Part 17

"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.