lips, strange cold dead things that seemed in -no way a part of my body, brought forth mechanically, yet with heavy -effort. "It's--it's a shock--we'll discuss it later." I do not envy -those two the sight of my face at that moment. I am pretty certain -Randolph did not see it, for he turned away, but I am in doubt about -Alicia. Her eyes were brimming with tears and she came toward me with a -sudden curious movement of the hands, as though she felt rather than saw -her way. Then abruptly her hands dropped to her side and she paused and -turned back sharply. - -They left me then, both of them. I remained alone--crushed, stunned, -alone. - -And suffering agony though I am, there is now in me a strange new sense -of familiarity with suffering. Anguish and heartache, thank God, are no -longer novelties. That much anodyne the sheer business of living does -bring to one. I am as sensitive to them as ever I was in my prehistoric -days of ease and leisure and reclusion, but they are old acquaintances -now. I must go on, hiding my dolor as best I can, working for the sunny -comely lad, Jimmie, so brilliant with promise, for the grave sweet-faced -Laura, replica of her mother, and--yes--for Randolph and Alicia. I -cannot rant and I must not betray any grief or make a spectacle of -myself before them. I must carry on. - -"Small as might be your lamp," observes the sage of Belgium, "never part -with the oil that feeds it, but only give the flame that crowns it." - -A poor and tenuous oil is that of my peculiar lamp, a petty flame and a -murky result. But such as they are, I must guard them. - -I cannot down the feeling, however, that there is some mystery, some -secret reason behind this lightning-like development between Alicia and -the boy. With a leaden heart I must record it that he has proven a -disappointment to me. His mediocrity as a student concerns me less than -his general tendency to shiftiness, his unsteady eye and his heavy -drooping nether lip when he tells me that he "spent the night with the -fellows at the frat house", that "a fellow's got to associate with -friends of his own age", that "he's got to make friends", and so on. He -is through his allowance four days after receiving it and repeatedly -begs for more. More than once I have caught the odor of alcohol about -him as he came in late at night, and only the fact that he is Laura's -boy and that I have reared him has made me condone his many offenses. - -Have I been spoiling him, I wonder? Would I have condoned and tolerated -as much if he were my own son? He is over a year younger than Alicia and -though a handsome enough lad in his way, I fancy I see too much of -Pendleton in his face for comfort. His father also was markedly -good-looking when he married poor Laura. Have I, I wonder, been rearing -another Pendleton? - -But Alicia, the bright, the fair, the radiant, almost a woman now, with -more wisdom than I ever before found in women--how came she to do such a -thing as to engage herself to him? I can understand his possible -infatuation. But a girl, I had always believed, learns her woman's arts -by instinct. How can she be so blind to the boy's character and -defects? Can it be that she really loves him? Love, love, love! That -blind force that is said to move the stars--why can it be so haggard, -gaunt and painful a thing in the ordinary light of day? Woe is me that -I am too dull to comprehend it! Like the blooded horse in _Werther_ that -bites his own vein to ease his overstrained heart, I must bleed -inwardly--I must suffer and endure. - - - - - *CHAPTER XXIII* - - -Since it is for you, Randolph Byrd, aged seventy, that this vagrom -journal has been written, I should deem myself derelict and insincere if -I did not convey to you in every detail the sort of creature you were in -middle life. If you fail to approve of your progenitor, I shall know -that I have been exact, for I fail to approve of him myself. - -We are at war. Every fiber in me should thrill to the President's -declaration of war against Germany, but here I have been calmly turning -the pages of "The Description of a Maske", by Thomas Campion (S. -Dunstone's Churchyard in Fleetstreet 1607). It is a beautiful volume in -excellent preservation, one of five brought in by a young man who is -going to enlist. He inherited them from a grandfather, possibly an old -fellow like you, who held them precious. I bought them eagerly, for I -know where I can dispose of them, though I should dearly like to place -them in my own shelves. We shall make a profit on them, and a handsome -one. That is the sort of thought that runs through my head, Randolph -Byrd, _aet._ 70, and that is the sort of man you were thirty odd years -ago. You never were young in your youth, my fine friend. Perhaps you -will grow younger as you grow older. - -But that is not all. Above the sensuous pleasure in the books and -overriding the thought of lucre, is the strange romance of Alicia and -your namesake, Randolph Pendleton. It blasts all my previous -conceptions of romance. Where is the color and the warmth and the glory -of it? I had expected after their announcement of a few days ago that I -should be bitterly engaged in watching a glorious April dawn that would -blind me with its strange flames because it was not for me. Instead I -seem to see only a somber murky twilight whenever I surprise those two -in private colloquy. The mere thought of the possibility of Alicia -loving me (fantastic arrogance!) was wont to irradiate my heart and to -make me positively light-headed, so that I could scarcely withhold my -lips from smiling publicly. But my young cub of a nephew seems haggard -and obsessed by care, and upon Alicia's eyes I have more than once -observed traces of tears. - -What can be the meaning of that? - -Were I in reality a parent instead of masquerading as one, I should no -doubt endeavor to fathom this mystery. But you see, I am still, as -always, inadequate. The truth is, I dare not yet talk to Alicia about -her love. A little later, Randolph Byrd, a little later--when the pain -is more decently domesticated in my bosom and will not fly out like a -newly unchained hound. Meanwhile is it not best that I fasten my -attention upon Thomas Campion his Maske? - - -I may fill a little of the interim perhaps by telling you what I had -passed over in the busy silence of the last two or three years, that -Fred Salmon has attempted to make _amende honorable_. Fred Salmon, who -was the means of my losing all of the meager capital you should have -lived upon in your old age, has reappeared with a commendable attempt at -restitution. - -Begoggled and be-linen-dustered, he drove up to the chalet some ten -months ago in a magnificently shining car of bizarre design and he -entered my door booming like not too distant thunder. - -"Hello, Ranny!" he shouted out, and in a twinkling my study seemed to be -brimming with him, inundated by him, overflowing with Fred and his -Salmonism. "Have a cigar, my boy--how are you?--how is the family?--how -is the book business?" - -"Which am I to answer first?" I grinned mildly. - -"Never mind!" roared Fred. "I see you're all right. Ask me how's tricks -with me?" He was so obviously bursting with news that I complied at -once. - -"Very well--how are your tricks, Fred?" - -"Booming, booming, Randolph, my boy--and kiting! Jack Morgan himself -wouldn't blush to be in what I've got into! Put that on your piano, -Randolph, my boy!" - -Fred is one of those who likes to talk of Jack Morgan, Harry Davison, -Gene Meyer and Barney Baruch, as though they were his daily cocktail -companions. This distant familiarity of moneyed men gives him a strange -exuberance. - -"Consider that I have tried it on my piano and like the prelude," I told -him. "Now for the rest of the opus." - -"O-puss! Oh, fudge!" he laughed. "Gosh! You're a great old bird, -Rannie--great old bird! Well, listen here, fellah--" he ran on, wild -horses could not have held him--"you think I like to brag, don't you? -Don't deny it--you know you do! Well, it's God's truth, Randolph, I do. -Some folks are like that--me, for instance. But I had nothing to brag -about, see? So I made up my mind I'd get into something so good it could -stand any amount of bragging. So what do I do, but go into oil--oil, -Randolph, my lad--and now I've got it--I've got it! Rich? Say, I'm -going to be filthy with it, Randolph, positively oozing, crawling with -money. That's how it's with me, boy!" - -"Congratulations!" I held out my hand. He gripped it hard. "And what -do you do with your millions?" I added blandly. - -"Oh, I ain't got 'em yet!" he shouted. "But they're coming, -Randolph--they're on the way, on the way! I hear the sound of their dear -little golden feet right now--sweetest sound you ever heard. And that -reminds me!--" And on a sudden he opened his duster and from his bosom -pocket brought forth a number of dazzling yellow certificates with -gorgeous blood red seals upon them. - -"See these?" his large features were beaming a noon-day flood of -generosity. "Remember that twenty-five thousand you put in of your own -spondulix just before Salmon and Byrd went blooy? Well, this is that! -Here is a thousand shares of Salmon Oil to cover that, Randolph--and -some day you'll cash in with interest, my boy--big interest too--and -don't you forget it!" - -I stared at him in silence for a space. But so genuine and sincere -seemed his air of righteous triumph that I repressed the Rabelaisian -laughter that shook me inwardly and only said: - -"Thank you, Fred. You're a--white man." - -"Don't say a word!" shouted Fred, thumping me on the back. "It's all to -the good!" - -"By the way," I could not help adding after a glowing moment, "what is -the stock selling at now?" - -Not for nothing am I the partner of the canny Andrews. - -"Oh, now," retorted Fred in a tone somewhat injured at my lack of -romanticism--"now it ain't selling at all--yet! It's not issued yet, -see? We haven't floated it yet. I'm giving you this out of mine. You -can't sell it for a year. This is organizer's stock. But never fear, -my boy, this will net you more than twenty-five thousand some day, or my -name's Hubbard Squash!" - -There was nothing to do but to hail Fred as a philanthropist and -humanitarian and to thank him for his golden-hued certificates,--sweet -augury of fabulous riches to come. I keep a small iron safe in my study -now to house such precious objects as the Campion Maske and the Caxton -that I bring home overnight or longer for study and collation. Very -solemnly I clicked the combination lock, opened the safe and carefully, -with ritualistic, almost hieratic movements, I reverently put Fred's -certificates into one of the little drawers. Fred watched me -attentively. That ceremony seemed to answer his sense of the dramatic. - -"Yes, sir!" he nodded with great satisfaction, as a period to my -movements. "You have put away a little gold mine there, my boy. And -you don't have to work it, either. I'll do that! All you'll have to do -is to cash the dividend checks. And a word in your ear, Randolph: If I -'phone you and tell you to buy more, just you do it, boy--just you do -it!" Without describing to him my momentary mental reservation I, as it -were, promised. - -"And, oh, say," bubbled Fred, struck by a sudden memory, "who do you -think is in on this property with me? You'd never guess in the world, -so might as well tell you! It's our old college chum, Visconti--the -guinea--and a great little sport that guinea is, let your uncle Fred -tell you. He's got the spondulix, boy, and