diff options
| author | nfenwick <nfenwick@pglaf.org> | 2025-01-22 21:24:15 -0800 |
|---|---|---|
| committer | nfenwick <nfenwick@pglaf.org> | 2025-01-22 21:24:15 -0800 |
| commit | 8236cf415f20a5d1bc5713343933f56f6c0fbc40 (patch) | |
| tree | aac302e373f7a04de3dc4360b4873d39550139ff | |
| parent | 8a5739e0a23784ca6113613cf20f635947f008e5 (diff) | |
| -rw-r--r-- | .gitattributes | 4 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | LICENSE.txt | 11 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | README.md | 2 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/65784-0.txt | 10228 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/65784-0.zip | bin | 195699 -> 0 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/65784-h.zip | bin | 728678 -> 0 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/65784-h/65784-h.htm | 10744 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/65784-h/images/colophon.png | bin | 23352 -> 0 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/65784-h/images/country-press.png | bin | 48985 -> 0 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/65784-h/images/cover.jpg | bin | 243302 -> 0 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/65784-h/images/cover2.jpg | bin | 97838 -> 0 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/65784-h/images/i004.jpg | bin | 121358 -> 0 bytes |
12 files changed, 17 insertions, 20972 deletions
diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..162dfb2 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #65784 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/65784) diff --git a/old/65784-0.txt b/old/65784-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 1a2c9d1..0000000 --- a/old/65784-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,10228 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Annes, by Marion Ames Taggart - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this eBook. - -Title: The Annes - -Author: Marion Ames Taggart - -Illustrator: W. C. Nims - -Release Date: July 12, 2021 [eBook #65784] - -Language: English - -Produced by: Beth Baran, Sue Clark and the Online Distributed - Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This book was - produced from images made available by the HathiTrust - Digital Library.) - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ANNES *** - - - - - -THE ANNES - - - - -_Books by Marion Ames Taggart_ - - AT AUNT ANNA’S - BETH OF OLD CHILTON - BETH’S OLD HOME - BETH’S WONDER-WINTER - BETTY GASTON THE SEVENTH GIRL - BLISSYLVANIA POST-OFFICE - BY BRANSCOME RIVER - CAPTAIN SYLVIA - DADDY’S DAUGHTERS - DAUGHTERS OF THE LITTLE GREY HOUSE - DOCTOR’S LITTLE GIRL - ELDER MISS AINSBOROUGH - FRIENDLY LITTLE HOUSE AND OTHER STORIES - HER DAUGHTER JEAN - HOLLYHOCK HOUSE - IN THE DAYS OF KING HAL - JACK HILDRETH AMONG THE INDIANS - JACK HILDRETH ON THE NILE - LITTLE AUNT - LITTLE GREY HOUSE - LITTLE WOMEN CLUB - LOYAL BLUE AND ROYAL SCARLET - MISS LOCHINVAR - MISS LOCHINVAR’S RETURN - NANCY AND THE COGGS TWINS - NANCY PORTER’S OPPORTUNITY - NANCY, THE DOCTOR’S LITTLE PARTNER - NUT-BROWN JOAN - ONE AFTERNOON AND OTHER STORIES - PILGRIM MAID, A STORY OF PLYMOUTH COLONY IN 1620 - PUSSY-CAT TOWN - SIX GIRLS AND BETTY - SIX GIRLS AND BOB - SIX GIRLS AND THE SEVENTH ONE - SIX GIRLS AND THE TEA ROOM - SIX GIRLS GROWING OLDER - SIX GIRLS GROWN UP - SWEET NANCY - THE ANNES - THREE GIRLS AND ESPECIALLY ONE - TREASURE OF NUGGET MOUNTAIN - UNRAVELING OF A TANGLE - WINNETOU - WYNDHAM GIRLS - - - - -[Illustration: “_Before she could gather herself together ... Anne felt -little Anne’s arms clinging around her waist, and looked down into the -shining eyes of the child._”] - - - - -_The_ ANNES - - BY - MARION AMES TAGGART - - - FRONTISPIECE - BY - W. C. NIMS - - GARDEN CITY, N. Y., AND TORONTO - DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY - 1921 - - - - - COPYRIGHT, 1921, BY - DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY - ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OF TRANSLATION - INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES, INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN - - - - - TO - ELIZABETH - - - - -CONTENTS - - CHAPTER PAGE - - I. LITTLE ANNE’S CALLING 1 - - II. THE OLDEST ANNE 13 - - III. THE QUIET ROOM 23 - - IV. ANNE AND ANNE 33 - - V. SMALL FURTHERING BREEZES 45 - - VI. “THE FACE THAT LIT THE FIRES,” ETC. 56 - - VII. THE POET’S CORNER 68 - - VIII. CANDOUR 81 - - IX. SOUNDINGS 93 - - X. THE STRAY PAGE 104 - - XI. PENITENTIAL 115 - - XII. MAKING ALIVE 127 - - XIII. THE ILL WIND 139 - - XIV. ADJUSTMENT 150 - - XV. OPPORTUNITY 162 - - XVI. REVELATION 174 - - XVII. HONOUR 187 - - XVIII. MADE IN HEAVEN 199 - - XIX. THE END OF THE PLAY 210 - - XX. RICHARD 222 - - XXI. WILBERFORCE, THE PAINTER 235 - - XXII. EXITS AND ENTRANCES 248 - - XXIII. THE FALL OF THE CURTAIN 261 - - - - -THE ANNES - -CHAPTER I - -_Little Anne’s Calling_ - - -The thin child on the floor was completely engrossed in her occupation, -but she never gave fractional attention to anything. She rested on one -elbow, her weight on her hip, one long, slender leg crooked under her, -the other extended at length over the green carpet, the foot that ended -it dropping in and out of its flat-soled pump as it see-sawed from heel -to toe. - -Suddenly the child sat up, raised her elfin face, pushed back her -cropped dark hair from her dark, bright eyes with the back of a slender -hand somewhat grimy on its knuckles. - -“Mother, I know my vocation!” she announced. - -Her pretty mother, as fair and placid as little Anne was dark and -dynamic, bore this announcement calmly. - -“You must have your hair bobbed again, Anne,” she said. “What made you -think of vocations, dear? At seven there is time enough for that; few -vocations are decided quite so early.” - -“Yes, but I think it is nice to get it off your mind,” Anne said. “I’ve -been thinking about it for years, ever since Joan used to talk about -it, when she used to think maybe she ought to be a sister. And then -Antony came along, and she married him as quick! I’d hate to wiggle -around like that! So I’ve wondered a whole lot what my vocation was, -and now I know.” - -Anne paused for the question which her mother dutifully put to her: - -“Do you, dear? What is it?” - -“Putting things on their legs. This beetle needs it. He gets on his -back and kicks and kicks! It would melt a heart of stone. I turn him -over and he feels ever so much cheerfuller! He doesn’t stay right side -up; he tips over again, but I think maybe it’s partly the carpet. -Anyway, I’m right here to set him going again. Prob’ly if he was a bird -he’d sing to me, but poor black beetles haven’t any voice. Crickets -chirp, though; do you s’pose black beetles chirp when they are enjoying -themselves together?” - -Anne had dropped down again on her elbow, but she sat up again as a -hope for black beetles awakened in her. - -“I think not, Anne; I think they cannot voice their joy,” said Mrs. -Berkley, gravely. - -Anne sighed and lay out at full length on the floor. - -“I s’pose not. But maybe they go singing in their hearts---- Why, -Mother, that’s a hymn, isn’t it, mother? Is that a sin? I didn’t mean -it; honest to goodness, I never meant that hymn! Is it a sin, Mother?” - -Once more Anne was excitedly erect. - -“You have been told many times, Anne, that you cannot do wrong unless -you mean to, sin is choosing to do wrong when you know what is right,” -said this conscientious mother. “How did your beetle happen to be in -this room, Anne?” - -“I brought him in, Mother,” answered the child. “I turned him over out -of doors, but I wanted to sit down and watch him flop. I s’pose I do -upset him a little weeny bit sometimes! It’s a great temptation, but -then I’m right here to set him going again, and that’s my vocation.” - -“It’s really a beautiful vocation, Anne,” said her mother. “To put -someone on his feet and help him to walk, only I wouldn’t confine it -altogether to black beetles.” - -“People?” asked Anne. “Figuravely? Don’t you mean that to be---- What -are those stories? You know! All-all glory, or something?” - -“Allegories. And figuratively, Anne. Yes, dear. It would be a beautiful -vocation to help people to walk, wouldn’t it? And it’s sure to be yours -if you’re a good woman, as I pray you will be. One way or another all -good women put people on their feet.” - -Mrs. Berkley hastily got her needle where it could do no harm, for she -saw what was coming. - -Anne scrambled to her feet, leaving her beetle on his back, vainly -imploring the ceiling with his many active legs. Big girl that she was -she threw herself upon her mother’s lap, and hugged her hard. - -“Like you, just for all the world, ’xactly like you, you most precious, -beautiful motherkins, Barbara Berkley!” Anne choked herself in choking -her mother. “You help everybody in this family on their feet, and -you just lead ’em right along! I wonder where’d I’d be if ’twasn’t -for you showing me lovely things? Just like black beetle allegories -this minute! My father, Peter Berkley, wouldn’t be hardly anything if -’twasn’t for you! You know yourself he’d never in this world remember -rubbers! And prob’ly he’d die of it. And Joan--well, what in the -world do you s’pose she’d do with the baby if she didn’t ask you? -And as to Peter-two----!” Words for once failed Anne. Her opinion of -her obstreperous fourteen-year-old brother was luckily deprived of -expression. He was surer of his own vocation than Anne was of hers; it -was clear to him that his calling in life was to suppress Anne. - -“Dear me, Anne-baby!” gasped Mrs. Berkley. “You have hugged me -breathless and my hair is coming down! Not that I am not glad that you -are satisfied with me as a mother, little Anne!” - -“Satisfied? Doesn’t that mean sort of getting-along-with-it?” asked -Anne, the student of words. - -“Oh, no. It means that a thing exactly suits you in every way,” -explained Mrs. Berkley. - -“Your hair isn’t coming down; it’s only rather loose. It’s prettiest -down, anyway; I’ll fix it,” said Anne. “Satisfied doesn’t sound like -that when people say it; they say it in a getting-along tone. When -Joan got that centrepiece from Antony’s Aunt Lil last Christmas she -said: ‛Oh, well, of course I’m _satisfied_ with it!’ Like that! -’Cause she per-fect-ly _detests_ Renaissance lace. And don’t you -remember Peter-two made that awful bad joke about it? He said it was -re-nuisance. _Nuisance_, you know, mother! Don’t you see? Because -Joan put it away to give someone else; that’s what made the _re_ -part of the joke: an over-again nuisance, Mother! Joan said it was a -perfec’ly stupid joke; she said it was a pun. What makes me remember -bad jokes, Mother? I keep remembering Peter’s worst ones. Joan said -she was satisfied, but she means to give that centrepiece to someone -else; Joan _said_ to Mr. Richard Latham, because he was blind, but -Joan didn’t mean it; Joan never means anything not kind, like that! -Now your hair isn’t loose, lovely motherkins! I see Joan coming in the -back way. She hasn’t brought Barbara---- Mercy me! I forgot my beetle -and Joan’ll step on him, kersmash! Joan would never see a beetle; she -goes along thinking of Antony Paul and Toots! I don’t blame her; that’s -the loveliest baby I ever in all my lifetime saw! And I always did -say Antony was ’most too good for Joan, if she is my sister. I never -expected in all my lifetime to have a brother-in-law who was half as -nice as Antony Paul--so there!” - -“Oh, Anne!” sighed Mrs. Berkley, her conscientious motherhood weighing -upon her. “My hair may not be loose, but what about your little red -tongue, my dear? I am afraid that Peter is right, and that we spoil -you, child!” - -“Oh, no, no, indeed, Mother!” Anne earnestly reassured her. “You bring -me up just right. You let me do about everything that isn’t wicked, -only just a weeny bit kind of not like every little girl, but if I -wanted a crime you wouldn’t let me have it, and you teach me noble -things--catechism and everything!” - -Mrs. Berkley laughed her soft inward, chuckling laugh, as she often did -at Anne’s speeches. - -“Such high-coloured words, little Anne! Fancy craving a crime! - -“Joan, dear, the baby must have let you sleep last night. You look -blooming, my daughter!” - -Mrs. Berkley arose to take into her arms a pretty young creature, all -soft tints like her mother--sweet, normal, and contented, not in any -way suggesting sisterhood to little Anne. - -“Oh, Mother, dearest,” Joan remonstrated in a voice that declared in -its first note that it was made to sing lullabies, “as though Barbara -were not always good now! For five months, since she passed her third -month, she has let me sleep from eleven till two, and Antony and I love -to have her waken before four because she is sweetest before dawn. -Antony says the truly poetical time to see a baby is at dawn--provided -you can get your eyes open to look! Antony is romantic; then he is -ashamed of it and pokes fun at himself! Anne, you monkey, why don’t you -come over to kiss me? And what _have_ you in your hand?” - -“It’s my beetle, Joan,” said Anne, complying with her sister’s -request. “I am looking for a safe place for him, where he can get -on his legs himself when I am gone. It ought to be something with -kind of sticky walls. I don’t mean sticky-that-holds-you, but -sticky-that-can-be-stuck-to; that kind. If you don’t mind, mother, -dear, I’ll stand your prayer book, and the Imitation, and these other -two little pious books around him, because they’re all bound in that -soft leather, like gloves, that makes you crawl, and I want him to -crawl. It won’t be sacredligious to use them, because it’s for charity, -and bowls are dreadfully slippery.” - -“Good gracious!” exclaimed Joan, staring, though she should have been -accustomed to Anne. - -“The beetle will be far happier out of doors, Anne,” said her mother. -“He will not enjoy walls, even of soft leather. Better let him go and -find another when you want to help a beetle on his legs. Anne has -discovered her vocation, Joan: it is helping beetles to their legs when -they are on their backs and can’t get up. I think that may quite easily -prove to be a prophecy of her career!” - -Joan laughed. “Heaven help the human beetle that wants to lie on his -back if Anne gets after him later on! She would make him walk, possibly -fly.” - -Anne had obediently carried the beetle out of doors and put him down -in the grass. He showed as lively pleasure in being released from her -ministrations as many another object of philanthropy would show if a -chance