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.
"I cannot go back to Visconti's any more, Alicia," I told her. "Something has happened. That is ended. I must look about for something else."
"Oh!" she gasped, "is it as bad as that?"
"As bad as that," I repeated mechanically.
"Then I know it was nothing you could help," she answered with a sudden radiance that was like a benediction.
"So there is no use worrying about that. But you mean the money," and her face clouded anxiously. "But I know what I'll do, Uncle Ranny," she came gliding toward me. "There is always Mr. Andrews for me, you know. You remember what he said: He'll take me back any time."
An instant of blackness was succeeded by a sudden burst of illumination. Andrews! Andrews and the library—the library, all catalogued—complete! Andrews would either buy it or help me to dispose of it, and Alicia and the children need not after all suffer by my catastrophe. My books were more like my flesh and blood, and to part with them—-but that consideration was of singularly brief endurance at the moment. Those books, like a troop of old friends; would rescue us all from disaster—come like a phalanx between us and defeat.