he'll have more, he will. -He'll strike it rich on this deal, you bet your hat, and he'll be richer -than ever. And say!" one idea seemed to follow another in Fred's brain -like salmon running over rapids. "Hasn't he got a peacherine of a -daughter, the old boy? Know her? Great girl, Gina--wonderfully good -sport! She and I--say, we're great pals, that girl and I--cabarets, -dancing"--and he shook and quivered in a sudden fragmentary movement of -the latest dance--"great sport!" he concluded, panting ponderously. - -"Angels and ministers of grace defend us!" I heard myself murmuring. - -"Here! What you praying about?" demanded Fred, humorously suspicious. - -"It was an invocation, Fred," I explained, "it's the most wonderful -thing I ever heard. Why, you and Gina are meant for each other. She's -a fine American girl"--I almost said "fina Americana girl," "and -you--you're a--you were simply created for each other!" - -"Say," grinned Fred exultantly, "honest, Randolph, do you think so?" - -"I do, most certainly." - -"Well, well--wait and see. Stop, look, listen--watchful waiting is the -word," he muttered mysteriously. "Ta-ta, old man, I've got to shoot away -from here. Now remember what I said: Don't buy until you hear from me, -nor don't sell until you hear from me!" - -"Stay to lunch," I begged. "After all, it's Sunday." - -"Sorry, can't," he returned importantly. "Big things brewing. See you -again. Ta-ta!" And he was gone. - -Such was the recrudescence of Fred Salmon and the certificates are still -in my safe in witness of it, and greatly to my surprise they have a -market value now, even though I cannot sell them. Judging by the curb -quotations the golden-hued leaflets are worth ten thousand dollars -to-day. But I know too well that something will happen before the year -is up and they will be worthless again. How should it be otherwise, -since they are mine? - -Fred Salmon was never meant to be a whisperer or a negotiator of secret -treaties. The children in the house that Sunday morning could not fail -to overhear him and ever since he has been known to them and referred to -as "Brewster's Millions." - -There is no contour to life. Life is chaotic. Whenever I thought of -Fred as marrying at all, I had mentally mated him with Gertrude. That, -in my opinion, would have been an ideally eugenic combination. But -instead, Fred is obviously attaching himself to Gina and Gertrude has -been eighteen months married to Minot Blackden, the rediscoverer of -glass-staining. They live happily in apartments, about a mile apart, -and I am told breakfast together occasionally. - -And this notation, oh, my aged correspondent, proves to me that I am not -a novelist. For were I a novelist, I should doubtless idealize these -pictures--romanticize as I note them. Gertrude--my old cold flame, -Gertrude--married to Blackden! There ought to be a chapter of that--a -veritable lyric epithalamium upon those highly modern spousals. -Blackden should fix them forever in a series of stained-glass windows! - -Instead of that, my feeling is, "What am I to Gertrude now, or what is -Gertrude to me? No more than Hecuba to the Player in 'Hamlet.'" Always -in place of romance, reality seems to break in, to take possession of my -pen and, willy-nilly, I find myself recording events as they happen, -without varnish or adornment. - - -But if my pen is so veracious as I have intimated above, why is it so -overproud and under-honest as not to record the torture that persists -beneath the seemingly calm surface of life, the agony, the anguish of -seeing Alicia daily under unaltered conditions, the same beloved Alicia, -yet with a barrier reared before her to which the screen of the Sleeping -Beauty was a miserable clipped privet hedge, to which Brynhild's circle -of fire was a pitiful conjuror's trick? - -Having been forced by the pressure of circumstance into ordered and -natural life, I am now maddened by a passion to straighten it altogether -out of its odd contortions and entanglements. My soul cries out to live -naturally and virtually whispers to me every day that natural living is -the first requisite to constructively social living. I see heights -glimmering of service, of great impersonal love--but only through -personal love lies my path toward them. - -In other words, I am now aware that you cannot, like another Aaron -Latta, "violate the feelings of sex." A few primal instincts there are, -so tremendously important, so powerfully imbedded in the human, in the -animal organism, that to violate them is to twist and crumple the -personality, the very soul within one--life itself. A normal man must -wive and beget and rear before his imagination is disentangled and freed -for the constructive and corporate life of humanity--before his use to -society is real and stable, reliable and not a sham. - -I have reared children, but I have never had a wife or ever begotten any -children of my own. Alicia embodies the completion of life for me--and -Alicia is now pledged to some one else, leaving my world empty and -meaningless. Come what will and avoid me as she may, existence cannot -go on in this manner. I must take the risk of private talk with -Alicia--to my pain, possibly, but for my information inevitably. Is she -in reality in love with my nephew? - - -"Alicia," I began gruffly this evening after dinner, "I want to talk to -you. Will you come into my study in a few minutes?" - -She lifted her eyes to mine searchingly for an instant and lowered them -again swiftly. - -"Yes, Uncle Ranny," she murmured. There are times when I feel I could -jump out of my skin, as the phrase is, when she calls me Uncle Ranny. -That "uncleship" has been my undoing. Yet what a wealth of prerogatives -it has brought me! - -I chose this evening because somehow all the world lay tranquillized. -Gusts of wind and plumps of April rain during the day gave way to a -great stillness even over this suburban countryside, where the rumble of -the trains is never absent; but the humid smell of the newly stirring -earth was still in my nostrils and our little lawn was already green -with young grass. One could almost hear the sap mounting in the trees. -There was a vernal feeling of peace and hope in the house--in my very -nerves. - -We were in particular good humor moreover under the influence of -Jimmie's table talk. That boy is a source of constant delight and -bubbles vitality like a fountain. His presence in a room positively -gives the effect of added light. He is just now in love with long words -and announced that he "would give me a composition on how to tie a -necktie." He meant a demonstration and we all laughed heartily. - -"Never mind," murmured Jimmie cheerfully to himself. "Demonstration--I -won't forget that one." - -Griselda declares he is exactly as I was at his age. But I am certain I -never was half so delightful. - -Laura was not with us. She is at a boarding-school at Rye this year and -comes home only upon alternate week-ends. Laura, sweet and grave-faced -like her mother, is never as hilarious as the rest of us often are. My -nephew Randolph was also absent. He, I suppose, was dining at his -eternal "frat house." - -It occurred to me how happy we could be, just the three of us, Alicia, -Jimmie and I--plus, of course, Griselda. Alicia is beautiful now with a -tender coloring and movements of exuberant gayety that are like wine to -the heart. When her face is animated and her eyes flashing with -merriment, the house seems charged with the very elixir of delight. Of -late, however, I have seen little of her gayety and more of her pensive, -silent mood and that has been depressing. But to-night Alicia was her -old lovely self of the days before the engagement and I seized the -occasion to discover what I could about that puzzle. - -Alone in my study, puffing at a cigarette which might have been a string -of hemp for all the taste I discerned in it, I feasted my mental eyes -for the _n_th time upon the picture of Alicia married to me, greeting me -as a wife upon my home-coming at night, nestling in my arms for the -delicious intimate fragmentary talk of the day lived through, of the -myriad little threads that take their place in the woof of life only -after the beloved has touched them with her love. The long quiet -evenings of intimacy and the nights which, in Goethe's phrase, become a -beautiful half of the life span. - -Am I immoral, O Randolph of seventy? Then I dismally fear I am immoral. -For these are the pictures, old man, and these the thoughts that produce -them--bad as they certainly are for me. For Alicia is my ward--my -child. And whatever happens she must not suspect them. With an effort -and a corrugated brow I dismissed them as I heard Alicia's step on the -doorway. Very straight and demure she was as she entered, bringing with -her that aura of infinitude which always quickens my foolish pulses. - -"Sit down, Alicia," I waved her to a chair with an attempt at a smile. - -"Is anything the matter, Uncle Ranny?" - -"No--no--nothing--" with exaggerated naturalness. "I only wanted to talk -to you." - -"Wasn't Jimmie cunning!" she laughed, slipping into a chair. "He says -he is going to be a writer like Mark Twain and let you sell his books. -This environment, he says, is enough to make a writer of any fellow." I -laughed. - -"Tell me, Alicia--" I began briskly enough, and then, noting her eyes -upon me, those deep eyes of a woman, I faltered: - -"Do you--did you--when did this love affair between you and Randolph -begin?" - -Alicia made no answer. - -"Was it sudden--spontaneous--like that?" and I snapped my fingers, still -clinging to the spirit of lightness with which we had left the table. - -"I have loved all of them--always," she murmured, gazing downward, "ever -since I've been with them." - -"I know that--so have I--so do I--" and my laugh sounded in my own ears -like the grating of rough metallic surfaces together. "But I don't go -marrying you all--do I? That's a very serious business, Alicia, this -marrying." - -How dull and prosy the words fell upon the air about me! Does middle -age mean being prosy when you mean to be alert, bright and crisp? Yet I -feel younger than any of them. - -Her face lifting slowly and her wide-open gray eyes searching mine -suddenly struck me as so piteously sad that I then and there wrote -myself down an ass and a cad and turned away to hide my shame. - -"I know it's serious, Uncle Ranny!" and her voice was like the muted -strings of a violin. "But don't you think I understand? Please don't -be afraid of me--won't you trust me--please?" And she left her chair -and made a step toward me with an imploring gesture of the hands. - -"I am not a designing woman," she declared, with a half smile, and then -she ran on more vehemently, "I know that Randolph is younger than I. He -can tire of me a hundred times before he is ready to marry. Oh, we are -a long way from marrying. But he--he begged me to--to be engaged to him -and--and for certain reasons that I can't tell _any one_, I agreed. And -I'll keep my word if he keeps--" and there she paused. - -A solemn, quite maternal tenderness in her face as she uttered those -words so fascinated me that suddenly I saw her anew--a new Alicia--and -with a strange tug at the heartstrings I marveled at the miracle. - -I saw her suddenly not as _a_ woman, but as Woman--the mother of -mankind, the nurse, the nourisher of all the generations. There was in -her eyes a something rapt and sybilline--she was the eternal maternal -principle in nature, the keeper of man's destiny, older than I, as old -as the race--the spirit of motherhood! - -And _she_ was engaged to Randolph! - -Then, as though emerging from a maze, I blurted out, "You are not in -love with him, then?" ... - -"Of course I love him!" she returned with fire. "I love everybody in -this house. This has been home--heaven to me. Why shouldn't I?