"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!"