Part 7

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.