--Oh, -you Randolph Byrd!--why are men so blind? I've trusted you all my life -as if you were God--and you can't let me manage--but you've got to trust -me!--I can help--I must--I can't tell you--but you'll never regret -it!--Oh, please, Uncle Ranny, don't press me any more," she added more -plaintively, her force suddenly leaving her as though she had come to -herself with a shock. A gush of tears filled her eyes. "Don't be--too -hard on me," she faltered. Her hand groped for the chair behind her, -and she sank weeping into it. - -"Alicia! My God!" I cried out, choking. Flesh and blood could not bear -it. I leaped toward her with a wild impulse to take her in my arms, to -comfort her, to pour out against her lips the truth that I trusted her -and loved her more than any human being on earth.... My arms went out -and all but engulfed her. But--strangely--I checked myself. A powerful -inhibition suddenly held me arrested as in a vise. Both the curse and -the blessing of middle age were inherent in that inhibition. If I had -so much as touched her then, I knew in a flash of quivering intuition -that the truth I had perforce so carefully guarded would be spilled like -water. If I touched her then, I was lost! - -Hastily I retreated a step or two. For a space of intense charged -silence Alicia sat drying her eyes, a little crumpled Niobe, the while I -with trembling fingers of the hand that was on my table fumbled stupidly -in the cigarette box. - -"Trust you, Alicia!" I muttered, with an immense effort to control my -voice. "I trust you beyond any one. You are mistress in this house. -Do whatever you think best. I didn't mean to make you cry, child, -forgive me. You--you have answered my question. Now don't let's have -any more tears--please!" - -And lighting a cigarette automatically I now approached her and stood -nearer to her. - -"I'm--s-sorry, Uncle Ranny," she faltered. - -She had called me Randolph Byrd in her vehemence and the sound of it was -still reverberating in my brain. But I was back to Uncle Ranny, like -another Cinderella in her pumpkin. - -"Do you know what you are, Alicia?" I stood over her, puffing and -chattering against time, "You are an old-fashioned girl, that's what you -are--with emotions and--and all sorts of curious traits, when you ought -to be discussing Freud and complexes and the single standard and the -right of woman--" the right of woman, I had almost said, to motherhood -irrespective of marriage, upon which I had heard a fashionable young -woman descant only that morning in the shop, apropos of a book she was -buying on the Dark Lady of the Sonnets. But I paused in time. - -"And all sorts of things," I trailed off lamely. - -"Yes," she murmured, a faint sad smile wavering on her lips. "I'll do -that next time. I'll deliver a lecture to Jimmie some evening on the -OEdipus complex--or why it's inadvisable to marry your own grandmother." - -Clearly Alicia is no stranger to the patter of the time. But what a -glorious, natural creature she is! - -Her touch of satire after her tempest of emotion ravished me as perhaps -nothing else. How adorable she was in all her moods! - -"Do it now, Alicia," I cried. - -"Now--I must go up and wash my face," she murmured. I couldn't bear to -let her go. - -"Where--where is Randolph to-night?" I clutched at her presence for -another instant. - -"I don't know," and with a sudden swift movement she glided out of the -room. If only she knew how bewitching she is! But perhaps she is -better ignorant. - -One thing is certain. She has answered my question. She is not in love -with Randolph. - -Dimly I perceive a faint cohesiveness to the swimming lines of the -picture. For some reason that she knows best, that seemed good to her, -she yielded to the boy's importunities. In some way the mother in her -is involved. How little, after all, I know of my eldest nephew! Alicia -doubtless knows more--much more. - -But this is the query that rises before me like a black pillar in the -roadway: - -Can that splendid girl be deliberately planning to sacrifice herself for -some real or fancied good to the boy--hoping the while that by the time -his dangers are past, he might tire of her, and release her plighted -word? But suppose he shouldn't tire--as indeed how could he? Can I risk -her happiness in that manner--her happiness which means to me a thousand -times more than my own? - -My own happiness--useless to think of that new! Whatever Alicia did or -didn't betray, it was patently obvious that I am simply Uncle Ranny--as -ever was. For one instant of excitement I was Randolph Byrd--but only -for that. Ah, well, no use to dwell upon that bitterness now. - -But about that young pair--what would I better do, my aged counselor? -Doubtless at seventy you will be able to give me the sagest of advice. -But that will be too late, friend, _par trop_, too late. I must watch -more closely from this moment on. I have much to learn, Randolph Byrd. -Of this, however, I am certain: One individual may with nobility -sacrifice his life for another. That, according to my lights, is -inherent in the very order of the universe. But every one is entitled -to his or her own happiness. Woe and shame to the crippled soul that -allows another to maim him in his happiness. Every human being has the -unequivocal right to his share! - -I am rambling, I see. My brain doubtless is still awhirl with the -emotions and overtones of the interview with Alicia. - -The headlines of the evening paper over which my tired eyes stray are -vocal with the war spirit, with news of bridges guarded, of -preparations, of munitions, of espionage, of ships, troops, -volunteering! But the import of these makes hardly an impression upon -my mind. So impersonal a thing is patriotism juxtaposed to the intimate -business of living! - -It is late. I must go to bed. Alicia's fiance has not yet come in. - - -To-day arrived a letter which overshadows all else, which momentarily -put even my last night's talk with Alicia in the background and aroused -strange sleeping instincts of alarm, of combat, of savage alertness. -The last thing I could now have expected or thought of was this letter -from Pendleton. The brilliant April sun turned darker as I opened it -and the warmth went out of the vernal air, turning spring back into -winter. This is what I read: - - -DEAR RANDOLPH: - -I am writing you from St. Vincent's Hospital in San Francisco. A -business trip that brought me here laid me flat with typhoid, and all my -money, what remained for the return trip to Kobe, is gone. - -I ask you to do me the great favor of advancing me three hundred -dollars. I shall be out of hospital in a week or ten days at most and I -want to return at once. Immediately I get back to Kobe I shall send you -a draft in repayment. You must do this for me, Randolph, as I have no -one else to turn to. Unless I can get back I am stranded and my only -alternative will be to beat my way back to New York, which is the last -thing I want to do. Please let me hear from you by wire that you'll do -this. - -Faithfully, - JIM PENDLETON. - - -The impudent blackmailing scoundrel! His only alternative will be New -York. That is his threat, and as a threat he means it. Yet I would -send him the money willingly if only I were sure that he would really -use it for passage to Kobe or to the devil--so long as it is far enough -away. But what security have I? - -Nevertheless it comes to me sadly that I shall have to take the risk and -send him the money. To have Pendleton in New York again--at any cost I -must take any chance to prevent that. And arrant blackmailer that he -is, he understands that! - -What could he do if he were here? The children? Though all minors, the -two eldest are old enough to choose and I believe I am secure in my -feelings as to their choice. He will not, moreover, be charging himself -with the responsibility of the children, if only I seem indifferent -enough as to whether he takes them or not. Alicia he is powerless to -touch. Oh, I have learned something of the weapons needed to fight such -a beast. But it is his hateful presence that I cannot stomach the -thought of. And that he knows also. I must send him the money and take -the chance that he will really return to his accustomed lairs. It will -be an uneasy time for a while, nevertheless. But too much ease would -now sit queerly upon my shoulders. - -I shall send him the money. - - - - - *CHAPTER XXIV* - - -I have had a week of illness and it has been the happiest of my life. - -Alicia has been my nurse and no one, I fervently hope, will ever -discover that the larger half of that week has been sheer malingering. -I might have got up in three days! - - 'Tis late to hearken, late to smile, - But better late than never - I shall have lived a little while, - Before I die forever. - - -The Shropshire Lad was perfectly right in the two middle lines of his -quatrain, but oddly wrong in the others. It was _not_ late to hearken -or to smile. It never is late. Every moment has been heavenly for me. -And who ever stops to dwell upon Purgatory once he has entered Paradise? -I am very certain that by a law of spiritual physics past suffering is -wiped out without a trace. - -If "The Rosary" were not so absurd I should sing it to myself over and -over. But being constructively a convalescent why may I not be absurd? -Who shall say me nay? So being alone, I am humming the tune of "The -Rosary" over and over and taking my pleasure in it. - -The hours I have spent with Alicia no one can take from me. What a -petulant patient I have been! I chuckle as I think of it. It's like -_Felix Culpa_. Happy grippe-cold! - -Alicia, let us say, brings me some broth upon a tray. - -"Will you be comfortable, Uncle Ranny," she asks with concern in her -voice, "until I come back with the rest?" - -"No!" growls the eccentric uncle. "Not a bit of it. I want company -while I eat." - -Alicia laughs softly. - -"But who is going to prepare the other tray, while Griselda is so busy?" - -"Don't care," mutters the grouchy invalid. "I want company. If I let -you go now, will you bring up your own luncheon and eat it here?" - -"But that makes such a lot of dishes, Uncle Ranny." - -"Don't care. I'm obstinate, fussy, irritable, sick. Have to be humored. -Ask the doctor!" - -Alicia peals a delicious silvery laugh and then I see a film as of tears -in her eyes. - -"All right--I'll humor you, Uncle Ranny. But I should think you'd be -sick of seeing me round by this time!" - -"Am sick," growl I. "Get a colored nurse to-morrow!" Whereupon I hear -Alicia's laughter all the way down the stairs. - -I wonder why Griselda's Scotch broth tastes so amazingly delicious, -these days. Is it possible that an invalid's palate is more sensitive -to culinary virtues and savors? I must ask the doctor. - -On the little table at my bedside lies the Valdarfer Boccaccio, printed -1471, which Andrews, excellent fellow, had bought at a sale in my -absence and, thrice excellent fellow, brought up for my delectation when -he came to visit the sick. I once spent a delightful week in the -British Museum, virtually under guard, examining that rare and beautiful -volume. Now its only replica in America is near me and I ought to be -feasting all my senses upon its vellum-bound