Chapter VIII: Part 8

"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!"