to get away were offered it. Anne watched it scuttle off and -returned to her family somewhat cast down. - -“He kept right side up all right, and went off just as fast!” she -announced. “I don’t think he acted one bit attached to me. Maybe -beetles aren’t. Maybe if you have a shell you don’t have a heart. That -wasn’t slang, Mother! I didn’t say it! Peter-two told me he’d fine me -if I said ‛have a heart,’ but I didn’t! Honest that wasn’t the same!” - -“No, dear, it wasn’t. That was science, not slang,” Joan comforted her. - -Anne went over and seated herself, cross-legged, in the deep window -seat. She fell into one of her meditative moods in which she was lost -to all around her. Active or contemplative, Anne was always at the -_nth_ degree of her temporary condition. - -Mrs. Berkley and her older daughter dropped into the intimate talk -of a mother and daughter who are also close friends, sharing their -experiences of matronhood. - -At first Anne listened, wistful, feeling a little pushed aside. Joan -had been married less than two years. Anne could remember when she had -been to her pretty sister an enviable combination of her discarded -doll, her little sister, and the forerunner of the baby, though this -Joan herself, still less Anne, had not understood. - -This had been almost three years ago, before Antony Paul had come and -decided Joan against a convent, while she was still discussing her -vocation in terms which had imprinted themselves upon Anne’s memory. -Anne had not been her sister’s chief interest since she was four, so it -was not that which she missed as she sat in the window seat; it was her -mother’s divided interest that the little girl grudged. - -Anne’s dog, Cricket, an apprehensive, black-and-tan, bow-legged beagle, -came to sit close to his little mistress, snuggling his head backward -to beg for her hand. Anne pulled his soft ears and lost herself in -ill-assorted thoughts. At last she aroused; Joan was saying: - -“Mother, you don’t know men! Of course, there is Father; I must confess -you know him perfectly. It takes perfect knowledge to manage a man as -you manage him--and he never suspects it! Why, he even prefers to go -your way after a step or two in the other direction! But you do that -by being you, so sweet and gentle, and--and--well, always right, I -suppose! But men are not like father; he is so reasonable! Now Antony -is the dearest of dears, but I can’t say he is always reasonable. -Sometimes I simply cannot make him see things as I do. Then I give -in; it’s my duty. But I’m afraid there’s another side to it. I ought -to make him see. Especially now that I have Barbara to train. Antony -is so sweet I could get him to do anything if I cried, but that’s a -mean trick! A woman to play on a man’s chivalry! I’ve got to study, -strengthen my mind, you know! Men are much, much more childish than we -are, mother, yet they are fearful to argue with; they’re so horribly -logical. And of all things you can’t trust to bring you out in an -argument where you expected to land, logic is the worst!” - -Mrs. Berkley laughed her little amused laugh. - -“It even leads you astray in the construction of a sentence -apparently,” she said. “I never knew a young matron who did not think -that her study of her husband had revealed depths no other woman had -ever fathomed. But I assure you, Joan, men are far more alike than -women are. I have no doubt that by and by Antony will be led by you, -just as you think your father is led by me. But rest assured, my dear, -I don’t lead your father by logic!” - -Anne unwound herself and stretched her long, thin legs with a sigh. - -“I shall never get married,” she said. “I shall _not_! And it -cramps dreadfully to sit with your legs under you on such a hard seat. -I see Miss Anne Dallas. She is going to the post office, I s’pose; -she has a lot of letters and stuff. She’s going to mail them for Mr. -Latham, most likely. She looks as nice! I think queer blue dresses are -perfec’ly lovely. Kit Carrington has stopped her. He took off his hat -most graceful. It’s the way they do in stories, old stories, when it -was long ago, when they doff their hats. So did Kit Carrington. I never -knew how it was till now, but that’s what he did: doffed it. Look, -Mother. Like this.” - -Anne stood up and swept an imaginary hat to her side with a splendid -gesture, then let her head droop deferentially and struck a listening -pose. Then she straightened her lithe body and turned upon her mother -and sister an excited, glowing little face. - -“Well, I never knew Kit was in love with Anne Dallas till now!” she -cried. - -“Anne!” her mother remonstrated. “I really will not allow you to be so -impertinent. What a remark from a little girl like you! And _Kit_? -You mean Mr. Carrington, I suppose? Mr. Christopher Carrington? And -Miss Dallas? Do you?” - -“Yes, Mother,” said Anne, meekly. “I forgot. They all say Kit -Carrington; he’s so nice. That’s the reason, I s’pose, and young of his -age.” - -“He must be as much as twenty-three or four,” observed Joan. - -Then, inconsistently after her mother’s rebuke, after the manner of -older people with a precocious child like Anne, she asked: - -“What possessed you to say that Kit Carrington was in love with Anne -Dallas, child?” - -“I can see he is,” said little Anne, rejoicing in this opportunity to -continue the subject. “He got all red and he’s looking at her about -like Antony when you come in, Joan; this way.” - -Anne thrust forward her head, wreathed her mobile lips into a chastened -smile, and rolled her flashing dark eyes in what was meant for an -adoring expression. She instinctively heightened her effect by clasping -her hands, though Christopher Carrington had indulged in no gestures. - -“Anne, really, I dislike this exceedingly,” began her mother, but her -rebuke was spoiled by Joan’s flight to the window where she ensconced -herself behind the curtains to verify Anne’s report. - -Mrs. Berkley had a sense of humour that asserted itself at unsuitable -times. She chuckled now. - -“Sister Anne, Sister Anne, hast thou really espied Romance from -thy window?” she murmured. “Sister Anne, is thy report true of what -approaches? But, alas for _your_ little sister Anne’s training, -Joan! I can’t join you; they would see me! What do you make out, Joan?” - -Joan waved her hand behind her back, signalling to her mother to let -her have Sister Anne’s watch tower undisturbed for a few moments. - -At last she turned away and came over to her mother, Anne with her; -Anne had been frankly watching the conversation in the street, -untrammelled by the handicap of adult years. - -“Well, of course, Mother, one can’t be sure of such a thing from across -the street, looking on at one chance meeting, but it does seem as -though our Anne’s keen eyes were not far wrong,” Joan announced. “Kit -has an air of profound admiration. I couldn’t say as to Anne Dallas; -you can’t tell much about a girl. I wonder! They’ve gone on now, in -opposite directions. What a handsome boy Kit is! So manly, carries -himself so well! He has the nicest smile I ever saw--except Antony’s! I -wonder, I do wonder!” - -“Anne is a dear girl,” said Mrs. Berkley. “If it were so--poor Richard -Latham!” - -“Oh, Mother, you don’t think----” began Joan. - -“Anne is a dear girl,” repeated her mother. “Do you suppose it is -likely that a lonely, hungry-hearted man like Richard Latham, sitting -in darkness all his days, could have such a girl as Anne beside him -constantly, writing his poems at his dictation, reading to him in her -soft, lovely voice, serving him in countless ways, and not learn to -love her? I’ve been hoping it would be so. For why should not Anne -Dallas love him? Blindness is rather attractive than forbidding to a -girl as sweetly compassionate as Anne. And to take at his dictation -his beautiful words, his exquisite fancies, to hear them first of all -the world, to come to feel, to know, that you inspired most of them, -to write them for him and be the medium through which the world knows -them--can you imagine better food for love?” - -“Well, now you say it,” admitted Joan, slowly. “But if this attractive -Kit, full of charm, young, does come wooing--I wonder! Poor Mr. Latham, -indeed!” - -“Perhaps we should say poor Miss Anne Carrington?” suggested Mrs. -Berkley. “Kit’s aunt would surely take the advent of Anne Dallas -hard. She is inordinately proud of Kit, ambitious for him. She has -intended him to marry Helen Abercrombie who is intemperately rich in -her own right, and is the only child of ex-Governor Abercrombie. Miss -Carrington had her here last summer, don’t you remember?” - -“With her car and other paraphernalia; of course!” agreed Joan. “Since -we are distributing pity, Motherums, we’d better shed some on Kit and -Anne, if they are interested in each other, for Miss Carrington would -certainly make the course of their true love run uncommonly rough! I -must go home to my daughter. Isn’t it thrilling to think that we may -have seen the curtain rise on an old-fashioned love drama, with a -rival, a stern parent--an aunt comes to the same thing when she holds -the hero’s inheritance--the princess whom the young lover should marry, -everything properly cast! Anne, you witch-child, you are an uncanny -elf! Good-bye, dear.” - -Joan kissed her mother and her sister and was gone. - -Anne stood scowling at the table cover, motionless for several minutes, -unseeing, lost in thought. - -“Anne, dear, what is it?” her mother aroused her. - -“I was thinking this was the most Annest town I ever saw: Miss Anne -Carrington, Anne Dallas, little Anne Berkley; prob’ly lots more,” -she said. “When I’m confirmed I’m going to take Ursula for my new -name, ’cause there isn’t one of them. Then you can call me that, so -everybody’ll know me apart.” - -“I can tell you apart, childie, this minute! Come here, little Anne, -and let me rock you, though your legs are uncomfortably long for this -low chair.” Mrs. Berkley held out her arms invitingly and Anne ran into -them. - -“Another thing I was thinking when you and Joan were talking about Mr. -Latham and Ki--Mr. Carrington--all wanting to marry her. I think we’re -not half sorry enough for all the trouble everybody makes God, all -wanting the same thing and praying about it! It must be awful to have -to say no to such lots of ’em! And He can’t say yes to more’n half when -there’s two, just even, you see. It makes me feel sorry for Him. Is -that a sin, Mother?” Anne lifted her head out of her mother’s shoulder -and gazed at her with profoundly sad eyes. - -Her mother kissed the lids down over those great dark eyes. Sometimes -her heart ached with fear of this strange child’s future. Then again -Anne was so reassuringly human that the pang of anxiety over her -unearthliness was swallowed up in anxiety of the opposite sort. - -So now Mrs. Berkley kissed down the lids over the meditative eyes and -murmured comfortingly: - -“Little Anne must remember that God knows best.” - -Anne sprang to her feet with a whoop that made her mother gasp. - -“Oh, yes, ’course!” she cried, swiftly disposing of theology for the -moment. “I hear Peter-two coming in. He promised to bring me elder -whistles for Cricket that’ll just about make him come, no matter where -he is, and if Peter-two hasn’t done it---- Well, he’ll catch it!” - -With which Anne rushed from the room. An instant later her mother’s -fear as to her son’s safety--if she felt any--was set at rest by a -whistle so shrill that it sent Cricket cowering under the sofa. - - - - -CHAPTER II - -_The Oldest Anne_ - - -Christopher Carrington threw the last third of his cigar into the -fireplace and watched it as it tumbled over the back log. The back log -made him think of his Aunt Anne, always there, always ready to be fired -by smaller sticks. He had been restlessly touring the room for fifteen -minutes, examining its ornaments, familiar to him from childhood, -hardly conscious that he was handling bits of frail loveliness that his -aunt never allowed other hands than her own to dust. - -Miss Anne Carrington had watched Kit’s adventures without comment, in -spite of the strain upon her nerves, eying him with keen suspicion, now -and then, giving him furtive glances that saw everything as she turned -the pages of her book. - -She was a tall woman, and thin, her hair was white, but her light -blue eyes were undimmed; her nose was long and decidedly arched; her -lips were settled into something that looked like a mocking smile. -She looked uncompromising, but not so much so as she was; she looked -intelligent and clever, but not as clever as she was. - -She sat in a straight chair, a dignified old model, with her feet -resting on a small stool. At her side stood the table that held her -reading lamp; it was laden with books in French and English. Many of -them lay open, face down, for Miss Carrington kept her books to serve -her, and did not weigh their welfare against her convenience. - -Her nephew, Christopher, was not only her nearest of kin, but her -only kin near enough to consider as such. He was so dear to her, and -in him her ambition had so concentrated, that existence under her -domain had not been easy to him since he had passed the years when she -could gratify all his desires by buying him the best sport trappings, -outfits, horses, and boats that a spoiled lad could own. This Miss -Carrington had done, and yet Kit was so little spoiled by these -luxuries that his will was in danger of running counter to his aunt’s -ambition for him. - -At last Miss Carrington laid her book across her knee and watched Kit’s -movements, frankly inviting confidence. Becoming conscious of this, he -brought himself up with his elbow on the mantel and, turning toward -her, said in that big, cheery voice of his that the old lady never -could hear without thrilling to it: - -“I beg your pardon, Aunt Anne! Do I give you the willies doing the -zoo-tiger act like this?” - -“I don’t know their Christian name--though why jungle ways should have -a Christian name I don’t see--but if irritated nerves are willies, -then, yes, you give them to me,” said his aunt. - -She spoke in a light, slightly acrid voice, her syllables articulated -like Italian. - -Kit laughed. - -“Nice Aunt Anne!” he approved her, impersonally. “You always sit on a -chap in a delightful way. I’ll be seated, thanks.” - -He dropped into the deep chair on the right of the fireplace, -stretching out to his great length. But Miss Carrington saw that he at -once possessed himself of the tongs and began to open and shut them