"Of course, of course," I muttered hastily, "but we're only human." And alternately I cudgeled my poor wits to stand by me and prayed to them as to deities to light my way.
This lawless spirit, Pendleton, I had a vague gleam of intuition, was repenting his return to the yoke of duty, to the restraints of civilization. What, then, was it that held him? It was not a suddenly developed conscience. Of that I was certain. There was a problem I must solve and solve immediately.
We parted with cordiality at Grand Central station and twenty minutes later I was one of those little machines functioning at Visconti's.
"I want a draft at thirty days," I was saying, "for ten thousand lire on Naples. Your best rate at that date." And with the receiver to my ear I heard a voice within me, independent of the telephone, whispering:
"Could it be that he too is bewitched by Alicia?—with all his roving and experience—or is it his sense of duty to his children?"
"Four ninety-eight," said the exchange man, Hoskyns, at the National City, and "four ninety-eight," I repeated after him automatically. "Can't you do better—at thirty days?" And the independent voice in my brain put in: "Perhaps I am hipped upon the subject of Alicia?" And so the morning wore on.
Gertrude, to my surprise and confusion, rang me up at eleven.
"Good morning, Ranny," she opened sweetly. "You haven't kept your promise, have you?"
"Promise?" I repeated dully. "What promise?"
"You said you would keep me informed about Pendleton's return. You haven't done it—have you?"