There was a book auction to-day. And two days having elapsed since my interview with Gertrude I was sufficiently myself, when I lay down the paper announcing it, to think of going. The news of an auction still has the effect upon me that a bugle might exert upon some battered, superannuated cavalry horse. Despite the rise of the plutocratic collector, despite the shoals of dealers who have made of book-buying almost an exact science, I still dream of encountering one day the fortune of Edward Malone, who, late in the eighteenth century, bought Shakespeare's sonnets in the edition of 1609 and a first printing of the "Rape of Lucrece", all for two guineas.
I had already conducted Jimmie to his kindergarten. On the way, as he nestled his hand more firmly in mine, he looked up at me with a humorous smile and informed me that "we men have won'erful times together." It gave me a curious thrill and I felt grateful even for this companionship in my solitary life which Gertrude and so many others find foolish and despicable.
I was letting myself out at the front door when a plain, large-mouthed young woman of perhaps thirty, austerely garbed in black, stood facing me. I remained for a moment bereft of speech and then, of course, I foolishly apologized, I don't know why—perhaps for encumbering the earth.
"You wish to see Griselda?" I mumbled, with my hat in my hand.
"No," she declared, scrutinizing me in the murky hallway. "I want to see Mr. Randolph Byrd."
"I am he," I told her.
"I should like to talk to you," she said in a low voice. Mentally I waved a sad farewell to the book auction and to any bargains it might hold and led the way to my study.
"I am at your service," I told her, grinning, and all but offered her a cigarette.
"It's about the little girl, Alicia Palmer," she began hesitantly as though she had something dreadful to impart.
"Are you her teacher?" I wonderingly asked.