richness and beauty. It -was once the property of a Medici and has delighted the hours of popes, -princes, dukes, lords; men have longed for it, have treasured it, loved -it as men treasure and love diamonds or women. It is worth a moderate -fortune. But I leave it neglected. I am waiting for the rattle of a -tray and the entrance of the girl behind the tray. What would Rosenbach -or any decent bookman say if they knew? But I don't care. Boccaccio -himself would have approved me. - -Alicia enters and the room is flooded with sunshine and I am quick with -life. - -"Why, Uncle Ranny!" Alicia pauses alarmed, tray in hand. "Do you think -you have fever again? Your eyes are so bright!" - -"'The better to see you with,' said the wolf," I mutter and turn away. - -"And your cheeks are red." She puts down the tray, ignoring my -nonsense. - -"Let me feel if they are hot," she persists anxiously and her cool -fingers barely touch my cheek which I hastily draw aside. - -"I have no fever, I tell you, Alicia," I murmur irritably. "I am -ravenous. Food, child--food is my craving. Sit down and eat--and let -me eat." - -"Very well, dear grouchy Uncle Ranny," answers Alicia, cheerfully -placing my dishes on the invalid's table suspended over the counterpane -and leaving her own on the tray. "It shall eat to its heart's content, -it shall--this nice chop and this lovely muffin, and this luscious -jam--greasing its little fisteses up to its little wristeses, the dirty -little beasteses!" - -Whereupon I am in good humor again. - -"Have you looked over this Valdarfer Boccaccio at all?" asks Alicia -lightly, by way of making conversation. I nod. - -"Isn't it a love?" I nod again. - -"What a history that book has had--and you know every detail of it, I -suppose. All the princes and kings who owned it--all the romance it has -accumulated in nearly five hundred years--don't you?" - -"Don't I what?" - -"Know about it?" - -"Oh, yes." - -"Look here," cries Alicia with mock anger, "don't you go and become a -blatant materialist thinking only of money and profits--like all the -rest of the world. That would be horrible, Uncle Ranny--when I've been -adoring you so abjectly because even your business is lovely and -intellectual and romantic!" - -And that girl is betrothed to my nephew Randolph! flashes through my -mind. Aloud I say with a faint grin meant to exasperate her: - -"Who on earth cares for anything but money?" - -That she very properly ignores and in a softer, more serious tone, she -murmurs: - -"I came across a little rhyme of Goethe's--'_Kophtisches Lied_.' Do you -remember it?--'Upon Fortune's great scale the index never rests. You -must either rise or sink, rule and win, or serve and lose; suffer or -triumph, be anvil or hammer.' Isn't it lovely?" - -"Yes. Did you translate that in your head as you went along?" I ask. - -"Yes, Uncle Ranny--and you have triumphed over Goethe's wisdom. You -have always triumphed even when you suffered--you have always been you, -through all your troubles--Salmon and Byrd--Visconti's. You don't know -how I, too, lived through all those things--even when I was a child and -hardly dared to speak to you--I was, oh, so anxious--and so glad when -you seemed to be happy. And even now--oh, it's been so wonderful to -watch you!" The tears fill her eyes and she turns her face from me. -"That's been my life." - -"You little witch!" my heart cries out dumbly, in a very ache of -tenderness. "And have you been mothering me in your thoughts all these -years as you have mothered the children?" - -"No, Alicia--I haven't triumphed," I whisper huskily. "But I am -triumphing now." - -She turns toward me again with a smile of misty radiance. By an effort -I control my voice and launch out briskly: - -"Did I ever tell you, Alicia, how I nearly owned the priceless copy of -his Essays that Bacon inscribed and gave to Shakespeare?" - - -I am well again--and therefore solitary. It is little enough I have -seen of my nephew Randolph during my illness and little that Alicia has -seen of her fiance. - -This being a Saturday when Randolph is at home, Alicia stopped him as he -was about to leave the house to go to New York, "on business," as my -"conditioned" Sophomore put it, and firmly proposed a walk with her -instead. He demurred, the egregious whelp, demurred to a walk with -Alicia! I surprised a note that was almost pleading beneath the bright -decision--Alicia pleading to be taken for a walk! I could have trounced -the boy in my hot indignation. - -They departed--I saw them depart. They were in the obscure little hall -and my door was open. Alicia waved her hand, smiling. "Just a wee bit -walk!" she called out in Griselda's language. She could not have known -the tug of longing and envy with which my heart and spirit followed her -as my body felt suddenly and disconsolately heavy against the chair. - -"Have a good time," I waved my hand back, "and greet the spring for me!" - - -The birds are reappearing and an enterprising family of wrens are -already building urgently over my window. Robins are courting and -strutting. The trees are tender with leaf and the throb of spring is in -the air like a mighty force, ceaseless, slow, careless, yet -all-penetrating. The morning sun was bathing all the world in the very -elixir of youth. A fly was buzzing madly against the pane. I felt -intensely solitary, poignantly alone. - -The Valdarfer Boccaccio lay opened on my desk--but he was four and a -half centuries removed from this sunlight. I almost hated it--hated all -the beloved objects about me. My precious books were dumb, inert, a -clog upon all the senses. With a heart passionately hungry I craved for -youth, freshness, activity. I seized the Valdarfer Boccaccio as though -to hurl it from me. Then, restraining myself, I brought it down on the -table with a bang that nearly shattered its precious binding. I laughed -ruefully. I determined on a sudden to greet the spring for myself. - -Griselda came bustling as she heard me rattling the canes in the jar. - -"You're going out?" she demanded. - -"Yes, Griselda." I am always a little apologetic with Griselda, for did -she not know me as a boy? It is a part of the instinctive clutching at -youth that makes us respect our elders. That puts them at once in their -own elderly world. Besides, Griselda is always in the right. - -"Then why did ye not go with the bairns?" - -"_They_ didn't want anybody with them," and I winked Spartan-wise--I can -wink at Griselda. Has she not spent her life serving me? In this rare -world you can do anything to people who love you enough. - -"Havers!" muttered Griselda, with an enigmatic toss of her old head. -"Then see that ye take your light coat." - -"A coat to-day?" I protested. - -"Aye--a coat to-day, young man!" - -"Call me young man again, and I'll don goloshes and fur mittens," I -challenged her. - -"Child, I should have called ye," murmured Griselda, fumbling at the -hook upon which my top coat hung. - -"I'll put on rubber boots and a sou'wester for that," I told her and -struggled into the sleeves as she held the garment out for me. - -"I wouldna go too far to-day," cautioned Griselda. "Ye're not over -strong yet." - -"Just a little way," I mumbled, ashamed at her affection and care for -one so worthless. "Thank you, Griselda!" She would have been shocked -and scandalized had she known that at that moment there was a moderate -lump in my throat and that I all but kissed her brown old face. - -How much the spring had advanced during my days of imprisonment! The -grasses were assertively green as though they had never been otherwise. -Birds were twittering. Neighbors, or opulent neighbors' gardeners, were -busy at their flower beds, and early blooms in some of them, -transplanted from boxes or hothouses--violets, hyacinths, daffodils, -cried forth their beauties in a way to make my breath catch. Queer, -hungering, clamorous sensations stirred in my emaciated frame. How well -I understood at that instant Verlaine's unshed tears of the heart when -he sang: - - Mon Dieu, mon Dieu, la vie est la, - Simple et tranquille - Cette paisible rumeur--la - Vient de la ville. - - --Qu'as tu fait, o toi que voila - Pleurant sans cesse, - Dis, qu'as-tu fait, toi que voila - De ta jeunesse? - - -That bitterly anguished cry of the heart: What have you made of your -youth? - -I strode on grimly in a sort of nameless anger, past the outlying -houses, past empty lots with rank grass still awaiting the pressure of -habitation, until the futilely laid-out streets, empty of all life, gave -way to open country and meadowland. I was making my way to the wood -that lies between the meadows, a skirting dairy farm or two, some -scraggy orchard here and there, and the great line of the aqueduct, the -most Roman of our enterprises, that carries the water to New York. In -the wood I somehow felt I should be taken again to the bosom of earth -and the sickness of my soul be healed. - -I looked up at the sky and it was radiant with dazzling white clouds -that made my mole's eyes water. A merry breeze fanned the newborn earth -and once on the edge of the wood I caught that indescribable whisper of -trees which to me is the earth-note, the age-long speech and intimation -of the planet that, at all hazards, life must go on; that it is decreed, -irresistible and sweet. A pang of envy stabbed my breast at the thought -of the lovers abroad to-day, even though those lovers were almost my -children. I for one find it difficult to keep apart those conflicting -emotions of the heart. But do parents of the flesh, I wonder, encounter -no similar struggles? Once among the trees I was permeated by that type -of gentle melancholy serenity that woods induce. Softly I strolled -about on last year's pine needles and leaves, sodden now after a -winter's snowfall and a year's rains. The cat-like tread of your -primeval aborigine returns even to your civilized boots in the Woods of -Westermain, the stalker and the hunter throbs faintly in your blood. - -My path led me up a slope where the trees, youngish still, like myself, -were no saplings, however, but towered in a slender abandon toward the -patches of cerulean sky overhead. They seemed to escort me, those -tapering maples and sycamores with their feathery foliage, like a troop -of young monks still fresh from their novitiate, still full of the sap -of life. Somehow trees in a forest have always reminded me of monks -chanting litanies and benedictions. The bass-note of all their -murmurings is invariably so solemn. From the crest the land drops in a -declivity and thence, soon abandoning the woodland in a fringe of bushes -and underbrush, rolls on to the massive moundlike line of the aqueduct. - -On a sudden I heard voices beneath me a little way down the declivity. -And peering down with the delicious thrill of alertness that returns -from primitive ages even to-day among trees, I perceived Alicia and -Randolph with their backs to me in earnest colloquy. - -My first impulse, naturally, was to hail them or to make some sort of -monitory sound that might apprise them of my presence. But a sudden -movement of Alicia's arrested all force or motion on my part. - -Her hands shot forward and with a vehemence that was obviously not -loverlike, she cried out in a tormented voice: - -"But you've promised me that over and over again, 'Dolph! How many -times"--she unconsciously shook him as she spoke, "how many times do you -suppose you have promised me that you wouldn't drink and wouldn't -play--that you'd give up going about with that set--that you'd leave it -altogether? How