in -a way as tiresome as his roaming had been. - -Kit nervous? This hearty, athletic lad fidgeting? Miss Carrington -wondered what was on his mind. Being clever she set out to discover -indirectly. She had heard a suggestion that she loathed; it had come -from Minerva, her maid, and Minerva, true to her name, was, as a rule, -right. - -Miss Carrington closed her book, first noting the page number, for -she scorned bookmarks, laid it on the table, and picked up the latest -number of a newspaper supplement devoted to book news. - -“Here’s a discussion of Richard Latham’s verse and essays, Kit,” -she said. “Quite well done, discriminating, yet laudatory. The -reviewer--it’s not signed--considers him an artist who sends out -nothing unworthy, who greatly rejoices those of fine perception, -consequently the few, yet these to an extent that should compensate him -for the smallness of his audience. Really it is praise worth having! -I don’t know Richard Latham as I should. I sent Minerva off after I’d -read this to buy everything he has published. Cleavedge had only one -volume, the one I already owned! So I sent her again to telephone New -York, to tell Brentano’s to send me Latham complete. That is the honour -of a prophet in his own country!” - -Kit smiled. His aunt would not have a telephone in her house, but she -was constantly sending Minerva to telephone a message from the near-by -drug store. - -“And what of it?” Miss Carrington would defend herself. “Is sending -Minerva seven times seventy trips a day equal to one’s being on the -ragged edge, dreading to be called at any hour?” - -Now Kit smiled at his aunt, as she awaited his reply, and said: - -“I’m not up in Mr. Latham’s work myself, Aunt Anne. But then I’m far -down in lots of poets.” - -“We’ll hope you will come to them,” returned his aunt. “From this -review it appears that we should be immensely proud of Latham; by and -by, apparently, pilgrims will come to Cleavedge to pick leaves from -the ivy on his wall. Has he a wall? And ivy? Someone, it seems, wrote -Richard Latham lately to ask for the genesis of one of his poems, also -‛what he meant by’ a certain stanza. That is true greatness, Kit; to -get inquiries as to the meaning of a poem! There is a letter published -here, setting the anxious correspondent at rest. It speaks with -authority for Mr. Latham, but is not written by him. It is not badly -expressed, rather a nice letter. Signed A. D. I wonder what that stands -for--when it isn’t Anno Domini?” - -All this long talk about Richard Latham to lead up casually to this -question! And so casually reached that Kit never suspected! - -He blushed slightly, as Miss Carrington noted, but he answered with his -jolly laugh: - -“It stands for something that sounds a good deal the same, but is -different enough, Aunt Anne. It stands for Anne Dallas, I suppose; -she’s Richard Latham’s secretary.” - -“Oh, does it? To be sure, he would have a secretary. Pity he is blind! -And the secretary would be able to write a good letter. It’s not -remarkable; clear, intelligent, a good letter. His secretary must need -patience--and no other interests. I suppose he might be more likely -to get that in a woman, but I should want a man. However, he can get -a woman sufficiently trained for his requirements at a lower salary -than a man’s. Anne Dallas, you said? Not a Cleavedge name. Where did -he find her? I hope she doesn’t annoy him, but if she is ugly he can’t -see it! It would be horrible to a poet to have an ugly woman under his -beauty-loving eyes all day, week in, week out. I wonder--but of course -you don’t know, you don’t visit Mr. Latham. She can’t be a Cleavedge -woman, I should think?” - -Miss Carrington talked on lightly, not overdoing her carelessness, but -with a voice silvery and indifferent. She watched Kit as she talked and -saw him redden, trying boyishly to appear at ease. - -“She isn’t a Cleavedge girl; she came from Connecticut, Aunt Anne,” Kit -said. - -“That’s a state I like!” Miss Carrington approved, heartily. “It’s -odd--kindly, too--the present fashion of calling unattached women -girls. The letter sounded mature. I suppose it is because she is -earning her living that you speak of her as a girl. Is she a widow? -Didn’t--no; you didn’t call her Miss Dallas.” - -“Good gracious, no; she isn’t a widow!” cried Kit, and instantly -regretted his vehemence, for his aunt raised her eyebrows. “Miss Dallas -is young; she is a girl, a girl with a lot of girlhood in her; the kind -they used to call ‛maidenly,’ you know,” Kit continued. - -“I suppose you are forced to speak of maidenly as an obsolete term, -Kit, my dear, because what it stood for is out of fashion,” observed -Miss Carrington. She had found out all that she wanted to know for this -time and was too wise to pursue the subject. - -“Of course I don’t for an instant mean that girls are at heart -less maidenly. That is a quality necessary to every generation, if -civilization is to continue. But the outward and visible sign of that -special inward grace is not worn as it was. I confess to regretting -it. I claim to be modern, but it really was in beautiful good -taste. I suppose a few exceedingly well-bred girls will retain that -efflorescence to the end of the chapter, but the present fashion gives -such horrible scope to bad taste! I found Helen Abercrombie refreshing -last summer when she visited us. There’s a well-bred girl!” - -“But hardly maidenly,” Kit could not refrain from saying, though he -knew that it was indiscreet. “Miss Abercrombie is a finished product, -of course, but she’s too--too---- Oh, well, you know, Aunt Anne! -You’re an analyst of the first water! Too finished a product and -up-to-the-minute, too architectural to be maidenly.” - -“Christopher,” said his aunt, “there is no use whatever in ostrich-talk -between us when it comes to Helen Abercrombie! You know as well as I do -what is my hope for you in regard to her. To beat about the bush is to -talk as an ostrich is supposed to behave: you’d see my transparently -covered outlines. In so many words, then, I want you to marry Helen. -I’m glad that is said.” Miss Carrington threw herself against her chair -back and looked steadily at Kit. - -“Aunt!” Kit drew in his breath sharply, protesting. - -“And guardian,” his aunt reminded him. - -Kit flushed angrily; it was true that his prospects in life depended -upon his aunt’s favour. - -“It doesn’t seem decent to discuss it,” Kit said. “As if I’d nothing to -do but decide to beckon Helen.” - -“Between ourselves, Kit, I think Helen has already made the first -signals,” said Miss Carrington. “The woman usually does; Thackeray and -George Bernard Shaw are right. I should be sorry to see you giving -yourself the airs of a conqueror, but as an honest working basis -between us we may as well admit the truth that Helen is of the same -mind as Barkis.” - -“Oh, Lord!” groaned Kit, helplessly. “I’m not in the least in love with -her, Aunt Anne. I never could be.” - -“No,” admitted Miss Carrington, judicially, “you are not. I think quite -likely you never would be. I don’t recall asking you to be, my dear -boy.” - -Kit looked at her, his honest, rebellious young soul in his eyes. - -“Christopher Carrington, listen to me with your intelligence, not -merely with your ears,” began Miss Carrington, bracing herself to -her task. “I rather like your feeling, which your silence announces -more eloquently than words, as novelists say. Youth is the time for -dreams. It is for its elders to see to it that the dreams do not become -nightmares. I want, I urge you to marry Helen Abercrombie because she -is preëminently suitable. She is of our class; she is handsome, highly -accomplished, wealthy. She is a woman to help on a man’s career. Not -only that, but she has it in her power to launch a man on his career. -Her father was the best governor this state ever had. He will be -nominated and reëlected this coming year. He is certain to have an -important portfolio in a not-far-distant cabinet; it is more than -likely that he will be his party’s presidential candidate next time. -And that party is going in next time; heaven knows the country has had -enough of the muddle of the past years at the other party’s hands! -As Governor Abercrombie’s son-in-law you would be secure of a good -diplomatic appointment. And there is nothing like such an experience to -make a man, Kit! It would give you what nothing else could of dignity, -of _savoir faire_. I will not allow you to turn aside from such -opportunity. Then, if the not unlikely sequence follows, as President -Abercrombie’s son-in-law----” - -Miss Carrington shrugged her shoulders with an outward gesture of her -open palms that ended her sentence for her eloquently, a trick that she -had learned in her own long years abroad. A bright red spot burned in -each cheek and her guarded eyes gleamed with the fire of ambition. Kit -stared at her; she rarely revealed herself to this extent. He cried: -“Aunt Anne, that’s all very fine, but would you have me marry a woman -whom I did not love for ignoble, selfish motives?” - -“Ignoble!” cried his aunt, sharply. “Do you call ambitions such as any -manly man would leap toward, ignoble? Why, what else is there in life -but its prizes? The bigger the better, but prizes at least. Selfish, -yes! Who isn’t selfish? Children are frightened by words, not men. Of -course you’re selfish. But if you enjoy beclouding your conscience -tell yourself you’ll use your attainment unselfishly. You won’t, but -many better, cleverer men than you, my little Christopher, befuddle -themselves with pretty terms. In the meantime win, win, win your ends! -Let me tell you, Kit, that there’s more sensible unselfishness in -marrying for prudence than for romance: the result of that endures!” - -Kit looked at his aunt with genuine pity. He knew that her ambition for -him represented all that was in her of ideals, of love. A remembrance -of Major Pendennis and young Arthur flitted across his mind; he pitied -his aunt, but he feared lest one day he might pity himself. - -“You don’t know, Aunt Anne,” he said, gently. “It must be frightful to -be married to someone whom you can’t love. In the marriage you urge -upon me there would be neither love nor respect; I should not love my -wife, nor respect myself. You can’t realize it, Aunt Anne.” - -“Bless the child!” cried Miss Carrington with a laugh. “Does he imagine -himself at twenty-four wiser than a worldly old woman of sixty-eight? -You mean that I can’t realize your bugaboo situation because I didn’t -marry. But I was to marry once! Another woman stole my husband. There -was excuse for her according to you, for I was going to marry him for -ambition, and she loved him madly. I remained their friend, and I saw -my vengeance. They were wretchedly unhappy, while I, with my ambition -answering to his, would have crowned him.” - -Miss Carrington arose and drew herself up to her full height, which was -equal to Kit’s. Her narrow slipper of black silk, simply bound, without -an ornament, dropped off as she arose. Kit sprang to put it on for her. -She leaned on his shoulder and watched him fit the slipper on her foot. -She was inordinately proud of her long, narrow feet, and never adorned -their apparel. - -“You see, my boy, I practise what I preach; I have ample space to -stand in. Learn from the parable of the loose slipper and do not cramp -your foundations.” She leaned forward to smile into Kit’s face, almost -coquettishly. - -“My fine lad,” she resumed, “gratify your aunt, who is almost your -mother, and make your life what marriage with Helen Abercrombie will -let you make it. Trust me, Kit, as a wise woman who knows her world. -It will never do to face it wearing rose-coloured glasses. ‛Render to -Caesar the things that are Caesar’s,’ and it is my experience that you -need not bother about the other part of your rendering. God is sure to -take the things that are God’s Himself; you need not render them. They -are vital things, too, my dear; your strength, your health, your youth, -at last your life. Make sure of all that you can get; it is not too -much.” - -Kit stood with hanging head, her arm over his shoulders. He was -distressed. Never had his aunt betrayed herself to him as now, and -the vision of her destitution shocked his manhood, his ideals, his -conscience. To have lived almost to her three score and ten, to be -so clever, so strong, yet to have garnered no wheat, but only bright -pebbles! - -“Well, Kit,” Miss Carrington said, altering her tone and withdrawing -her arm as she turned to leave him, “I’ll not ask for your answer now; -in fact, I don’t want you to answer yet. But I beg you to remember -that I implore you to marry Helen Abercrombie, and to marry soon. You -are precisely the sort of boy who falls in love and makes a hopeless -mess of his life from the loftiest plane of boundless idiocy. You -were always quixotically lovable. I’m ready to admit that it is most -charming in a boy, my dear, but it is fatal to a man. So listen to your -doting aunt, and on your life do not disobey her! What are you going to -do while I take my siesta?” - -Kit felt, as his aunt meant him to feel it, the veiled threat in her -warning, but he answered her question: - -“I told young Peter Berkley that I’d give him my collection of postage -stamps if he’d come around. I’m looking for him any minute.” - -“That is nice little Mrs. Peter Berkley’s boy? The brother of my -extraordinary namesake, little Anne? She is Methuselette on one side -and an innocent baby on the other. I could greatly enjoy cultivating -little Anne Berkley’s acquaintance,” said Miss Carrington. “I -complained of difficulty in threading a needle the other day--it was -the sewing afternoon at the hospital, an occasion which I grace, but -hardly serve--and Mrs. Berkley had brought Anne to thread needles for -us. That small elf changeling urged me to make a pilgrimage to Beaupré -to get my sight restored, because, forsooth, my name being ‛Anne’ the -good Saint Anne would be likely to help me! The mother is a remarkably -nice, genuine person; pity she’s so _devote_!” - -“Oh, I don’t know,” murmured Kit. “It seems to suit the Berkleys.” - -“That’s true. And of course if one is going in for that sort of thing -the only possible logic lies in the Old Way. I can see consistency in -being _Other_ Worldly, but to be unworldly, my boy, is, as I’ve -been eloquently telling you, utter nonsense,” said Miss Carrington, -graciously. “I’ll go up now and get Minerva to read me into a nap. Tell -young Peter to come another time and