"Never fear, Alicia—it can’t be! It won’t be. He hasn’t done it yet. I’ll do something—I don’t know what as yet. But give me time—a little time—I’ll work it out. We’ll fight if we must—but we won’t give up tamely!" Alicia’s warm cheek against mine, though with a trust that can only be described as childlike, was reward enough for victory, let alone for this still empty challenge. But an irresistible, throbbing feeling of confidence tells me that something will happen—that I shall win! Is it simply the confidence of a fool, and the surge of melodrama that is never very far from any of us? Possibly. But my blood still throbs and my muscles still crackle with the strange eagerness and lust for battle. It may be that the fragrance and the starry look of Alicia that linger with me yet, the sweet joy and pride of Alicia when she returned my good-night kiss before she left me, the affection with which she clung, the reluctance with which she went, all have something to do with this new accession of courage. But I do not comfort myself with vain things. Alicia happens to be a girl whose affections have never been pampered by any doting parents. If she looks upon me _in loco parentis_, that ought to be enough for me. It is not enough. And the pain of that leaves a barbed sting in my breast. But that wound I shall carry gladly—I shall wear my hair shirt like the girl wife of Jacopone da Todi—if only I can play the man. The evening and the morning were a day—the first day of a new life, and what a day! I went down in the train with Pendleton and briskly suggested that he need not hurry with his arrangements. "I thought," said he, with a furtive, sidelong glance at me, "that my first duty was to ease you. I owe you too much already," he added, looking out toward the drabness of the Mt. Vernon right of way. "It’s only strangers and enemies that owe each other things;" I countered easily. "Friends owe each other everything and nothing. There is no audit for such accounts." He laughed out of proportion to the deserts of this lump of wisdom and exclaimed: "You’re great, Randolph—great!" It was my turn to laugh, and I felt that I had the advantage of him. With the sixth sense, or the pineal gland, or whatever it is, I was conscious that he was a little afraid of me—and that did not damage my temper. "Your experience in life has been so—peculiar," I told him, "that anybody would be glad to be of any service possible. And you must remember that Laura was my only sister. Tell me," I added conversationally, "don’t you find the harness galling at times after all—you have been through?" "Galling! Say, Randolph, those little machine people in their skyscraper beehives—cages—don’t know what living is!—Freedom!" ...