"It’s not the alderman that is important," I informed her. "It’s done with a hundred kisses and a pistol." In reply to her look of incomprehension, I described to her the episode of the dining room. To my surprise Gertrude could see no humor in that. "What a child you are, Ranny," she shook her head sadly. "And I thought that with all your faults you were a serious person." "That must have been your fundamental mistake about me," I answered somewhat sheepishly and yet nettled. "I fear I am not half as serious as the children are." "No," said Gertrude. Then after a brief pause, "Have you decided yet that the children ought to be sent away to schools?" "Why, no, Gertrude! Such a thing has not entered my head since—since we talked of it," I told her. "Ranny," she solemnly leaned forward, "I think I know what’s troubling you. You needn’t be so foolishly proud with me. It’s a question of money, I take it. Well, I’m ready to help out with their bills. I know these things are expensive. I am willing to set aside part of my income for their bills. We could arrange that part of it somehow. Why, you foolish boy, won’t you take me into your confidence?" "It isn’t that—at all," I stammered. "Why won’t you understand—it’s the children themselves. How can I throw them over?" "You don’t think you’re doing anything for them here—you and this foundling-asylum girl, who comes from goodness knows what parents? Better let me manage this—" Curiously, I felt offended at her speaking thus of the girl Alicia who seems as integrally a part of my charge and household as any of the rest. "It’s very good of you, Gertrude," I muttered, "to offer so much. But to take money from you for my sister’s children is—out of the question." This put her more than ever out of temper. "I never knew any one quite so idiotic," she retorted caustically. "You can do nothing yourself and you won’t let anybody who can, help you." And after smoking in silence for a few minutes, Gertrude turned from me in disgust. Very smartly dressed she was, too, with a most becoming winter hat and handsome furs. I should like to please Gertrude. But she seems unable to grasp my point of view, namely, that touching those children I feel my responsibility to be personal. "If only some one nearer to them than myself turned up," I murmured abjectly, "you’d see me bundling them out so quick it would make their little heads buzz." "Nearer," she repeated vaguely, "when you know there is no such person." "Their father, for instance," I explained. "I have no reason to think him dead. Laura had always felt certain he was alive. There are all sorts of explanations possible for his absence. He may come back, you know." Gertrude laughed at me bitterly. "The only likely explanation," she retorted, "is that he was tired of his wife and children. He is probably having a good time somewhere with some one who knows how to hold him."