bring that clever, queer little -sister of his, will you? Anne Berkley and Anne Carrington are far -enough apart in years and views to become cronies.” - -Miss Carrington stepped back and gathered up an embroidered shawl -of Chinese silk which had slipped into a tiny roll at the back of -her chair. She hung it over her arm; its long fringe and heavily -embroidered flowers brushed Kit’s hand as he held the door open for -her to pass through it. He returned to the fireplace and leaned upon -the mantel, waiting for young Peter with a heaviness of heart unlike -himself. - -“A pilgrimage to gain her sight!” thought Kit. “Little Anne’s advice -was not half bad. She would not agree to all this; she is as untainted -by the world as a blossom in an old-time garden!” - -The smile that made his rugged young face so gentle showed that the -“she” of this encomium was not little Anne Berkley. - - - - -CHAPTER III - -_The Quiet Room_ - - -Cleavedge had received its name from the steep sides of the river which -cleft its rocky bank formation. It may have been a misapprehension of -a word--strangers spelt it “Cleavage” till they learned better--or the -settlers who christened it may have meant to embody in the word the -picturesque cleft edges of the cliffs. Cleavedge, with its misspelling, -it remained through the growth of the village into a prosperous little -city. - -Richard Latham lived in a shady street not much disturbed by traffic. -Several other streets ran in the same direction, leading more directly -to wherever any one would be likely to go, so Latham Street was not -greatly disturbed by footfalls, either. The street had been lately -rechristened; Cleavedge was beginning to be aware of its celebrity. - -In the beautifully proportioned living room of a house that entertained -too few guests to require a drawing room the poet passed his days. It -was a room built around with bookshelves uncrowded by furniture; its -warm-tinted, drabbish walls hung with fine pictures and lighted by -lovely gleams of colour in the pottery that occasionally broke the long -stretches of the dull oiled wood of the bookcase tops. It was a man’s -room, without curtains, or anything meaningless; a room of perfect -beauty, inexpressibly soothing. It possessed a sort of visible silence, -the silence of the woods; it was a place in which to think and to feel, -rather than to act. At one end stood the piano which alone suggested -sound, but to one who had heard Richard Latham play it emphasized the -harmony. - -At the desk, alone in the room, sat a young girl--Anne Dallas. Here she -prepared her notes and carried them away to write them out where the -clatter of a typewriter could not penetrate this room. - -All soft browns was this Anne, hair, eyes, even the tint of her -beautiful skin, warmly pale, clear, but of a shade that suggested a page -that had lain under the sun’s rays. - -Her hair covered her shapely head across the back from crown to neck, -from ear to ear; she wore it parted and coiled in the only way its -masses allowed her to treat it. There was no attempt at coquetry in the -simplicity of her dress, yet no carefully thought out costume could -have more perfectly adorned her, nor made her more harmonious to the -room, for girl and room were each a foil to the other. - -She wrote rapidly, happily humming to herself a slight air that did not -get in the way of her thoughts; she smiled as she followed the balanced -phrases in which Richard Latham had developed an idea that demanded -the best of the language. It was said that Latham used English as no -American now used it, that he was the master of a style that could not -be taught. - -He came into the room as Anne Dallas began another page of her copy. - -She rose to greet him, but did not move toward him. She had learned -that he liked to go about without anything to remind him of his -misfortune. He knew every inch of this room perfectly, literally by -heart, for he had himself designed it before he had been stricken. He -often went straight to the right shelf and laid his hand upon the book -that he wanted. - -“Good morning, Miss Dallas,” he said. “‛Richard and Robin were two lazy -men!’ I’ll warrant that’s what you were thinking, and that Richard had -not cured himself of ‛lying in bed till the clock struck ten.’” - -“More likely you were tramping before the clock struck five!” cried -Anne. - -“That’s nearer the mark than your rash judgment and condemnation of me -by a text from Mother Goose!” said Richard Latham, throwing himself -appreciatively into his comfortable chair. “I was out at six and I’m -nicely tired, just enough tired to want to cut work. Besides, you -extracted from me yesterday everything I have to say on every known -subject! I shall have to wait to fill up from whatever the sources are -that supply ideas. You’re a frightful person for getting a poor fellow -going and keeping him at it till you’ve got all his brains down in -funny little cabalistic signs. Then the next day you write out pages -and swear the utterances that fill me with awe were hidden under those -inky wriggles! I don’t believe it! You insist the inky-wriggles wisdom -is mine. Stuff and nonsense! Why, I don’t know a fraction of what -you say I dictate to you! It’s uncanny. The only thing that I don’t -understand, and which gives a tint of colour to your statement, is that -I’ve no brains left after one of those frightful days when you wind me -up--like yesterday! It’s all curious. Still more so that by to-morrow -you’ll wind me up again, and so on, _da capo_. But not to-day, -Miss Thaumaturga! Not a bit of work shall you get out of me to-day, not -the least preposition for you to set down in a dash or a dot!” - -“Very well, Mr. Latham,” laughed Anne, resuming her seat and taking -up her pen. “I have quite enough to do to write out what you gave me -yesterday. It was a particularly productive day. You are right. Perhaps -I shall ask you to listen to what I have when it is written. That will -not be till well after lunch; shall you be ready then for me, do you -think?” - -“No,” said Richard Latham, promptly. “I shall not be. Please put down -that pen, which I’m sure you’ve taken up, and put down with it all -thought of work. Unless reading aloud is work? Is it hard for you to -read to me? You always assure me that you don’t mind it, but I’m afraid -you may. I don’t want to be troublesome. To-day I’d like to cut work -and be read to. It is quite true that I’ve brain fag, and that you did -wind me up to a frightful speed yesterday. I’m conscious that it is -you who do it; I wonder how? It’s precisely as if you at once put into -me and took out again what would never be in my brain if you didn’t do -this. Are you the poet and not I, after all?” - -“Hardly,” said Anne, smiling, with the woman’s instinct to mask the -trouble that vaguely stirred in her, although this man could not see -her face. “I am industrious, but not gifted. If I’ve any part in it, I -suppose it is because you feel my delight in what you are creating, and -that unconsciously urges you on. I suspect it’s no more than the simple -thing we call genius, and that it takes it out of you to ride Pegasus.” - -Richard Latham kept his blind eyes turned steadily toward her as if he -could see her and would fathom the mystery. He shook his head. “That -isn’t it,” he said, slowly. “There is something about you that makes me -do my best, and more than my own best. I had other people before you -came to help me, and it was a regular grind. No grind with you to start -me off and hold me to it, you quiet wonder-worker! But you didn’t tell -me; do you mind reading to me to-day? I don’t want to be troublesome.” - -He repeated the words with a wistful note in his voice that made Anne -spring to her feet and cross to a chair near him. She clasped her hands -in her lap, her face sweet with pity. She could not endure it that this -man, whose genius she followed breathlessly, should fear to burden -others. It stabbed her to know that he never could escape this fear. - -“Ah, Mr. Latham,” she said, and she did not know how her voice caressed -him, nor how he at once leaped to meet the caress and shrank from that -pitiful thing, pity, which may be akin to love, but which is to a lover -but a bastard kin that usurps love’s throne, “don’t you know that the -hours in which I read to you are delightful to me? Try to imagine what -I get from them, with you to supplement what I read! I never tire -reading, but----” Anne got no farther. Richard Latham started up with -an exclamation, then dropped back into his chair. - -“But you would read whether you like it or not, you started to say, -then remembered that I might not want to hear it! You would serve me in -any way that you could, out of your great, womanly compassion? I know -it, oh, I know it, Anne Dallas! I am grateful; don’t think I’m not. -It’s a big thing to have lavished upon me. I’m glad that at least you -don’t think of your help to me as secretarial duty.” - -“Oh, Mr. Latham, if you don’t want to be hurt, then don’t hurt me!” -cried Anne, shrinking. - -“Forgive me,” said Latham, humbly. - -He bent forward and took her hand, not fumbling for it, knowing -precisely where it lay, Anne noticed, wondering. - -“That was a cowardly, contemptible speech! I believe I wanted to hurt -you! There is a confession, and it amazes me as much as it can you -that it is true. I told you that I was tired to-day; it’s nerves. Set -it down to nerves, won’t you? That sounds like a sneaking plea for -mercy, but I don’t mean it that way. You’d rather it were my nerves -than myself that were unkind? It would be such a beastly thing to want -to hurt you of all people! Confession deserves absolution when it is -sincere and contrite, doesn’t it?” - -“No. It makes it unnecessary,” said Anne, softly. She was glad that he -could not see the tears in her eyes. Never before had this brave and -gentle soul betrayed to her the effort that it cost him to be and to -do without complaint all that he was and did. - -“Kind little Shriver!” said Richard Latham, pressing the hand that held -his tighter than Anne knew. - -Then he laid it back beside its mate in her lap and arose, laughing. - -“It will never do for me to be neurasthenic as well as blind,” he said, -cheerfully. “I suspect I’m staying indoors too much; a man should go -hay-making--when the sun shines! I’ll fetch the book I have in mind for -to-day’s reading--unless you have something you’d prefer?” - -He stepped quickly across the room, went to the poetry shelves, -stooped, and took from the middle shelf a volume which he slapped on -his left hand, brushed it across the top, and brought it to Anne. - -“Suit you? Are you in the mood for it?” he asked. - -It was Dante in the prose translation. Anne looked at it and smiled up -at him. - -“Just in the mood for it,” she said. “But I’d like to read the -‛Paradise’--or would you rather ‛begin at the beginning,’ as children -say?” - -“No, indeed, I’d rather hear ‛Paradise’ myself,” Richard Latham said, -and resumed his chair, pulling his smoking table up to it. - -“It’s your one secretarial fault, Miss Dallas: you are not a linguist. -I’ve a fine old tooled copy of Dante, Italian. I’d like to teach you -Italian. I lived over there a good while. Perhaps we may take up----” - -He broke off sharply. “I beg your pardon, Miss Dallas; I’m delaying -you.” - -Anne opened the volume, once more hurt and puzzled. Richard Latham was -always so equable, so friendly toward her that she could not understand -this new mood. The tone of his last words relegated her to the -unbridgable distance of his hired secretary. - -Anne began to read at the third book, the “Paradise.” Her voice was -troubled at first, but Richard smoked rapidly, apparently unconscious -of it, he whose ear was ordinarily quick to hear a note of fatigue in -her voice. - -Anne loved beauty, and in a few moments she had forgotten herself in -Dante’s vision; a little longer and she forgot her listener, which was -far more. She read on and on until at last Richard put out his hand to -check her. - -“You are thirsty,” he said in the old gentle way to which Anne was -accustomed. “And it is one o’clock. The sun is around on the other -side; that means past noon. We shall not lunch till two to-day; I told -Stetson to have a carriage here at three. We are going to have a real -holiday, you and I. Stetson is of the party in case I feel like walking -in unfamiliar places and need his arm. So put up your book and rest -till luncheon.” - -“How delightful, Mr. Latham!” cried Anne. “I rarely drive.” - -“You are a little girl still, my helpful secretary! How old did you -tell me you were?” Richard asked, well-pleased by her pleasure. - -Anne arose and dropped a curtsy. Richard felt the motion of her swaying -body and laughed at her. - -“I am twenty-two, please, sir!” she said in a thin treble. “But I hope -to be more.” - -“Since you can’t be less?” Richard suggested. “Perhaps you can’t be -more, either, in another sense? At least you are a good child, and -I’m grateful to you. What nice times we have in this rather nice room -which I made once upon a time and still enjoy almost as if I saw it! -I’m glad that we have long days to ourselves and don’t suffer many -interruptions. Yes, Stetson, want me?” he added as his man put his -head into the doorway, knocking on the casement as he did so. - -“Little Miss Berkley is here, sir, little Anne Berkley. And young Mr. -Carrington--though for that matter the only Mr. Carrington--to see you, -Mr. Latham,” he said. - -“Bring them in here, Stetson,” said Richard Latham, rising and passing -his hand over the back of his head which he had been indulging in a -pleasant friction against the back of his chair. - -“Please, Miss Dallas, am I too badly rumpled? Miss Anne Berkley is a -critical though dear friend of mine.” - -“No, not badly rumpled,” returned Anne. Her cheeks were red and her -eyes had brightened at the announcement of these visitors. - -Stetson returned with them. Little Anne was freshly, beautifully -groomed. She precipitated herself upon Richard Latham with a cry of -joy, as if she had not been sure of finding him unchanged. - -“I’ve not seen you in ages, and I certainly am glad I came!” she cried. - -“Thank you, my dear; I echo your sentiments, with the added interest of -five times your years,” said Richard, shaking her hand, earnestly. - -“No, you don’t love people better because you’re the oldest, do you?” -Little Anne corrected him. Then she remembered her duty. - -“I brought my friend Kit--Mr. Christopher Carrington, to