Like a lovesick boy who pulls at the faint intimations of his mustache and searches the newspaper for cases of marriage at seventeen, I eagerly scan the prints and cudgel my memory for such unions as ours would be. But the papers are filled with war and rumors of war. It comes to me suddenly that a certain aged Senator has not so long ago married his ward, under even a greater disparity of ages—and I am absurdly happy. I see myself with Alicia matured and radiant, ever young—living a life of bright serenity, calling endearing names.
"Did I hear it half in a doze
Long since, I know not where?
Did I dream it an hour ago,
When asleep in this arm-chair?"
But this is folly. Tennyson is out of fashion and there are greater fools than old fools. I ask too much of the high gods. Enough has already been given to a crusty bookworm like me. Suppose I had married Gertrude! The children's voices would never have made music for my ears. Nevertheless, Alicia shall have the best education I can give her.
Visconti must be aging, I fear, for he has taken to repeating himself. He has told me often before that his daughter Gina is the apple of his eye, but during these somewhat listless days in the office in which "extras" figure largely and strategy is the one indoor game, he has been going into more detail.
I dined at his house last night and to-day he asked me again to dine on Saturday. I dislike refusing him and I like lying less. But I declined on the plea of an engagement.
"I always forget," he returned with a laugh, "that a young man is not un' burbero of a widower like me—that a young man, in short, has engagements."
I made some sort of deprecating noise. He talks as though I were twenty-two, and I like him for it.
"But you see, amico mio," he went on explaining, "it is like this: Gina, the carissima bambina mia, is the apple of my eye. And she must be—what do you call it—amused—amused, made gay, bright—you see?"
I signified my clairvoyance.
"She is nineteen—a fanciulla of nineteen, she must have much—eh—amusement, not so?"