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?"