see you.” She -turned, but Kit was talking to Anne Dallas and for an instant little -Anne stared, recalling what she had forgotten. - -“Well, to think I never remembered!” she gasped. “This is him,” she -added, her customary English deserting her under the stress of emotion. - -“This is Kit, Mr. Latham. He thought he’d like to know you on account -of your works, only I guess----” - -She checked herself; Anne was a discreet child, and sympathetic. - -“Glad to see you, Mr. Carrington,” said Richard Latham, heartily, using -a verb that did not seem inappropriate to him. “I know your aunt, Miss -Carrington. She is a clever woman, most interesting.” - -“She is a wonder, is Aunt Anne,” agreed Kit. “She would have brought me -here, but I met little Anne and availed myself of her friendly offices.” - -“Even your aunt is not a better social sponsor than Miss Berkley,” said -Richard Latham, bowing to little Anne. “The important thing is that -you have come. I’ve an idea! We are going for a long, and, I hope, -delightful drive into the country after lunch, which will be at two; -Miss Dallas and I were going to take my man Stetson, because a blind -man may easily need the help of a strong arm in exploring. I’m sure -I can persuade little Anne to go. She’s fond of her namesake, Miss -Dallas. What about it, Anne? Will you go if I telephone to your mother -and get her consent?” - -Little Anne clasped her hands upon her thin little chest. - -“I think it would be so deliciously wonderful-joyful that I’d never, -never forget it if Mother would say yes!” she cried, passionately. - -“Bad as that, superlative little Anne?” laughed Richard. - -“Mr. Carrington, if you will lunch with me and go on the drive, and -would be so kind as to give me a hand over a stile, or whatever lay in -my path, I’ll gladly drop Stetson out of the party. Will you do this?” - -“You are awfully kind, Mr. Latham,” said Kit, gratefully. He glanced at -Anne Dallas, but she did not meet his eyes. She was looking intently at -Richard Latham, and it seemed to Kit that her expression was unhappy. - -“I’m only too glad to go, thank you,” Kit went on. “I wonder if I may -use your telephone? Aunt Anne will be expecting me to lunch. She won’t -have a telephone in the house, but I can call the druggist and get him -to send his boy around with a message. Aunt Anne has ways all her own!” - -“I can imagine it. My telephone is in the hall; Miss Dallas will show -you where. And will you call Mrs. Berkley, Miss Dallas, and get her -consent to kidnapping her child?” Mr. Latham smiled at little Anne. -Little Anne clasped her hands in her own dramatic gesture. - -“Oh, dear, dear, dearest Miss Dallas, please let me call Mother myself! -I don’t get many chances to telephone, and I love, just _love_ -to do it! And I want to tell mother my own self what a great, great -thing has happened to me. You said a carriage, didn’t you, Mr. Latham? -It’s pretty nearly always a car. I’m not quite, perfec’ly certain I -ever’ve rode--roden--I mean ridden in a carriage. I’ve rode--ridden--in -the grocer’s wagon, but I can’t remember a carriage. I’d love to tell -mother. And with a real poet! Would you mind, Miss Anne Dallas, if I -did it myself?” - -“Bless your funny little heart, Anne, of course I shouldn’t mind!” -cried Anne Dallas. “Come, both guests!” - -Richard Latham, left behind, stood quietly waiting, unconsciously -listening to the telephone jingle, to Kit’s strong voice, to little -Anne’s excited piping. - -Suddenly and unreasonably he felt old and alone. He was not old, but he -was alone, and around him in the beautiful room that he had made, with -its spacious calm, its books, its pictures, was complete darkness. - - - - -CHAPTER IV - -_Anne and Anne_ - - -Minerva came cat-footed up the stairs and knocked at Miss Carrington’s -sitting-room door. - -Miss Carrington lowered her book, frowning impatiently. - -“It’s maddening never to hear you coming, Minerva,” she said. “Luckily -my nerves are equable. Now what do you want?” - -“Merton sent his boy around with a message from Master Kit--Mr. -Carrington. You are not to wait lunch for him; he is lunching out,” -said Minerva. - -“I wonder where?” murmured Miss Carrington, but she resumed her book as -if the wonder were not keen. - -“With Mr. Richard Latham, the poet.” Minerva had waited for the -question and her eyes snapped with enjoyment at her answer. - -“What!” cried Miss Carrington, erect in an instant. “Kit doesn’t know -him.” - -“It would seem that he must, now,” suggested Minerva. “He’s lunching -there. There’s no mistake in the message, because Tommy didn’t merely -say ‛Mr. Latham,’ nor ‛the poet,’ but ‛_Mr. Richard Latham, the -poet_.’ That’s too much to get wrong.” - -“It’s too much, whatever Merton’s boy said. How in the world did it -happen?” Miss Carrington speculated. “I suppose the secretary asked him -there for some reason----” - -“The reason wouldn’t be hard to guess, Miss Carrington,” said -Minerva, who knew how to ingratiate when she wished to. “Mr. Latham’s -housekeeper, as you well know, is a friend of mine. She goes to -Allen’s, the grocer’s, at this hour every day. To be sure he’s not our -grocer, but the same brand of cocoa is the same brand wherever you buy -it, provided the tin isn’t unsealed, and we haven’t enough cocoa for -more’n two makings.” - -“Well, Minerva, I don’t want to run short of cocoa,” said Miss -Carrington, gravely. “You’ll find my change purse in the small -right-hand drawer of my bureau. Don’t charge anything at Allen’s; I -don’t like the place. I hope you won’t be long.” - -“No longer than is necessary, Miss Carrington. Mrs. Lumley has to be -given her head in talking around Robin Hood’s barn--provided I meet -her. You can’t talk to her till she’s talked off to you whatever’s on -her mind,” Minerva answered. - -The sage Minerva had found Miss Carrington’s small worn tray purse, -and now she took herself soundlessly away, with complete understanding -between herself and her mistress as to what was expected of her. - -Miss Carrington admitted her maid to intimacy though not to friendship; -a lone woman must of necessity do so. No one else in her life had ever -been so deeply within it as Minerva had grown to be during twenty years -of service as Miss Carrington’s personal attendant, day and night, in -sickness and in health. - -Minerva held Miss Carrington at an estimate unlike her friends’ -estimate of her; in some ways it was less, in some ways more, accurate. - -She realized that Miss Carrington was clever, but she could not gauge -her learning as her friends did. She had no way of knowing how witty, -how accomplished her mistress was. On the other hand, no one else -appreciated so fully her acumen, her efficiency. - -With this appreciation, Minerva held her mistress stupid not to have -achieved more. What was a maiden lady at nearly seventy, after -all? Minerva’s dull sister had done better for herself; she had a -husband, the rank of matron. Minerva discounted Miss Carrington’s -fierce pride in being Miss Anne Carrington, of the original Cleavedge -Carringtons--perhaps because it was too fierce? - -Minerva knew her mistress’s faults even better than her friends did, -but not the same faults. To her friends Miss Carrington was generous, -unselfish, nobly, though faultily, scornful of these virtues in -herself, too detached to practise them as virtues, just as she was too -much engrossed in her pursuits to be lonely. - -Minerva knew that she was not generous, though she lavished money; that -she was bound on all sides by herself, for which self and through which -self she saw all things, beyond which she never aspired. Minerva knew -that she was so far from detachment that all her thoughts were chained -to Anne Carrington, except when they reached out to Kit, who was but -another form of her self-seeking. - -Minerva knew that Miss Carrington’s temper was difficult, not less -so that the restrictions which she put upon its vent made it fairly -good-mannered. And, finally, Minerva knew that her mistress was -neither indifferent to her reputation nor so happy in the use of her -clever brain that she was not lonely. She knew that Miss Carrington -was cruelly lonely; that her loneliness was growing inward, feeding, -battening upon her; that her daily fight was against her fear of the -dark, the dark that was within. - -Minerva loved her mistress and detested her. Nothing could have induced -her to leave her, nor to forego her daily anathemas of her. Miss -Carrington depended upon Minerva and detested her; leaned upon the -keenness of the judgments of her class; called her by word and act a -fool; berated her sarcastically; walked on tip-toe for fear of her; -told herself that she would not keep Minerva beyond the season then -passing; would have deprived herself of all else to retain her. - -It was a curious relation, a strange attitude, equally contradictory on -both sides, but it was one common between two women who are rivetted -together, whether as mistress and maid, friends or sisters, or even, -not infrequently, mother and daughter. - -Miss Carrington had ordered lunch hurried, and had finished it when -Minerva returned. It had seemed to her an unreasonably long time that -she was kept waiting; she greeted Minerva with the remark that she had -been forever when she came in. - -“It took as long as it took,” remarked Minerva, laying upon the table -a small packet tied around its middle with a cotton string. “Cocoa is -two cents more at Allen’s than it is at Boothby’s, but that’s only a -postage stamp, and often and often there’s little news in a letter -though it overweighs.” Minerva dearly loved sybilline utterances. - -“Did you meet Mrs. Lumley and was she satisfactory?” Miss Carrington -asked. - -“As to satisfactory, she is a lump!” declared Minerva with scornful -emphasis. “But she did speak of Mr. Kit’s being there, and I know -all about it. It seems that little Anne Berkley brought him there -with her. As though you didn’t know Mr. Latham! That little witch -is a prime favourite of Mr. Latham’s and visits him a great deal; -she’s everybody’s favourite, and she would amuse a blind man. And the -child is very fond of Miss Dallas, the secretary. So Master Kit gets -little Anne to take him there. And he is asked to lunch. And after -lunch the party is going driving, with horses, mind you, like their -own grandfathers.” Minerva was intensely scornful of this reversion. -“Master Kit, the secretary, and the child, Mr. Latham, of course. And -Stetson, who was going in case of being needed, is left, and Mr. Kit -will be beside Mr. Latham, who likes to drive, but has to be watched -and told which way, and all that. And they had a pleasant lunch party, -laughing and talking. Mrs. Lumley heard little Anne’s voice a good -deal, and they were laughing at her. So that’s as far as any one could -tell you who wasn’t one of them. And I’m going to have my luncheon now, -Miss Carrington, for chilled cream sauce, which I saw passing through, -with cold potatoes, is not desirable. But cold they are, and often will -be for me, I suppose, while I do for you.” - -“After all, it tells me nothing, except that apparently Kit went there -on his own initiative,” said Miss Carrington, rubbing her nose with -manifest annoyance. “If the girl had invited him he would not have -needed little Anne Berkley’s good offices. If I knew which way they had -gone--it’s a good day for a drive.” - -“Ah, to be sure; I asked that,” said the thorough Minerva, turning -back. “I forgot to tell you. Mrs. Lumley said that little Anne went -out to see her after lunch. She is very partial to the child, and Anne -never forgets to visit her. She asked Anne where they were driving, -and Anne laughed and said: ‛Out to the willow-ware china park.’ Now I -ask you if that isn’t exactly like little Anne Berkley? She’s just so -nonsensical. Mrs. Lumley says she’s no mortal idea where it can be, -but that Mr. Latham and little Anne have all sorts of names for things -and people, which they make great secrets. You could easily overtake -them in the car, and they poking with horses, if you knew where a -‛willow-ware china park’ might be.” - -Miss Carrington smiled. - -“No wonder that little Anne and Mr. Latham enjoy each other if they -make life as interesting as that!” she mused. “Let me think where it -can be. Willow ware--a small bridge--why, of course, Minerva! It’s the -park on the west side where they’ve bridged that tiny stream and put -up a summer pagoda! Tell Noble to have the car around in ten minutes. -I’ll not change my dress. You’ve been out and know what the weather is; -get out the coat I need, and bring up that new veil; I left it in the -library. Help me dress; first call Noble.” - -Miss Carrington hastened upstairs and Minerva went out of the swinging -door at the rear, outraged, but muttering: - -“It’s as cold now as it can be; I suppose another half-hour won’t -matter.” - -Within fifteen minutes Miss Carrington was sitting back against the -cushions of her car, seeing neither the lovely spring day nor Daniel -Noble’s respectable mulberry-coloured back, so occupied was she with -her plan. - -There were several ways to reach the new park, and on the way -thither Miss Carrington did not overtake the carriage for which she -was watching. But as her car slowly wound around the pretty though -unconvincing mazes of the carefully planned little park, she saw the -carriage standing empty, except of a youth, evidently garnered on the -spot, who was holding the horses. Three adult figures and a child were -standing on the small bridge over the toy stream. It was so ludicrously -like the old willow-ware pattern that Miss Carrington smiled at the -resemblance, though she was sharply intent upon getting a first -impression of the young woman of the group. She saw that the girl was -not above medium height, that she was graceful, well-dressed, refined -in bearing and gesture. As she raised her bent head and looked straight -at the car, Miss Carrington saw a face so sweet, so full of charm that -her heart sank. - -“Mercy upon us, she’s one of those creatures whose really great -prettiness is not equal to their intense femininity; her eyes are -beautiful. She’s a permeating creature, and looks as affectionate as -good--but not one bit stupid! Oh, poor Kit. That’s a rare type, hard to -supplant. I’ve got to see to it that she doesn’t get as far as that,” -thought this wise woman. - -In the meantime, Miss Carrington was saluting Kit, who recognized her -with anything but delight on his tell-tale face, she bade Noble