many, many times?" she reiterated, with a pathetic note -of indignation. - -"A fellow can't quit cold like that," I barely heard the lad -muttering--"got to have some friends!" - -"Friends!" Alicia cried, in a voice of bitter exasperation. "Do you call -Billy Banning and Tertius Cullen and Arthur Bloodgood friends? They're -your worst enemies--almost criminals!" And on a sudden I realized that -I was an eavesdropper and a flush of shame heated my cheeks. I was -about to make a sound but my throat was dry and no sound came. - -"Think what it would mean," took up Alicia, "if Uncle Ranny found it -out--" and I could not choose but listen--"all that he has been to -us--father and mother and everything else. Everything in the world he -has given up for us," she cried with quivering lips, her voice thinning -with passionate anguish. "His comfort, his leisure, his whole life he -has sacrificed with a smile for us--for you and Jimmie and Laura -and--and even me! Oh, 'Dolph, 'Dolph--do you suppose there are many -such men in the world? And you want to break his heart by drinking and -gambling and Heaven knows what else it might lead to?" - -I write these words with shame. I had no business to hear them. I -gathered my arrested forces to compel myself to move away, when I heard -the boy's bass mutter: - -"I know I'm rotten, 'Licia--rotten as they make 'em--but give me another -chance, 'Licia--just one more, sweetheart--I tell you it's--" - -"Yes," was the bitter interruption, "you made me those promises when I -said I would be engaged to you--what have they amounted to? It would -have broken his heart if it had come out then. I--I promised the Dean -for you--that time--" her voice charged with emotion so she could -scarcely speak--"and now--" - -"But wait--wait, 'Licia," the boy suddenly drew her to him with -passionate earnestness by both hands. "I give you my word of honor this -time it's different. It isn't for myself--yes, it is, though--but it -isn't for what you mean--not for anything you can think of. It is for a -Purpose," he explained with great emphasis--"a Purpose--I can't tell -you--but--" - -"But you must tell me," insisted Alicia, searching his eyes tremulously. - -"Can't--I can't!" he shook his head vehemently. "'Licia, darling, be -good to me. I must have it. If I only had about fifty dollars! I -could win it--I know--I am awfully good at poker--I can bluff the lot of -'em. But I've got to have ten to start--and I promise, word of honor, -I'll never play again--word of honor, 'Licia." - -It was too late now for me to betray my presence. I was contemptible in -my own eyes, ashamed, yet exultant--I hardly knew what. My frame shook -with a cold rage, with shame at my blindness, and yet a curious sense of -vast illumination surrounded me like an atmosphere. I moved away, hardly -knowing or caring whether I made any sound, and with bowed head and a -tumult throbbing hot and cold within me, I walked down the slope through -the still whispering woods. - -What I had long fitfully suspected was how somewhat darkly apparent: In -some manner Alicia was endeavoring to stand between the boy and evil, -shame, disgrace, sacrificing herself deliberately, resolutely, without a -word to me--because it might "break my heart!" Through an empty barren -landscape, with unseeing eyes, conscious only of a welter of incoherent -thoughts and emotions, as though boiling in a vacuum, I made my way -homeward. It might "break my heart!" - -"And did ye walk too far?" Griselda came hurriedly to the entrance hall -when she heard me. - -"No--no! Greatest walk of my life," I laughed absently into her face. -"Feel like another man." - -She scrutinized me sharply for an instant, and muttering something about -a cup of cocoa and a biscuit, whisked away to the kitchen. - -Dumb, distraught, I fell wearily into my chair, gazing vacantly at the -rows of books, at the telephone instrument, the safe, the furniture and -cushions, at all the apparatus of living about me, realizing clearly -only one thing: that it is the simple basal things of life that alone -tend to elude one. For years I had been clinging to them, faint but -pursuing, but still they were eluding me. Still I was a groping -elementary learner in life. Rage and depreciate myself as I would, I -felt nevertheless that I was facing a problem momentarily beyond me, but -which I urgently knew I must solve. If I had been blind, I could not -continue blind. Suddenly, thought suspended as a bird sometimes hangs -in the air, I seemed to be watching instinct taking command, instinct -overriding thought and shame, rage and grief--instinct taking a pen and -a cheque book and writing with my hand a check in Alicia's name for -fifty dollars. Why was my hand doing this? A slight tremor of -revulsion shook me before this trivial deed accomplished--and I made a -movement as though to destroy the cheque I had written. But I did not -destroy it. I sat gazing at it stupidly, as one might sit before a -puzzle. - -Griselda at this point entered with a tray bearing cocoa and biscuits. - -"Oh, thanks, Griselda," I murmured, as one emerging from a trance. "By -the way, I wish, you wouldn't mention to Alicia or--anybody, my having -walked this morning." Griselda uttered a brief laugh. Then--"Did ye -see them?" she queried abruptly. - -"See them?" I repeated dully. "What a question for you to ask, -Griselda! If I had seen them would I ask you not to mention it?" - -"Oh, ay--surely--I am a fool!" muttered Griselda, slowly turning to -leave me. But her expression was not that of one chastened in her -folly. - -"Is Jimmie in the house?" I asked. - -"No, Jimmie is across the way playing with the Sturgis boy." - -"Very well, Griselda. Thank you." - -A few minutes later Alicia entered the house--alone. - -I rose heavily and walked toward the open door leading to the hallway. -Her drooping dispirited look struck me like a blow--my radiant Alicia! -Even her pretty small hat that I admired seemed to squat listlessly upon -her beautiful head--beautiful even in dejection. But no sooner did she -perceive me approaching than she looked up and smiled piteously. - -"Oh, hello, Uncle Ranny--" but the usual sparkle in her tone was sadly -lacking--"have you been all right?" She removed her hat. - -"Oh, quite--thanks, Alicia. But a little lonely. Won't you come in and -talk to me, if you have nothing better to do?" - -"Of course I shall, you poor Uncle Ranny--" and her tone became more -hearty. "What have you been doing with yourself all alone--?" And I -realized that endearments were trembling on the tip of her tongue and my -soul craved them, but I interrupted her. She had had enough that -morning. And the endearments of pity would have crushed me utterly. - -"Oh, there's Boccaccio," I muttered, "and puttering about generally--at -which I'm an expert. Sit down," I added, as she entered the study. "Am -I mistaken, or did you tire yourself out walking too far?" - -"Oh, no, dear--I had a lovely walk," she answered brightly. "Don't you -go wasting sympathy on me. I feel ashamed of my robustiousness, and you -convalescing here alone. But I shan't leave you alone again to-day. -Wouldn't you like me to read some Boccaccio to you?--But then my Italian -is so ferocious, and yours is so beautiful, you'd hate me if I clipped -the vowels too short." - -She had thus far made no mention of Randolph. - -So full did my heart feel of love and sympathy for this poor beautiful -child struggling alone with her problem and pain that I ached to take -her to my heart, to beg her to confide in me, to let me share her -troubles. A lump rose in my throat and I knew that one movement in her -direction would make all my manhood dissolve in tears like a child! No, -I must not--I could not. - -"Read me," I whispered huskily, after a pause, "two or three of the -sonnets in the 'Vita Nuova' of Dante." - -"Lovely!" cried Alicia, jumping up and seizing the book. - -"_A ciascun alma presa_," she began--"to every captive soul and gentle -heart ... greeting in the name of their Lord, who is love!" - -I did not listen after the first stanza. I endeavored only to still the -tumult in my brain and to think what to do for Alicia. - -Somehow, some way, I must put an end at once to this beloved child's -torment--without causing her pain. - -Three sonnets she had read, or possibly four, and then she paused and -searched my face. - -"Do you want any more?" - -"Thank you very much, Alicia, I feel brighter already. I think that will -be enough for to-day. By the way, Alicia," I went on rapidly, fumbling -with my papers, "it strikes me your allowance is too small. You must -need dozens and dozens of things that cost money. Here is a cheque for -fifty dollars I wrote out this morning--but," I added half absently--"if -you need more I can just as easily make it a hundred," and I laughed a -trifle foolishly--oh, I could act, this morning, act almost as well as -Alicia. - -She gazed at me intently for a space, silent, alert--a flash of -suspicion--and then with an ineffable tenderness and a great relief -shining in her eyes. - -"Oh, you darling Uncle Ranny," she leaped from her chair and flew toward -me, pressing both her hands down on my shoulders. Immobile as a Buddha -I sat as she kissed me on the cheek. - -"But do you really think you can--give me all this?" - -"Oh, yes, Alicia," I laughed with the bravado of Fred Salmon. "I am -quite sure I can. What are uncles for if--" but I could say no more. - -She hung over me for an instant and then abruptly left me. She, too, -was fearful of saying more. But not for the same reason--oh, not for -the same reason! - - -All that day, Alicia, as I could not help overhearing, was vainly -endeavoring to reach Randolph on the telephone in New York. She rang -the fraternity house. She tried the homes of his friends. But all to no -purpose. Randolph was not to be found. And that evening Alicia mounted -the stairs to her room with a sort of drooping, febrile anxiety, with an -anxious unnatural gayety. - - - - - *CHAPTER XXV* - - -Only some fifteen hours have passed and the world is changed to a -dazzling brilliance. - -Alicia would not leave me, poor overwrought child. She has refused to go -to bed and insisted upon staying near me, upon "meeting the dawn" with -me. She now lies stretched upon my couch, covered over with a rug, and -she has just been overtaken by slumber. - -And her presence there under my eyes, Randolph Byrd, is the nearest -taste of Heaven that you and I have known, or possibly ever will know, -in this life. It is dawn enough for me now and for you, my friend--a -dawn so resplendent that I for one shall never desire a brighter. - -And since there can be no more sleep for me this night, and since this -may be the last entry for you in these memoirs, for many a day, if not -forever, I shall endeavor to still the flying heart, the mad exultation -rioting in my veins, by noting down for you, how sketchily and -incoherently soever, the momentous occurrences of the youngest hours. - -It came about--but has it come about? Or is this some mad dream from -which I shall wake to the old somber reality? How can a dark turbid -current so suddenly bring one out into a flashing, sparkling, sunlit -lagoon, overhung with a verdure so rich and lustrous it would seem to -have come fresh from the Creator's hand? I hear birds piping in wondrous -music, or do I imagine it? But I began by telling you I should be -incoherent. - -It must have been some time past midnight when I screened the fire, put -out the lights and wearily, in darkness, made my way up the stairs. - -The