"There will be supper at six o'clock, if you care to stay," I suggested mildly.
"No-no, thanks," said Fred reflectively. "I'd like to. But somehow not to-night. I couldn't. Better come along with me. And we'll work out details."
I resisted his urging, however, and he left me with this Parthian arrow:
"Think it over as much as you like, Randolph, my boy. But it's a go. Nothing you can say against it will hold a candle to the reasons in favor. The firm name alone is worth a hundred thousand dollars. Consider it settled. Never felt so sure of anything in all my life. So long, my boy. You'll hear from me."
He did not even turn his head when he heard my burst of almost hysterical laughter as he was closing the door. Always heretofore I had counted myself, how humble and insignificant soever, as of the priesthood in the temple of fine things. It was abasing to think that Fred had claimed me for the money-changers.
Never again do I wish to experience the martyred minutes of anguish that I have passed through during the last twenty-four hours.
For some reason that none can explain Jimmie suddenly came down with a fever. That bright little whorl of life all at once looked white, refused his food with the pallid pitiful smile of an octogenarian and, in a twinkling it seemed, his cheeks were burning, his eyes glittered dryly and his lips were parched. Called to his bedside, I leaned over him and the air about me seemed to darken. Laura's child was, I believed, dangerously ill. The heart within me turned leaden and even Griselda displayed alarm. Then and there I vowed inwardly that no strangers should have the care of this child if he recovered, so long as I could care for him myself.
The nearest doctor, who occupies a ground-floor apartment below, a brute of a man of thirty-five or so, elected, when he came up, to look wise and inscrutable. Calm and grave, he prescribed oil and with a murmured, "We shall see in the morning" he left me in an agony of doubt and anxiety.
The only person who exhibited any degree of calm was Alicia. And though she is still a child herself I confess to a feeling of resentment against what seemed to me callousness in the face of our perturbation. I saw visions of any number of diseases, of being quarantined, of Jimmie's possible death, of my bearing forevermore a feeling of nameless guilt before Laura's memory. I told them I should sit up the night.
"Oh, no, Mr. Byrd," insisted the girl with sudden vehemence. "Don't do that. I'll make up a place in the dining room and leave the door of their room open. I'll hear him if he wakes."