drive -on, but slowly. She kept in sight of the movements of the group on the -bridge, and timed her return to it by another spur of the road just as -the Latham party left it. - -“My dear Mr. Latham!” Miss Carrington said, leaning over the side of -her car to take the poet’s hand. “I am truly glad to meet you here. -I’ve been wishing that I might ask you to come to me, but one fears -to be intrusive. I know that the world is pursuing you, as you are -retreating from it. I have a find in the book way that I should like to -show you.” - -“Thank you, Miss Carrington,” said Richard. “You are kind. And you are -not to be reckoned one of the world which you imagine is hunting me -down; you are my neighbour. I shall be grateful to be allowed to come -to see the book, and you.” - -He spoke with lovable deference, pitying her as a lonely old woman. -Miss Carrington could not hide from his blind eyes and keen intuition -that this was what she was. - -“Kit, my dear, I am glad to find that you have met Mr. Latham; it -was but the other day we were saying that you should know him, if he -wouldn’t mind too much being bothered with a lad like you. Little -namesake Anne, how do you do, my dear?” Miss Carrington graciously -extended her greetings. - -“I am quite well, thank you, Miss Carrington. You have two namesakes -here now,” said little Anne. - -“I beg your pardon, Miss Carrington! May I present to you Miss Dallas? -As little Anne says, she is another namesake of yours, an Anne,” said -Richard Latham. - -“Delighted to meet you, my dear,” said Miss Carrington, graciously, so -graciously that Kit’s experience gave him forebodings. “You must be the -happy girl of whom I’ve heard, who helps Mr. Latham to enrich us all? -And I read your clever explanation of his poem, ‛The Mole.’” - -“I am glad that you see me as a happy girl, Miss Carrington. I am -completely happy to be doing what I’m doing here,” said Anne Dallas. - -“What a lovely voice!” Miss Carrington groaned inwardly. “There is no -more dangerous gift!” - -“Would it be rank selfishness, Mr. Latham, if I begged this modest -girl, who ignores her usefulness to you, and so to us all, to take pity -on my friendlessness to-day and go back in the car with me? I am alone. -Would you be angry? And will you humour me, Miss Dallas? I drive alone -so much that one would expect me to get used to it, but I never do.” - -“I’d like to go with you, Miss Carrington,” said Anne Dallas, -truthfully. “Solitude in a car is more solitary than a carriage with -only one in it. I suppose because the horses are friendly. Mr. Latham -doesn’t want me, do you?” - -“I don’t need you, Miss Dallas,” Richard Latham smilingly corrected -her. “Here is little Anne who will play Casabianca, won’t you, Anne?” - -“Do you mean stick? That’s the boy ‛when all but him had fled,’ isn’t -it?” asked little Anne. “’Course I will! That’s how I started, and I’d -rather stick, if you please.” - -“Come, then, Miss Dallas,” said Miss Carrington, and Kit sprang to open -the car door, his silence unbroken. “You are also ‛little Anne,’ in -comparison with me.” - -Anne Dallas jumped into the car and curled down beside Kit’s aunt, -surprised, but happy in the friendliness which she was too simple to -mistrust. It was with a gloomy face that Kit watched them away, knowing -how inadequate to gauge his aunt’s mind Anne Dallas’s honesty was, and -fearing mischief from the old lady’s cordiality. He knew perfectly well -that in some way his aunt had learned his whereabouts and had come to -investigate. - -“Now, my dear, tell me how you happen to be in Cleavedge,” said Miss -Carrington, turning toward the supple young figure luxuriously nestling -beside her. “You are not the sort of girl we are accustomed to here.” - -“Don’t condemn me unheard!” laughed Anne, refusing to hear the -delicate emphasis that implied a compliment in Miss Carrington’s words; -Miss Carrington was sorry to find her able to fence. - -“I wanted to do something, and Mr. Latham was kind enough to let me -work for him. My home is near New York.” - -“Are you alone in the world, such a pretty child as you?” Miss -Carrington’s tone expressed sympathy. - -“I have a few cousins; no one else,” said Anne. She looked up -confidingly into the keen eyes above her. “The war was hard on me. No, -not a personal grief; I lost no one, there was no one in it that I -dearly loved,” she anticipated Miss Carrington’s question. “But it made -me feel that everything I knew wasn’t so, and the bleakness----” She -checked herself with a shudder. “But after that I saw that everything -that I had known was a thousand times truer than I had thought it was. -I suppose everyone went through that experience, but to each of us it -was like being born, wasn’t it?” - -“Ah!” murmured Miss Carrington, emphatically but discreetly. She had -not known this melding with impersonal agony. - -“Oh, yes, of course it was what we all felt,” Anne hastily disclaimed -difference between herself and the rest of the world. “Then I wanted to -do something in this burdened world, even though peace, of a sort, had -come.” - -“So you help a blind poet? How wonderfully beautiful,” said Miss -Carrington, gently. “You are not half known; we all took you for his -paid secretary.” - -“Oh, so I am, I am!” cried Anne, distressed. “Did I convey anything -else? Mr. Latham is not an object of charity. I am in his employ. -But--well--I want to do my best for his work, and”--she laughed shyly, -but with pretty mischief, that did not hide her pity for Richard--“I am -only his eyeglasses, but I don’t want the glasses to pinch, you see?” - -“I see,” assented Miss Carrington. “You mean, since someone must serve -him in lieu of his lost eyes, you want to see to it that it is someone -devoted to him. I still think it is wonderful. How did you hear of him, -or he of you?” - -“There was an artist here last summer who is Mr. Latham’s closest -friend. He is a very good artist----” - -“Edwin Wilberforce?” interrupted Miss Carrington. “Decidedly he is. -I would not speak so temperately of him; he is a famous and great -painter. Did he find you for his friend?” - -“He---- Yes,” said Anne. Apparently she was going to say more, but -thought better of it. “He told Mr. Latham of me, after he had written -me about Mr. Latham, so it was arranged through him that I was to come, -and here I am.” - -“A most fortunate arrangement,” said Miss Carrington. “I never saw -Richard Latham look so alive, so happy, so---- My dear, he is a -charming man! I am a selfish woman; people who reach my age through -years of solitude are likely to be, but to be so young, with your mind, -your heart to devote to a life so highly endowed, yet so denied, is a -lot that guardian angels might envy! Richard Latham can never again be -pitied, having you.” - -Anne straightened herself, her eyes widened with a startled look. She -opened her lips to speak, but closed them mutely. Miss Carrington -implied everything that she longed to deny, yet left her no opening for -denial. - -“You are far too kind, Miss Carrington,” Anne said after a moment. “Mr. -Latham should not be pitied; he is indeed highly endowed. But as to my -help, it is only eyes and hands at his service and these are common -possessions.” - -“Not stupid, makes no mistakes,” thought Miss Carrington, appraisingly, -as she glanced at Anne. “Decidedly I must get Kit away.” Aloud she -said: “I was surprised and pleased to find my boy with Mr. Latham. -I offered to take Kit to see our poet only the other day. It was -satisfactory to find him already with him, even on friendly terms. He -is a nice boy; it is not my partiality that says it.” - -“He is an uncommonly nice boy,” assented Anne so readily that her -frankness left Miss Carrington uncertain whether it were indifference, -or the most effectual disguise. “He did not introduce himself to Mr. -Latham; little Anne Berkley brought him. Isn’t she a marvellous sprite? -I never knew a child like her.” - -“She is the other Cleavedge celebrity,” smiled Miss Carrington. “I hope -we shall not spoil her. Kit is not a brilliant boy, but he has a good -mind, and a still better heart.” - -“Which is a better thing to have,” said Anne. “I don’t know him well -enough to pronounce, but I should think they were equal in him. -Mr. Carrington seems to me one of the rare people who are sane, -normal, clever, and kind. He was really beautiful toward Mr. Latham -to-day--showed him exactly the right deference combined with frank -friendliness. He is just what Mr. Latham likes and needs.” - -“Enthusiastic praise, my dear, but Kit deserves it, if you can trust -the judgment of one who is to all intents and purposes his mother. I -not only dote on him, but I mean to make him a man who will be felt in -the world. I expect him to marry a brilliant girl whom he has known for -years, who will push his fortunes. I think one of these fine days we -shall all be proud of Christopher Carrington.” - -Anne looked at her steadily, surprise in her brown eyes. She wondered -why this should be told her. She had not known Kit long, but when she -saw him the air around her was charged with a feeling that she had -avoided analyzing, not admitting to herself that it was there. But now -the sense of something that surrounded Kit arose in her memory and -insisted on its association with Miss Carrington’s confidence. - -“Proud of him by and by?” Anne said. Her colour had deepened, but her -eyes were as frank as girls’ eyes can be while they think what must be -hidden. “Aren’t you proud of your nephew now, Miss Carrington? I’m sure -you are, and that you should be.” - -Miss Carrington set Anne Dallas down at Richard Latham’s door. The -others had not returned yet. “And Kit will be asked in for tea! Why -didn’t I arrange for them to come to me for tea, where I could both -watch and ward?” she thought. - -She bade Anne an affectionate good-night, begging her to pity an old -woman, and come to cheer her loneliness with her pretty ways and face. -But when she got home she told Minerva as she removed her coat, that -“decidedly she should send at once for Helen Abercrombie to visit her.” - -“Well, if you ask me,” said Minerva with asperity, “I would say that -when you’ve exposed a film time and again, and not got any impression -on it, you may as well put in a fresh roll.” - - - - -CHAPTER V - -_Small Furthering Breezes_ - - -Miss Carrington was much struck by Minerva’s figure of speech. She -pondered it in her room, feeling that it embodied wisdom. - -She was so much struck with it that--to carry it further--she turned -over in her mind other films, but none of them fitted her camera, or -promised her the picture which she wished to take. She knew many pretty -girls, several wealthy ones, a few intellectual and well-bred ones, but -she knew no other one who united all these qualities, plus her father’s -increasing influence to get for Kit a successful career, as did Helen -Abercrombie. - -She dismissed each candidate as she reviewed her, and sat down to urge -upon Miss Abercrombie a speedy repetition of her visit to Cleavedge, -with such eloquence that on the fourth day after the note was -dispatched Miss Carrington was able to announce to Kit that Helen would -be with them within ten days. - -Kit received the news with dismay. He knew that all his ingenuity, and -he had his full share of skill in getting out of things, would not -enable him to escape the curtailment of his freedom entailed by the -presence of Helen Abercrombie as a guest in his home. - -“The shackles of civilization” is not an empty phrase. Kit foresaw the -difficulty with which he should escape the entanglements of courtesy to -his aunt and her guest. He knew that he should have all sorts of cobweb -footfalls set for him, binding him fast when he would go to catch a -glimpse of Anne Dallas. He recognized in himself a desire to see the -girl that made it to all intents and purposes a necessity. - -“It will be pleasant, Kit, my dear, to have Helen here in the spring,” -remarked his aunt. “You will feel that inspiration of the season which -Tennyson has embodied for us in lines no less true for being hackneyed. -Remember, my boy, that I’ve made my plans for you clear, and that I -expect them to be carried out. Helen is a magnificent specimen of the -best type of woman that our race has produced; even were she less -fortunate in material ways, she would still be a wife upon whom to -build a family. There is no reason why you should not be enchanted with -the hope of looking at her all your days, and that’s no trifle! It’s a -great thing, let me tell you, to know that the person you marry will -always be an agreeable object before you at breakfast, as well as at -high, hot noon. It is inconceivable that Helen could ever be a careless -creature whose hair straggled or whose collars sagged. A boy doesn’t -consider these matters which later set a man’s nerves on edge; they -do more toward making marriage a failure than the affinity of which -novelists talk--though I’m ready to concede that the affinity is likely -to attend upon these subtle causes of estrangement. It is as easy to -love the right woman as the wrong one, once you set your mind to it, -Kit. So set your mind to loving Helen; she is preëminently the right -woman for you.” - -Kit did not reply. He took his hat and went out of the house in a -melancholy mood. He distinctly did not want to marry Helen, and the -more his aunt urged the marriage upon him, with the disenchanting hint -of her power to punish him for thwarting her, the less he wanted to -marry Helen. - -“I’m going down to the Berkleys’,” he thought. “They are the happiest, -least worldly people I know.” - -He found Joan at her mother’s spending the day there with her baby, -little Barbara, named for her young grandmother and promising to have -Mrs. Berkley’s sunny temperament and unobtrusive philosophy which made -her take most things as a point in the game. Mrs. Berkley played her -game straight, a generous winner, a good loser. - -Kit was so cast down that he was glad to hear Joan’s laugh and her -baby’s shout of glee as he entered; they were intensely happy and -complete. It was not precisely with regret that he found Anne Dallas -with Joan, holding the incense jar while the young mother swung the -censer before the leaping, crowing object of their worship. Such -wholesome, natural happiness permeated the room that as Kit came into -it his spirits rose with a swift reaction from their depression. He -said to himself: “I’ll be damned if I will!” with such force that for -an instant he feared that