fire had unaccountably and fitfully smoked to-night and I remember -the last thing I did was to take out Fred Salmon's gold-colored -certificates from the safe, examine them with smarting eyes and then -gaze in sleepy astonishment at the quotation of Salmon Oil in the -newspapers. According to that the shares were now worth twenty-six -thousand dollars! It seemed incredible, absurd. And the year was up -and I might sell the stuff. Like a miser who has nothing else in life to -look for, I gazed spellbound at those securities in whose security I -even now could not believe. But unlike the miser of fiction, but like -my dull, stupid self, I neglected to replace the crackling papers, -though I did put the Valdarfer Boccaccio in and closed the safe. - -In the upper passageway, I distinctly recall walking on tiptoe so that -Alicia might not be disturbed. Was it hallucination I wonder, or did I -actually hear like a sighing whisper through the darkness, - -"Good night, Uncle Ranny!" - -I am always imagining her voice and her gestures in my brain. I must -ask her when she wakes up. At any rate, that mysterious whisper it was, -or the hallucination of a whisper, that stirred me into wakefulness -again. I began to undress and paused, realizing that I was now too -wakeful to sleep. I donned a dressing gown over my waistcoat, adjusted -the light and lay down upon the bed with Baudelaire's "Fleurs de Mai" in -my hand. A little of Baudelaire had the effect upon my mind of rich -food upon a furred tongue. Why, I wondered, do I keep that gloomy book -upon my bedside table? I threw it down in disgust and took up a volume -of Florio's Montaigne instead. - -To read and enjoy Montaigne is a certain sign of middle age. I have -long enjoyed Montaigne. A French verse to the effect that "a peaceful -indifference is the sagest of virtues" came into my head and with sudden -violence I threw away Montaigne. - -I was not middle-aged. I was not indifferent. The heart of frustrated -youth in me was crying out for life and love! Alicia was two doors away -from me. She did not love my nephew. Could I not, if I plucked up -energy and resolution, make her love me? Was I then so irrevocably -Uncle Ranny? I leaped up feverishly, lifted the shade and looked out -upon the blinking stars. Their message was a very simple one. From -Virgo to Cassiopeia, from the Pole star to the farthest twinkler they -seemed to say: - -"The trifling planet Earth is yours--if you know how to use it." - -With a muffled tread I paced the room agitatedly. This affair between -Alicia and Randolph was absurd. Randolph was unfit for the very thought -of marriage. A wise parent would know how to deal with the situation. -But, alas! I was neither wise nor a parent. Nevertheless I must find a -way of liquidating this business not later than to-morrow. It could not -go on. The lamplight showed me in my dull perplexity and I turned it -off angrily and again threw myself on the bed to think in Egyptian -darkness. - -On a sudden I heard a low murmur of voices without. It is seldom that -voices are heard late at night in our secluded situation. Possibly the -policeman exchanging comments on the night with some solitary passer-by. -A moment later, however, I heard a key inserted in a lock and a door -open. My nephew Randolph returning home at last! Then to-morrow would -be the same? I asked myself. Alicia would turn over the cheque to him -and all would go on as before? No, no, that could not be. Yet what -could I do? Turn the boy adrift, Laura's boy, and revolt Alicia's -spirit--make her hate me? What a horrible impasse! - -I listened for Randolph's footsteps on the stairs, but there was no -sound. Suppose I were to call him into my room and tell him that I knew -all--appeal to his better nature. Was not that what parents were -obliged to do the world over? I should talk tenderly to the boy--but in -my heart I own I did not feel tenderly toward him. - -Still there was no sound of steps on the stairs. - -The black darkness made the tension of waiting intolerable. I switched -on the light and automatically made toward the door. Then all at once -the low hum of voices overtook me. Had Alicia descended to meet him? -No--I had not heard her door. Surely Randolph in his sober senses would -not bring friends of his to the house at this hour! I looked at my -watch; it was twenty minutes past two! - -Noiselessly I opened my door and in the soft moccasin slippers I was -wearing tiptoed down the hall. At the top of the stairs I paused to -listen. Primeval instincts of alertness stirred within me. My heart -was throbbing against my throat and I literally felt my eyes dilating in -the darkness. I found myself smiling at the primitive machinery that is -set in motion within us, slumber though it might, at the slightest -provocation. Still treading softly I descended the stairs. - -No light was showing anywhere. The darkness was absolute. What under -heaven could be the meaning of that? The primitive instinct of the -stalker was again to the fore. At the foot of the stairs I paused. -Sounds were audible. They came from my study! - -"Upon my word!" I thought with indignation. The young man could not -possibly be in his right mind. The study door was closed, but through -the slightest of chinks between door and lintel, left evidently to -obviate the noise of the clicking fixture, I perceived a faint, fitful -spot of light flickering about, like the light of Tinker Bell in "Peter -Pan." - -With a slight pressure I pushed the door gently ajar. Randolph, with a -small spotlight in his hand, was standing at my desk. Except for the -circle of light about him the room was in darkness. The rim of his hat -shading his eyes, he was scanning the Salmon Oil certificates; with his -trembling left hand he was counting them, under the quivering spot of -light proceeding from his right. - -"Eight--nine--ten!" I heard him breathe heavily. "A hundred each!" - -I stood stock-still, overwhelmed, scarcely breathing, frozen with a -sickening shame of horror. The meaning of it was so crushingly plain! - -"Take two of them!" I heard a mysterious hoarse whisper coming from the -window. "Put the rest back. He'll never miss 'em." - -"All right," whispered Randolph, with quaking huskiness. - -"Give 'em to me!" came from the window. - -My power of motion at that instant suddenly flooded back into my -muscles. I lifted my hand as though fearful of rending the darkness, -pushed the switch-button inside the door and the room was bathed in -light from the single lamp on my table--intense after the pregnant -darkness. - -Then a vision that sent a chill shock through my nerves and stunned all -senses left me gaping--petrified. - -In the window was framed the abhorrent, dilapidated parody of the face -of Pendleton! - -It could not be! was the thought sluggishly struggling through my numbed -brain. It was a nightmare. - -Then a sudden sharp cry threw me into a momentary tremor. I wheeled -about. - -Alicia, fully dressed, with one hand to her eyes, was leaning against -the doorpost! - -Without speaking, I automatically bounded forward to the window. The -muffled sound of heavy steps running on the turf fell upon my ears and -dimly, through the starlit darkness, I caught a glimpse of the stooping -bulk of a large man receding down the slope, toward the brook. - -Had my senses been tricking me or had I really seen the face of -Pendleton? - -"Who was it?" I cried fiercely to Randolph, still hanging stupefied and -immobile, with blank terror upon his features, over my desk. - -He made no answer. - -"Sit down over there!" I commanded sharply. As one under the influence -of a drug or a hypnotic spell, the boy loosely moved to obey, but -remained standing irresolute at my chair, a mass of helplessness, his -head dropping limply on his chest. - -Anger and pain struggling for mastery within me, I turned abruptly to -Alicia. - -"Haven't you been asleep, child? Better go upstairs--please go," I -entreated. - -"No, I won't!" she retorted with a cry of passionate vehemence and with -a rush she flung past me toward Randolph. - -"So that is what you wanted the money for!"--she shook with the fury of -her emotion--"to give to that brute! And he has got you--got hold of -you--come back to make a thief of you!" - -Then it _was_ Pendleton. I was not mistaken! - -"Why do you suppose I engaged myself to you, you poor contemptible -weakling! Do you suppose I am in love with you?" Her tears gushed -forth, and she rocked her arms passionately. "Love a thing like you? I -wanted to keep your weakness and your spinelessness from Uncle Ranny--to -save him from the pain he is suffering now because you're a thief! You -promised, promised me over and over you'd keep straight--wouldn't -gamble--wouldn't drink--over and over--" she wailed with the anguished -note that drags on tears--"and this is what you've got to! Stealing! -And from Uncle Ranny of all people, who's been father and mother to -you--everything in the world! If I didn't adore him more than anybody -on earth; do you think I would have looked at you? Oh, how I wish I -could beat you to a pulp!" She lifted her hands on high and for one -fascinated instant I actually thought she would. - -"I wish I could feel sure of never seeing your face again!" she -concluded, collapsing with her own anger. - -Slowly, under the blows of her words, the boy lifted his eyes, eyes -smoldering with shame, with abject misery, with the hopeless pathos of -the weak. - -"Then you never cared a damn?" he muttered. - -"No--I never cared a damn--in your sense!" she cried, forgetting all -restraint in her passionate exasperation. "And I never can and never -will now. I'd hoped you'd become a man. But I'm through with you for -good!" - -I had been standing aside, awed, involuntarily spell-bound with the -aloofness and indecision of surprise. I now made a move toward Alicia, -to lead her away. "If I didn't adore him more than anybody on earth." -I ought not to have heard that. But I had and my pulses began to throb -anew. - -A sudden loud rapping at the door, however, startled us all out of our -tempest of pain into a common alertness. I glanced at the huddled form -of Randolph, at the still quivering figure of Alicia. - -"I'll see who it is!" I muttered, moving toward the hall. Alicia stood -for a moment irresolute, and then ran out behind me and disappeared in -the darkened dining room. - -"What," it flashed through my mind as I unlocked the door, "what if -Pendleton was caught--the father of Laura's children, snatched like the -thief he was, in his flight?" - -And I felt the prickling sensation of sweat against my clothes as I -swung open the door. - -The mounted policeman, Halloran, was looming in the doorway. He was -clutching by the arm a hulking figure in a shabby top coat, a man, a man -panting like a beast, who was shrinkingly, miserably averting his face -from the light. - -"I saw this man running away from your house just now," began Halloran -briskly. "Mighty suspicious, he looked--running away this hour of the -night. Picked him up--to see if they was anything wrong." - -I peered at the indistinct features of the man. - -It was the dissipated ashen-white, almost leprous face of Pendleton. - -With an incredible swiftness I felt my mental machinery working. -Something must be done. All hate of him and all fear of him vanished -from my mind before a faint lucid beam of a sort of indolent humor. - -"That you, Jim?" I queried, peering more closely. "Hello, Jim!" I -greeted him in a jocund undertone, bringing my voice round, with a great -effort, to a pitch of naturalness. - -"No, officer," I went on glibly. "Nothing wrong. This man was here on a -business matter. Left late. Running for a train, I suppose--weren't -you, Jim?" - -"Yes," came hoarsely from Pendleton, and a quiver of triumph ran down my -spine. - -"There'll be a train--let's see--" I fumbled. The policeman glanced -quizzically from one to the other of us, then shrewdly interposed: - -"Train to N'York at three-seven. No use running," he grinned. My ear, -hypersensitive at that moment, seemed still to catch a note of doubt in -the zealous constable's voice. And when I longed to fling out, in the -words of the ballad-- - - He is either himsel' a devil frae hell, - Or else his mother a witch maun be, - - -I heard myself saying calmly, "Thank you, officer." Then to Pendleton: - -"Don't you want to come in and spend the night after all, Jim?" - -"No, I better go," mumbled Pendleton, edging away. - -"Sorry to have troubled you, gentlemen," apologized Halloran suavely. -"But you know--so many robberies in the suburbs--orders is to look out -extry sharp. Good night to ye, Mr. Byrd. Good night, sir," he nodded -with ill-concealed contempt at Pendleton. - -"Good night," muttered Pendleton and slouched off heavily down the -gravel path. - -"No harm done," grinned Halloran, looking queerly after his recent -prisoner. "But I could have sworn--" I interrupted him with a -boisterous laugh. - -"Not at all, officer. Sorry you had the trouble--many thanks for your -watchfulness. See you to-morrow." - -"All right!" he responded with smart alacrity. "Good night, sir." I -closed the door. - -In the room the lad Randolph sat alone, somewhat straighter now, gazing -before him. He must have heard the colloquy at the door. - -"Well, Randolph," I approached him quietly, "now what do you want to say -to me?" - -He did not answer for a space. Finally he spoke: - -"What are you going to do with me, Uncle Ranny?" - -My anger against him had subsided. I saw only the frail young mortal, -Laura's son, whom I had undertaken to make a man of--and I had failed! - -"What do you think I ought to do with you?" I queried gently. There was -no longer even rancor in my heart. - -"Put me away, I guess," he answered dully. "That's what I deserve." - -"When did you first meet your--your father?" I found myself wincing at -the word, but after all Pendleton _was_ his father. - -"About three weeks ago," was the reply. - -"How did it happen?" - -"He came here and followed 'Licia and me to town one morning on the -train. He watched for me till I came out of lecture and then he spoke -to me." - -"What did he say?" - -"Oh, asked whether I'd forgotten him, took me to lunch and told me you -gave him a rotten deal--took his children away from him--sent him into -exile, and so on." - -"Didn't he tell you that he deserted your mother and you three children -and that your mother died of it?" - -"No," said Randolph wearily, "but I knew that. Oh, you needn't think I -took to him right off the bat." - -"Didn't he tell you that he went away of his own desire--after a -horrible scene with--with Alicia?" I felt the truth must be told the -boy now. "Didn't he tell you that I gave him money to go and that only -recently I sent him more money to San Francisco, because he wanted to -get back to the East?" - -"No," said the boy in wide-eyed amazement. "He said you had taken -everything from him because of the mistake he'd made--and tried to keep -him down. That's what first began to get me. Oh, what's the use, Uncle -Ranny? It's a hard thing to say, but I guess he's pretty rotten, even -if he is my father. He got me drunk to-night to do this--" he waved his -hand heavily toward the desk. "Said there was some island he'd found -where he wanted to raise copra or cocoanuts or something--end his -days---if he only had a little money--that's why.--But what's the use, -Uncle Ranny," he went on in the same weary tones, "I'm through with him. -I don't care a curse about him now. What are you going to do with me?" - -A great tenderness for the boy stabbed at my heart. I longed to comfort -him as I could comfort Laura or Jimmie. Was he not their brother and as -much as they my child? Like a disease, misfortune and dishonor had -suddenly attacked him. My breast was simmering with bitter -self-reproach. - -"Come, Randolph," I put my arm about his shoulder. "Pull yourself -together. We must live this business down. There's your education to -be thought of. You must finish, don't you see?" - -"You mean--you'd give me another chance?" - -"Yes, Randolph," I answered huskily, "and still another." At that -moment I felt I could have given him seventy-times seven. - -"Well, then," he answered, with the first gleam of interest I discerned -in him, "will you let me go ahead and enlist?" - -"Enlist," I recoiled from that. "In the army, you mean? You are so -young." - -"I mean in the navy--I want to do it, Uncle Ranny--I must do it--That's -the only way I can begin again. I can't stay round where Alicia is." - -My heart went utterly out to the boy in his misery. I knew not what to -say to him. The pangs of despised love! - -"Alicia has been your--" but it was futile to talk to him of Alicia. - -"Go to bed, my boy," I said, gently urging him toward the door. "Get -some rest and still your poor nerves. To-morrow we shall discuss and -settle this matter in your best interests. Remember you are surrounded -by your friends." With a faint gleam of gratitude in his eyes, he -shuffled out unsteadily and I pressed his hand as we parted at the door. -I heard him moving about in his room. - -Then I realized that I must find Alicia. - - - - - *CHAPTER XXVI* - - -Treading speedily with a strange lightness of step, I mounted the stairs -first to see whether Alicia might have returned to her room, as was -natural, and found her door ajar and the apartment empty. - -My brain still wheeling, I seemed to float dawn the stairway and into -the dining room, but no one was there. Somewhat uneasily I passed -through the narrow box-like pantry into the kitchen and there the door -that gave on the garden stood open wide. - -In the shadow, under the starlit sky, under the mystical blue of -overhanging boughs, stood Alicia alone, gazing into the velvety night, -straight as a silvery Diana, mysterious, tragic. - -At the sight of her the mad tumult of the evening seemed to ooze away -from me in waves. By an effort of will I forced my heart to beat more -soberly, as I approached her softly. - -"Alicia!" I whispered behind her so as not to startle her. Slowly she -turned toward me. - -Her face was but dimly discernible but her eyes shone in the night with -the brightness of the stars. The one thought of my heart was to bring -Alicia back to the life of the past, to wipe out as swiftly as possible -the ravages of the emotional storm, to bring her back to the tranquil -blissful life that her happy presence made for me. A sad Alicia was -unthinkable. - -"You must come in, my child!" I touched her gently. - -"I have tried so hard, Uncle Ranny," she turned her face and laid a hand -timidly upon my arm, "I have tried so hard to keep all this pain from -you--so that you could go on being your happy, lovely self." - -My own thoughts concerning her! She was giving them back to me--with -the poignant wistful gloom, the intense pathos of the young that is so -touching, in the young you love so lacerating. Did I ever say that -there are no women to-day who wear the hair shirt, like the radiant girl -wife of Jacopone da Todi? Blind fool that I have been! - -"But my darling girl," I seized both her cold little hands, "don't worry -about me. I am old and tough--seasoned to the fortunes of life--and to -the misfortunes, too. It is sad, very sad, but it is nothing. It's you -I am thinking of. Things happen, my dear. Life is like that. There is -a lot of happiness and serenity in it. But you must not let this bite -into your soul--it will pass, Alicia--it has passed already. I want you -to return to your happy blissful self--the self that has made me--all of -us--so happy--so very happy." - -"I ask nothing more or better, Uncle Ranny," she pressed my hands with -quick intense little movements, "than to be near you, to work and to--to -serve you--that is all I ask in the world!" - -Almost I had committed the unpardonable sin--almost I had taken -advantage of her mood and of her grief, taken her to my heart and poured -out the words of love that a hundred, hundred times had overflowed my -heart and clamored for utterance. A pretty head of a family, a fine -protector of the young I should then have been! - -With a tremulous movement I put both her hands together between my own -and whispered to her lest my voice should betray me. - -"That is exactly what I want you to do, my dearest girl--live quietly -and happily near me, be happy until the--the supreme happiness comes to -you--until--" I added with a painful laugh, "the Prince in the fairy -tale--comes along--to claim you." - -It was the hardest utterance of my life, but I felt a flash of triumph -to have uttered it. - -"The Prince in the fairy tale," Alicia repeated slowly, looking rapt -before her, "he came long ago--I have had more than I deserve--so much, -so much, that I often tremble to think of it. All the Prince and all -the fairy tale I want, or shall ever want." - -For one instant I thrilled from head to foot. A darkness filled my -being for a moment and then it was rayed and forked by the lightnings of -a strange intoxication. - -"You can't mean, Alicia," I breathed huskily from a parched throat, -"you--that it is me--that you--" - -And I knew instantaneously that all the restraint and resolutions had -been swept aside--that after all I was as weak and weaker than the boy -Randolph. For I had spoken without the iota of a wish to resist my -desires! - -Slowly, very slowly, she drew closer to me so that her sweet breath of -violets was warm and fragrant on my cheek. My head swam. - -"Ever since I came to you;" she breathed ever so softly, "ever since I -was fifteen you have filled my thoughts, my heart, my life. I -have--loved you always." The blood roared in my ears. I was filled -with madness. But too long had I doubted happiness to receive it with -open arms. I had made a stranger of it as does a miser by keeping his -wealth hidden away. - -"Think what you are saying, Alicia," I took her face convulsively in -both my hands. "I have loved you beyond anything on earth, beyond life -itself. I have dreamed of you, dwelt upon you until I am mad. Do you -really mean you can love me--as a man? After all those foolish years of -hiding and suffering? Is that what you mean, or is it just--Uncle -Ranny?" - -"Yes--that is what I mean, my Prince of the fairy tale," she whispered, -hiding her face against mine--"if you'll take me!" - -My senses reeled and swooned. She was tightly gripped in my arms. I -was straining her to my heart. The months, the years of love hunger -charged through my veins and sinews like an inexorable force, -remorseless, irresistible. - -The margin of the garden was a few yards away but it might have been an -infinity. The scant trees, countable upon the fingers of one hand, -might have been a forest of congregated giants with their vast secret -life brooding and sheltering us. Infinity and our small intense reality -were merged and met. I felt coextensive with the vast majestic -universe. I babbled broken words against her lips--I don't know what I -babbled. For the vast majestic universe was locked in the circle of my -arms. - - -"Let us go in, my darling," I murmured