Somehow, some way, I must put an end at once to this beloved child's torment—without causing her pain.
Three sonnets she had read, or possibly four, and then she paused and searched my face.
"Do you want any more?"
"Thank you very much, Alicia, I feel brighter already. I think that will be enough for to-day. By the way, Alicia," I went on rapidly, fumbling with my papers, "it strikes me your allowance is too small. You must need dozens and dozens of things that cost money. Here is a cheque for fifty dollars I wrote out this morning—but," I added half absently—"if you need more I can just as easily make it a hundred," and I laughed a trifle foolishly—oh, I could act, this morning, act almost as well as Alicia.
She gazed at me intently for a space, silent, alert—a flash of suspicion—and then with an ineffable tenderness and a great relief shining in her eyes.
"Oh, you darling Uncle Ranny," she leaped from her chair and flew toward me, pressing both her hands down on my shoulders. Immobile as a Buddha I sat as she kissed me on the cheek.
"But do you really think you can—give me all this?"
"Oh, yes, Alicia," I laughed with the bravado of Fred Salmon. "I am quite sure I can. What are uncles for if—" but I could say no more.
She hung over me for an instant and then abruptly left me. She, too, was fearful of saying more. But not for the same reason—oh, not for the same reason!
All that day, Alicia, as I could not help overhearing, was vainly endeavoring to reach Randolph on the telephone in New York. She rang the fraternity house. She tried the homes of his friends. But all to no purpose. Randolph was not to be found. And that evening Alicia mounted the stairs to her room with a sort of drooping, febrile anxiety, with an anxious unnatural gayety.