he had spoken aloud. - -Anne Dallas greeted him pleasantly, without any sign of especial -interest in his coming. Joan was more cordial; she liked Kit a -great deal, and was so happy that when the baby was on her knee she -absent-mindedly caressed all the world, identifying it with Barbara, -who was so large a part of it. - -Little Anne fell on Kit with vehement welcome. She gave him her hand -with such desire in her eyes to give him more that Kit took it, kissing -her cheek. - -“I’m just as glad as I can be that you came!” declared little Anne. -“I’d like to have you come just purp’sly to see me. You didn’t, did -you?” - -“I came because I was rather down at the heels, in my mind, little -Anne, and this is headquarters for getting reshod,” said Kit, smiling -on the child, but glancing toward Anne Dallas, “and you’re no small -part of the Berkley cheer. I counted on you to brace me up. Some day, -if you’ll let me, I’ll come to see you, just _you_, ask for -_you_, and get shown in to see _you_. How’s that?” - -“Beautiful!” sighed little Anne. “No one ever came to see me like -that--not yet.” - -“Why should you be cast down, Kit?” asked Joan with her motherly young -smile. “I always think of you as the Fortunate Youth, like Harry -Warrington.” - -“Say, Joan, that’s a better hit than you aimed to make!” cried Kit. -“Harry Warrington wasn’t all around fortunate, and when he’d ceased to -be a youth he must have been conscious of what he’d missed.” - -Joan had a glimmer of a suspicion of the true cause of Kit’s -depression; she glanced at Anne Dallas with the light of her suspicion -in her eyes, but Anne said unconsciously: - -“What nice old fogies you are to be so familiar with your Thackeray! I -shouldn’t catch your allusion but that I read ‛The Virginians’ to Mr. -Latham quite lately. And I found Thackeray greater, even in that book, -than any one else.” - -“You’ll be all right, Kit; you need not worry. As long as you see -straight it will be all right with you. Harry Warrington was a stupid -youth,” said Joan, hedging for safety, being uncertain of her ground. - -“I suspect all youths are stupid,” said Kit. “My aunt considers me so. -I’ve just had a lecture on The Whole Duty of Man, and it depressed me. -The great A stands for autocrat, as well as Anne.” - -Little Anne clapped her hands and jumped up and down, crying: - -“Great A--your aunt! Little A--me! Bouncing B--that’s Babs; look how -she jounces herself up and down! There’s no cat in the cupboard who -can’t see, though!” - -“There’s a Kit in the cupboard, shut up with the mice!” Kit shouted the -words on his explosive laugh. “And the great A certainly thinks he’s -blind! Say, little Anne, Mother Goose with Anne sauce isn’t half bad!” - -“It’s fine!” little Anne approved him. “Though I don’t exactly -understand the joke. We’ve so many Annes in Cleavedge that it’s--do -you know what? An Anthology. That’s what Peter-two said. Cleavedge is -an Anthology. Peter made that joke; it’s a pun; Peter-two likes puns.” - -“You don’t know what that means,” said Kit. - -“I do! I do, too!” little Anne flatly contradicted him, taking a -running leap that landed her sharp little knees on Kit’s legs and made -him wince. “An Anthology’s a book with lots of things collected into -it, like poetry, or fairy stories, or--oh, things that you can put -together in one book. I do know!” - -“You certainly do!” Kit admitted, handsomely. “Anne, sometimes I’m -afraid you’re too learned; it’s fearful to be erudite.” - -“I don’t know what that is,” said little Anne. “Anthology’s not such -a dreadfully long word--multiplication is one count longer and all -children say it’s easy! Mother says it’s all what you hear and learn. -She says it’s the same about thinking; it’s just’s easy to think about -big things as little ones, and good things as bad ones; that’s what she -says. She says it’s all what you’re used to. And my mother tells me -about big things quite often.” - -“She does, I know; you frequently allude to them,” said Kit, -abstractedly. - -He was looking at the lovely group across the room: the leaping, -gurgling baby; the two fair, flushed young women with the same look on -their faces, a look that Kit found natural in Joan, but awesome and -mysterious in Anne Dallas, a prophecy that quickened his breath. - -“I’ve an Anthology,” said little Anne, taking Kit’s face between her -palms with no intention of allowing his thoughts to wander from her. -“It’s the one Joyce Kilmer made. There’s a poem in it about Michael the -Archangel. You can hear it rush, and it shines. We say a prayer after -Mass. It begins: ‛St. Michael, the archangel, defend us in battle.’ I -love it. When we say it I can just see him on account of that poem. -A lady wrote it. Her name is Katharine Tynan, but she’s called Mrs. -Hinkson now because she married him. Now listen! I’m going to say two -verses for you, the two which make me breathe so hard, and you see if -you don’t love, _love_ ’em! - - ‛_His wings he hath put away in steel, - He goes mail-clad from head to heel; - Never moon-silver hath outshone - His breastplate and his morion._ - - _His brows are like a battlement, - Beautiful, brave, and innocent; - His eyes with fires of battle burn-- - On his strong mouth the smile is stern._’ - -“Isn’t that great, _great_!” Little Anne caught her breath in a -sob. “Isn’t he beautiful, and awful? I’m not afraid of him; I’d like to -go with him, anywhere.” - -“You wouldn’t be afraid of any one who fought for the right, little -Anne,” said Kit, somewhat embarrassed by this child’s demands upon him. -“And that poem is in Joyce Kilmer’s Anthology? Well, he himself fought -for the right.” - -“Oh, yes!” Little Anne clasped and unclasped her hands. “He went -scouting to find where the dang’rous enemy was hiding, and they found -him lying, just as if he was looking over the edge. He was looking for -Germans. They were devilish, weren’t they?” - -“We thought so, little Anne,” said Kit. - -“Well, what do you suppose it felt like?” Anne went on. “I’ve wondered -and wondered. It makes me shake. He was looking for Germans, and they -shot, and there was God Almighty!” - -“Anne!” gasped Kit, honestly shocked. - -Little Anne misinterpreted his exclamation. She raised to him her dark -eyes burning in her white face; deep hollows were suddenly graven below -them. - -“Isn’t it?” she whispered. “Just like that! He was looking for devils -and there was God! And I think He just said, ‛You nice, brave boy!’ And -Joyce Kilmer got right up and ran over to Him. But he left his body -looking down over the edge, because they found it there. It makes me -cold!” - -Anne’s hands were icy as she caught Kit around the neck and hid her -face on his shoulder; her body was shaking. - -“There, there, little Anne, don’t! I wouldn’t think such things; they -aren’t good for you. It’s all over,” Kit said. - -He looked appealingly across to Joan and Anne Dallas, who did not heed -him; the baby at that moment had captured her mother’s scissors. - -Little Anne straightened herself and stared at Kit in amazement. - -“Why, of course it’s good for me! It’s _very_ good for my soul -to think of it, and I love to feel so cold, and to shake the way that -makes me shake! It’s noble shaking; not common scared. If ever I’m a -nun I’ll meditate and meditate! You get up in the middle of the night -to when you’re a Carmelite, and I think I’ll be Carmelites, they’re the -strictest----” - -“Anne! Anne Berkley!” Peter’s indignant voice interrupted Anne from -upstairs, calling over the banisters. - -“Yes, Peter-two,” said little Anne, getting down from Kit’s lap and -going serenely toward the door. - -“Who let out all the hens? I’ll bet I know!” growled Peter. - -“Oh, yes; so do I,” said little Anne. “It was me, Petey, but they -didn’t go away. They stayed around; I watched ’em--a while.” - -“Yes, a while!” Peter scorned her. “How long? Didn’t father say I had -no business to keep hens in town, and I’d have to give ’em up if they -annoyed the neighbours? They’re annoying them all right, all right! -Over at Davis’s next door scratching up the last lettuce leaf this -minute, and all their peas done for! Now dad’ll make me sell ’em, after -I’ve bought feed at the price it was all winter, and now it’s spring -and the hens were going to pay back some of it! And I was going to set -’em!” - -“And have dear little fluffy chicks? I know, Peter dear; you told me,” -cried Anne with feeling. “Oh, you don’t think father’ll be so cruel as -to stop us?” - -“_Us!_ Well, I like your nerve!” Peter’s contempt was beyond -his power of expression. “Sure he’ll make me sell ’em. What in the -dev--what made you let ’em out? Of all the contemptible tricks! And of -all troublesome, meddlesome children! They spoil you, Anne Berkley. -You’re a spoiled kid, and I hate to think what’ll become of you.” - -“You shouldn’t swear, Peter,” said Anne with the calm dignity of an -archbishop. “Of course I’m not spoiled. Do you think my father and -mother could? They wouldn’t be seen spoiling me! And the reason I -let those hens out, if you want to know, is because one got her head -through the wire, and we thought she’d choke to death. Monica was with -me. Her eyes just goggled out and her neck got as long! It was fearful! -It made us sick to shove her back, but we did. Then we knew if one got -choked they all might, so we let ’em out, and I meant to tell you, but -I forgot. We watched ’em for goodness knows how long, and they just -kept around as harmless! Don’t you worry about father, Peter-two! I’ll -tell him how it happened, and he’ll understand. He’ll buy the Davises -some more lettuce and peas and things. I’ll get him to let you keep the -hens, Peter-two; don’t you worry!” - -“And you’re not spoiled! Oh, no. Not a-tall!” growled Peter, returning -to his room to prepare for the merry sport of driving his hens out of -a neighbour’s garden. The worst of it to Peter’s mind was that he -knew that Anne would be able to do precisely as she promised, that her -explanation would mollify, if not amuse, his father, and that Peter -would keep his hens through her intercession. The thought infuriated -him. He turned back to the stairway and called down: - -“You get a move on you and come help me head those hens, or they’ll go -down to the city hall and dig out the statue of old Carrington on the -mall!” - -“Oh, Peter-two, take care! That’s Kit’s great-grandfather, or somebody, -and he’s here!” remonstrated Anne in a shocked voice, as one always -right. - -Anne Dallas and Joan managed to have their faces hidden in the baby’s -preparations for departure when little Anne came back, but Kit was -caught in throes of laughter. He was waiting to walk home with Anne -Dallas. - -“I hope you don’t mind, Kit?” little Anne said, anxiously. “Peter-two -wasn’t hitting at your great-grandfather’s statue, or whoever he is; he -meant me and the hens. I’m sorry mother wasn’t home, but I did enjoy -your call, Mr. Carrington.” She gave Kit her hand with the air of a -fine lady. - -Anne Dallas and Kit turned down the street in the May sunshine, with -constraint between them that both found difficult to break up. - -They discussed little Anne till there was no more to say, even on this -fruitful subject, and they talked of Mr. Latham, a theme to which Anne -rose with animation. - -“My aunt was telling me something that you said to her which I could -not understand,” said Kit. “You told her the war had hit you hard, and -you seemed to connect that with your work for Latham. I was curious -as to where the connection could be. Do you mind my asking? Is it a -secret?” - -“No, it’s harder to explain than secrets are,” smiled Anne. “It’s not -connected, except as I make it so. You see, Mr. Carrington, I have a -wee income, but I could make it suffice for my living--that is if I -lived so that it would suffice! I doubt you’d think I could. I suppose -I’d have gone on living on it, for I’m not an ambitious person; I’m -naturally inclined to ignoble content with little ways and little days! -But when the war came I--well, as you put it, I was hard hit! It wasn’t -as if I were grief-stricken. I had no one in it. But it was as if I had -everyone out of it! I mean it took the heart of the things which were -most important. I was too young to keep my balance. I got it back, or -a new one that I hope, I know, will stand a strain when it comes. When -my confusion of mind was set straight, then I knew that I must not sit -down in sloth all my life, calling it pretty, misleading names, like -‛contentment,’ ‛humility,’ anything lulling. I made up my mind to use -any slight ability that I had and try to----” She hesitated. - -“Help,” Kit said, softly. - -“Well, at least not grow inward,” Anne admitted. “That’s all. I -couldn’t explain all this to Miss Carrington. It does sound silly, but -that’s only because I’m not able to do important work. It wouldn’t -sound foolish if I were going to--what was it that little Anne was -saying to you? Be a Carmelite? Something like that, you know.” - -She looked up at Kit with her brown eyes shy and abashed, but he did -not seem to consider her silly. - -“To be eyes to the blind, to help a poet write what Mr. Latham -writes--or I hear that he does; I don’t honestly know much about it -yet--seems to me pretty fine,” he said. “Aunt Anne told me that the -painter, Wilberforce, got you to undertake Latham.” - -“Yes,” Anne assented. “Now, Mr. Carrington, why were you so blue when -you came this afternoon? Do you want to ‛trade,’ as children say? I -told you my secret.” - -“Oh, how can I?” Kit blushed to his hair. “All that I could tell you -would sound like a spoiled, selfish kid! Aunt Anne has a guest coming, -a young lady, and I’ve got to see it through, and I hate it! That’s -about all.” Kit checked the violence with which he had brought out the -word “hate,” and ended with a modification of the truth. - -“Ah?” Anne raised her eyebrows. She thought that she saw more than Kit -said, remembering what Miss Carrington had hinted of Kit’s prospects -for marriage. - -“But that ought not to be tragic!” Anne continued with a laugh. “It -does sound like a boy who had had too much his own way! The only thing -for you to do is to make the guest’s way your way. When you are both -young that surely is easy to do! Is she pretty?” - -“No, she isn’t! She’s a beauty,” grumbled Kit with such an effect of -this being the unpardonable sin that Anne laughed outright. “And her -way can’t be my way. That’s what Aunt Anne wants me to do: make our way -parallel. I won’t! Don’t you give me the same advice!” - -“I should not