at last. "The dew is heavy and -you must get your rest. I shall not attempt to sleep what remains of -this night of nights." - -"Nor I," replied Alicia dreamily. "I want to meet the dawn with you -this morning. Isn't it marvelous, dearest, that in spite of everything, -in spite of that poor boy in there," she added with a note of pathos, -"we two can be so wildly happy?" - -"Yes, my child, marvelous and awe-inspiring. But happiness is the first -decree--the foremost law." - -"I shall never be as wise as you, Uncle Ranny," she laughed softly, -lingering in my arms. "There! I have called you Uncle Ranny again. I -am afraid--oh, so afraid, I shall always call you that!" - -I sealed her lips. - -"Oh, if that is all you're afraid of," I murmured in the tone of devout -thanksgiving, "if that is all--let us go in, my own." - - -And now Alicia is waiting to meet the dawn with me. - -Up, up, heart of my heart, star of my life, happiness, nearer to me than -my own soul, fire-bringer, life-bringer--up, or I shall deify you in my -mad folly. Up, up, my Alicia--for the dawn is breaking! - - - - - *EPILOGUE* - - -I have been sitting in the shade of a trellis watching the miraculously -mobile suspension of a humming bird over a cluster of honeysuckle -blooms. That humming bird, whorl of triumphant aspiration that it -is--aspiration of insect to become bird--seems in a manner to embody my -life story. - -For the humming bird the Golden Age is this perfect summer day, with its -tendril and leaf, its beds of bleeding heart and bridal wreath, sweet -William, larkspur and marigold and the heavy fragrant breath of -honeysuckle. And so it is for me, also. No fable is deadlier to the -human race, to human weal and human hope, than that same fable of the -Golden Age. There never was an age one half so golden as the now, nor -the infinitesimalest part so golden as the ages that await us. My son -there, sleeping in his hammock under the tree, overhung by fine netting, -Randolph Byrd, the younger, will see a more wondrous human life than any -we have yet beheld. - -Two years and more have passed since I have opened this record of yours, -Randolph the Aged, and I open it now with a purpose, for a special and -peculiar reason. - -Alicia has chanced to see it and she fell upon it with a strange--to me -inexplicable--delight. She desires me to "round it off", as she puts -it, to disguise it a trifle here and there as to names and places, and -to publish it for the edification of mankind! If only we could appear -to the world in the stature loving eyes see us! But laugh as I will at -Alicia, she persists obstinately in her wish. - -"But it was only meant as a memoir for a friend of mine," I tell her, -"who is daily growing nearer to me--to Randolph Byrd, aged seventy." - -"Oh, no!" cries Alicia, looking with eyes shining with happiness and a -face suddenly thrillingly transfigured at the sleeping baby in the -hammock. "It is meant for another Randolph--Randolph the Young, over -there, the pride and joy of his father--the hope of the world." - -"It will hardly amuse him," I grunt. - -"It will--won't it, Griselda?" says Alicia to our aged friend who at -this moment emerges from the kitchen to consult with her mistress. -Griselda looks mystified. "Say, yes--it's for Baby," urges Alicia -cunningly. - -"Oh, ay--if it's good for the bairn, I'll say it!" - -Griselda, still vigorous, goes her way. - -"One would think," I scoff, "you had found in the manuscript all the -jests of Sancho Panza, falling like drops of rain." - -"Jests!" mocks Alicia. "Who cares about jests, but the mysterious -readers of comic supplements? I find in it the record of a beautiful -love." - -"But even love birds," I tease, "are only a species of parrot--though -many think they're birds of paradise. Besides," I urge, "I should have -to call the thing a novel--and this is only a fragment of life seen -through two particular eyes and a very peculiar temperament. There is -no contour to it, any more than there is to life itself. Were I a -novelist, my dearest, I should not improbably make two or three novels -of the stuff. I should at least assume the jolly privilege of playing -destiny to all those people. All things and all persons should be -rhythmically accounted for." - -"Fudge!" says Alicia. "Don't be so cubist!" I ignore her modernism. - -"Pendleton would not be left roaming about the world with endless -possibility of still blackmailing me and his children. Should he not -have ended his existence on the third rail as he ran, the night of his -last appearance? And his son, Randolph--would he not have met with a -heroic and glorious end in France or at sea, instead of living a highly -contented and commonplace life with the pretty Irish peasant girl he has -brought from Queenstown--a mere ordinary decent automobile salesman? -Would those people go on living in the unremarkable flowing manner of -life? No, my heart," I continue soberly, "a story must be tricked and -padded with tracery and decoration. And where is the bevy of young -adventuresses at play--without which no novel is worthy of the name?" - -In justice to Alicia, however, I must recall that Gertrude, of all the -others, has emerged true to her form. She carries, I believe, besides -the military title of Major, a decoration from every Allied Nation in -Europe and at least two bestowed by reigning sovereigns. She drove out -here in her handsome car to see us the other day and was much amazed by -the sight of my infant son. - -"What, Ranny!" she exclaimed with her usual freedom of speech, now -enhanced by life in camp as well as court. "You've just brought up one -family and you're starting out to get another? You surely are the -original of the old woman who lived in a shoe. What a reactionary you -are!" - -"Reactionary? Yes, Gertrude," I smiled in reply, "I suspect I am--in -some things. I hate poverty. I hate to think of city or country slums, -of oppression, of disorder and uncleanliness--of lawless, rich or -unheeded poor. Possibly from among those I rear, some one will arise to -fathom and solve these things. I am sure greater wisdom is slowly -filtering into our lives. In many respects I am, as you charge, -reactionary. I still have a feeling that every human being must be a -center of creative life--and that he who rears children is multiplying -creators in the world--against the resplendent future!" - -Gertrude laughed, a shade bitterly I thought, and waved her hand in a -gesture of despair at my ancient stupidity. Perhaps I should not have -prattled in this strain to Gertrude--more particularly since her recent -husband, Minot Blackden, has followed the desire of his eyes elsewhere -in Gertrude's absence, is now happily divorced and married to some one -who shares his apartment, and is himself shamelessly begetting -offspring! - -No, Gertrude aside, there is no contour to my story. Dibdin, indeed, -still appears and disappears, ever the Flying Dutchman, as of old. He -is at home now and often sits and smokes in my study and moralizes--may -I whisper it?--perhaps a shade more prosily than of old. - -"The only devil in the world," he puffed out last night in his gruff -manner, as though, pronouncing somebody's doom, "the only devil is the -darkness of chaos. Children are the gage the human race, wisely abetted -by Nature, is throwing down to this devil." - -"And supposing the children you rear should turn out to be 'nobodies'?" -I mildly put in, as an obliging straw man. - -"What does that matter?" he growled. "Most people are nobodies. It's -the nobodies of the world that bring about its catastrophic changes. -Mark Antony cunningly put a tongue in every wound of Caesar's body in -the Forum. Mark Antonys are rare, I grant you. But it's the First -Citizen and Second Citizen who pulled down Republican Rome about the -ears of Brutus. Shakespeare as well as Mark Antony knew that in the -nobodies resides the real power for doing. The thinkers are the few; -the doers are the many. We need 'em all, all--and that's what kids are -for." - -Perhaps I should own at this point that in my secret heart I agree with -Dibdin, just as in reality I am certain that life has a contour and -rhythm of its own. The world may appear harsh, may be truly ill-adapted -for justice, culture, beauty. But whatever its shortcomings, the -business of the human race in it seems to me clear: To extend and carry -on the race of man--the measure of all things--to create a better life -on earth. All the world is a man living in a shoe. But somehow, very -slowly, it is acquiring knowledge, learning what to do. We may indeed -be such stuff as dreams are made on, and our life rounded with a sleep -is, in truth, pitifully little. But that little seems mysteriously, -tremendously important. - -And by that token it appears to me that there is no such creature as a -living pessimist. The only certain sign of genuine conviction on the -part of a pessimist is his suicide. To go on living is to hope for -better things--and to hope for them is to bring them about. That is how -life appears to me. But are the views of a shrewd bookseller who plays -golf of Saturdays of any account? - -But enough of my prating. Alicia will doubtless have her way. She is -now engaged in the august rites of the younger Randolph's bath. I -expect to be summoned to the ceremony at any time. To such small -dimensions has my family dwindled that all attention is inevitably -centered on the Baby. Laura is thousands of miles away, in California, -with, the young surgeon she met and married in France; and Jimmie, -within two years of college, is summering in a camp on a Canadian -island. Randolph Junior reigns supreme. Well, I am content--and long -live the King! But they are all as near and dear, to me as ever. For -as old Burton his "Anatomy" hath it: "No cord nor cable can so forcibly -draw or hold so fast, as love can do with a twined thread." - -I see life stretching and dynamic before me, glittering with possibility -as the atmosphere sometimes glitters in the sunlight with flittering -dancing, revolving points--for eyes made like mine. Though late in -starting, I must plunge into the life of responsibility, helping, how -slightly soever, to join the long generations of the past in preparing -the dazzling future. - -The name of the new time spirit is Responsibility. - -At this point Alicia appeared to summon me to the Rites of the Bath, and -hung for a moment reading over my shoulder. - -"I insist upon adding two words to that," she announced, "and they shall -be the last." - -"It is your privilege, beloved," I agreed and eagerly made way for her. -Then Alicia wrote: - -"And Love." - - - - THE END - - - - * * * * * * * * - - - - *By Henry James Forman* - - - *NOVELS* - - The Captain of His Soul - Fire of Youth - The Man Who Lived in a Shoe - - - *TRAVEL* - - In the Footprints of Heine - The Ideal Italian Tour - London: An Intimate Picture - - - - - - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MAN WHO LIVED IN A SHOE *** - - - - -A Word from Project Gutenberg - - -We will update this book if we find any errors. - -This book can be found under: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/49757 - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, so -the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright royalties. -Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this -license, apply to copying and distributing Project Gutenberg(tm) -electronic works to protect the Project Gutenberg(tm) concept and -trademark. 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