“Will five thousand be enough, do you think?” said the Colonel, who had no comments to make on Allen, of whose mode of life and need of money he knew more than June.
“I don’t know. I don’t know anything about traveling. I’ve never been anywhere but in California and Nevada. But it ought to be enough for a while. Anyway, if I had that I could go, I could get away from all this. I could get away from San Francisco and California, and the people and things that torture me.”
She rose from the chair and picked up her umbrella. Her languor of dejection had returned. She cast a listless eye toward the pane and said:
“I must go. It’ll soon be dark.” Then she moved toward the window and for a moment stood looking down on the street.
“It’s quite easy for you to give it to me, isn’t it?” she asked without turning. “You’re not like father, always talking about your wonderful, priceless stocks, and with not a cent to give a person who’s just about got to the end of everything.”
“Don’t talk about that,” he answered quickly. “There can’t be a better use for my money than to help you when you’re in trouble. I’ll see you in a few days and arrange then to give it to you.”
She turned from the window.
“Well, good-by, then,” she said. “I must go. Good-by, Uncle Jim, my own dear, dear Uncle Jim.”
She extended her hand to him, and as he took it, looked with wistful eyes into his.
“I feel as if you were really my father,” she said. “It’s only to a father or mother that a person feels they can come and ask things from as I have from you to-day.”