dream of giving you advice, Mr. Carrington,” said Anne -with a funny, mischievous little look that further infuriated Kit. “Why -should I? Nor shall I let you imply complaint of that doting old lady -who is plainly wrapped up in her one affection--you! I’ve no doubt that -she knows what’s good for you. Good-bye. And pray don’t gloom at your -guest as you’re frowning on me now, for she won’t be out of doors where -she can run if she gets too frightened. Fancy being shut up in the -house with such an ogre as you look this minute!” - -Anne put out her hand with a friendly smile, and Kit abandoned his -intention to resent her making game of him. - -He smiled at her instead, and joined in her laughter. - -“Good-bye,” he said. “I’m coming around to talk to Mr. Latham. I need -literature.” - - - - -CHAPTER VI - -_“The Face That Lit the Fires,” etc._ - - -“What table decorations would you suggest, Kit? The drawing room is -more important but I thought we might carry out the same flower scheme -throughout, even to the bedroom. What do you advise?” Miss Carrington -waited for Kit’s reply with evidences of extreme solicitude; she knew -the value of personal responsibility, that it aroused interest in a pie -to feel one had a finger in it. - -Kit looked honestly puzzled. - -“What are the decorations for, Aunt Anne? What’s on?” he asked. - -“My dear boy! As though you didn’t know that Helen was coming! That’s -the sort of event one doesn’t forget.” Miss Carrington was arch. - -“Oh, Jemima! I thought she came on---- Great Scott, so this is -Thursday! I had it in my head it was Wednesday.” Kit’s dismay was -comical. “I don’t know what sort of flowers she likes. They’re all -right, any of ’em.” - -“Don’t you think yellow blossoms? Helen is such a golden-tinted girl. -Jonquils aren’t to be had. Roses? But they are not imaginative.” Miss -Carrington bowled over her ten pins as fast as she set them up. “I -particularly like to have flowers which declare themselves thought-out, -selected for their suitability.” - -“Orchids,” muttered Kit, crossly. “No, yellow jasmine. Isn’t that the -stuff that is so unnaturally heavy-scented?” - -“Long sprays of jasmine with ferns, and over across the room great -white roses!” Miss Carrington looked delighted. “Yellow jasmine is the -very thing! Helen is so wonderfully graceful. I’ll tell her it was your -suggestion, Kit. Helen has acquired all the modern ways, independence, -equality of mind, and that sort of thing, but a woman is always a woman -below the fashions of the varying periods; Helen will be gratified that -you were perceptive of her peculiar charm.” - -“Well, Aunt, if you tell her of course I’ll have to stand for it; I -can’t explain, but the heavy-scented jasmine wouldn’t be my choice as -a representative, if I were a girl. What time is she coming? Shall you -meet her?” asked Kit. - -“She gets here on the 4:12. I’ll send the car, but you’ll go down with -it, I assume,” Miss Carrington implied that her remark was superfluous. - -Kit shook his head hard. “Couldn’t possibly to-day,” he said. “I had -it in my head that to-day was Wednesday, and I told Antony Paul I’d go -with him to see a dog he’s dickering for. He asked me yesterday. It -won’t matter; I’ll be in long before dinner.” - -“Can’t you call Antony Paul and defer the dog’s inspection?” Miss -Carrington admitted Kit’s authority on dogs, for which he had a -reputation. - -“Antony’s got an option only till this afternoon. Another man’s waiting -to gobble the pup if Tony drops him. Oh, come, now, aunt, it isn’t -necessary for me to go to the station; you’re Helen’s hostess, and -for that matter, I’d back Noble against the world as a chaperon or -guardian.” - -Kit grinned, cheerful over this small victory. - -“I suppose you do not need to be told that one doesn’t meet a guest -either as her guardian or chaperon. Courtesy is valuable, Kit! And a -warm welcome is pleasant to us all. But since you’ve promised young -Paul it cannot be helped; I’ll meet Helen. Try to be at home early, -please.” - -Miss Carrington went away to order the jasmine, and Kit departed to -join Antony Paul at lunch, and then go with him to the suburban kennels -to inspect the pup that was intended to grow up with baby Barbara. - -It was a most promising dog Kit declared when he had looked it over, -and managed to rescue his glove from the youngster’s white teeth, not -so damaged but that it could be worn home, provided he remembered to -hold the thumb well against his coat. - -Antony bought the pup and Kit bade it a cordial good-bye, holding its -uneasy head between his palms as he looked into the purplish eyes, in -process of change from blue to brown. - -“You’ve done me a favour, small dog, and I’ll do one for you when -chance offers,” said Kit. “I suspect I’ve done you a favour already in -helping you to a home with Antony and nice Mrs. Antony.” - -“Here, stop undermining me in my dog’s affections!” protested Antony. -“That pup has no use for me while you’re around.” - -“Dogs and I are natural pals,” said Kit, releasing the puppy. “The -trolley leaves on the even hour, Tony; we’ve got to get right out after -it.” - -Warned by a shrill whistle they ran for their car from the corner. They -made it and established themselves on the platform, lighting up their -cigars and recovering breath. - -“Dogs and I do get on,” Kit reverted. “I like them, though that’s a -fool remark. Most men do.” - -“Not all, though. How they keep off it beats me,” said Antony Paul. -“When you want to say the best possible things about a man you -attribute to him the qualities every good dog has, but not every good -man, or men who are accounted good by themselves and others. Loyalty, -fidelity, generosity, forgivingness, hero-worship, unfaltering love, -patience, admiration, confidence--these are the things every good dog -gives us. And intelligence! What a fine dog doesn’t know! It’s amazing -the way they understand you. I had a dog once, the best comrade a -fellow could have asked. When I----” - -Kit knew what happened when people started on anecdotes of their pets. -He ruthlessly interrupted Antony. - -“Yes, I know; that’s the way I feel about dogs,” he said. He turned and -knocked his cigar ashes over the end of the car, carefully, as if the -trolley platform were carpeted. - -“But you know, Antony,” Kit continued the conversation with his own end -in view, “a lot of people seem to think it’s all poppycock to look for -things like that in humans. People, experienced people, you know, whose -opinion ought to count, tell you it’s sentimental to insist on--well, -on marrying for love, you know. They say take a nice girl, a suitable -girl, one that isn’t going to get on your nerves, of course, and marry -for expediency. They say that this kind of an arranged partnership -holds out better than the kind that is not arranged, that flies, so to -speak, a winged thing from the start. What do you say about it? You’re -married to the nicest sort of a girl; of course you fell in love with -her; any one would love Joan Berkley, but you’ve got sense, and by this -time you must have perception of what various sorts of marriages could -be. What do you say? Do you think it’s better to go in for romance? All -decent young chaps have a leaning toward it, I think.” - -Antony looked at Kit sharply. - -“As a rule, Christopher, my son, you are not given to abstract -speculation. What’s up? Or don’t you care to tell me?” he said. - -“I wouldn’t mind, only it’s currish to talk, you know,” said Kit. “Aunt -Anne has ideas about me which I don’t share; that’s about the sum of -it. She urges me to ambition, and she thinks marriage would land me at -the top of the heap. The top of the heap is all right, but I can’t see -her road to reach it.” - -Antony and Joan had discussed Helen Abercrombie when she had made her -previous visit to Cleavedge. It required no great perspicacity to see -that Miss Carrington desired her for Kit. If Helen Abercrombie were the -sort of girl that Kit wanted, that would be his business, but it seemed -to this youthful pair of Kit’s friends that Helen was not for him. Now, -as Antony looked at Kit, he saw that Helen was decidedly not the girl -that Kit wanted. He said: - -“Well, Kit, old man, as to the top of the heap being a better berth -than the side, or maybe the foot, that would depend entirely on what -suited your constitution, or whether you found more briars at the top, -or farther down. I don’t think ambition as an end is worth what a man -sacrifices for it. It’s a means, not an end; the part you play in the -world. As to romance, to my mind it’s about the one real thing there -is. That’s only another way of saying that life’s pretty punk when you -strip it of ideals. And as to marriage without love--now I don’t mean -the stuff people call love and eventually haul into divorce courts to -make room for the next case of it, but what you and I mean when we use -the word--I think marriage without it comes mighty close to sacrilege. -It would bring a heavier penalty than you could carry around. I’m a -lucky man, Kit, but perhaps it’s not altogether luck. Joan and I are -truly married, but we didn’t blunder on our happiness accidentally; -we went after it right. Trouble wouldn’t sicken us of each other. If -Joan broke down and got--well, not downright ugly, because how could -she?--but lost her looks, she’d still have her loveliness in my eyes. -And when I’m an old grouch, or if I go stone broke, Joan won’t get sick -of me. It’s the real thing, founded on the biggest thing there is. My -advice to you, Kit, is to keep off! You’re not a fellow to put up with -less than the right marriage. It’s a solemn risk to tie yourself up -for life to one person, and I tell you right now I’d hate to take it -on ambition. If you’re in love with the girl, that’s another matter; -then you wouldn’t marry her for ambition, but for love of her, same as -if she were a poor girl. You’ll repent in dust and ashes if you marry -a woman that you don’t love. More especially in ashes! You needn’t -mention to Miss Carrington that I said so, but the prizes you’d get at -the price of your ideals wouldn’t look to you better than a brass scarf -pin in a package of popcorn. Selah!” - -“Much obliged, Antony,” said Kit, looking grave, though he laughed. “I -suppose everyone considers his own brand of happiness the right one; -that’s only another way of saying it’s perfect happiness. But I seem -to have a lot of faith in your judgment. I’d take your advice sooner -than almost any one’s. You’re able to look out of your own windows to -see the other fellow’s view. I suspect you’re right. It’s a funny thing -that one person attracts us and another person doesn’t! Perfectly all -right person, too! You don’t want her though she’s handsome, desirable -enough. But----” - -“But you don’t desire her! There you are. And that’s good and -sufficient proof that there’s where you ought to stop. It’s no funnier -than that Joan tucks away whole saucerfuls of strawberries, and is -ready to cry for more, while if I eat the smallest saucerful of them -I’m crying _from_ them, not for them. It’s our digestion, our -acids, our fitness, Kit! Don’t swallow a person who is not to your -palate; you’ll be fatally ill if you do, my son,” preached Antony. - -“Cannibalistically put, but sound doctrine, Reverend Father Antony -Paul!” said Kit. “And what shall you call the dog?” - -“Guard, short for Guardian,” said Antony, promptly. “I’m getting him to -guard Barbara when she begins her excursions into a dangerous world.” - -Kit got into the house quietly on his return and went softly to his -room, making signals to Minerva, whom he met in the hall, not to betray -him. He wanted to set his thoughts in order before he met Helen. He -wanted also to dress for dinner. - -He heard Helen’s silvery, prettily modulated voice as he slipped past -his aunt’s sitting room. There was no denying that she had many gifts. - -When Kit came down an hour later his aunt and Helen were in the drawing -room. He looked well with his clear-tinted skin, his fine features set -into relief by the expanse of white linen which he wore. - -Helen estimated him anew as she arose to greet him. A glance would -reveal Christopher Carrington a gentleman; that he could be trusted; -that he was kind and upright and that, if he were not brilliant, he had -excellent mental powers. - -“He does very well,” thought Helen, and extended her hand with a hearty -friendliness that instantly demolished Kit’s barriers and made him -slightly ashamed. - -It was caddish to have it in mind to refuse a hand that was held out as -one boy greets another; after all, Helen might not be cognizant of his -aunt’s plan, still less coöperating with it. - -Kit saw a girl as tall as he was, slender, with perfect dignity and -grace of carriage; a handsome face, a well-shaped head upborne with -spirit by a rounded neck that had the sweep of line that is best shown -by an evening gown. The carefully arranged hair was pale gold in -colour; not yellow, but the shade of the palest jonquils. - -“She’d look well at a court,” thought Kit, involuntarily recalling -what his aunt had hinted of a future embassy through ex-Governor -Abercrombie’s influence. But what he said aloud was: - -“Hallo, Helen! You’re beating yourself at your own game!” - -“Hallo, Kit! It’s this becoming gown. You look uncommonly fit, and -aren’t ugly to-night, yourself,” retorted Helen. “It’s fine to see you -again, nice Kitten! I like to come here because I can do and say and be -exactly as I feel!” - -“Yes. I don’t know another girl to whom I can talk as I do to you, -Nell,” said Kit, cordially, his old familiarity with her springing up -now that he saw Helen in the body. His aunt’s attitude toward her was -lost in Helen’s own frank attitude toward himself. - -Miss Carrington’s maid announced dinner and Miss Carrington turned to -Kit, all gracious smiles and pleasure as she saw the admiration for -Helen in Kit’s eyes. - -“Take Helen out, Kit. We aren’t a party, but she, being guest, may have -as much as that of a dinner party,” she said. - -Helen laughed and drew the elder woman’s hand through her arm, patting -it as it rested on her diaphanous sleeve which floated from the curves -of her beautiful arm. - -“Not a bit of it!” she cried. “I’ll take you out, or we’ll take each -other, and Kit can trot along by himself, thanking heaven that two such -noble specimens of womanhood allow him to watch their gracious backs.” - -At dinner Helen chatted merrily with wit and charm on all sorts -of subjects, treating Kit and his aunt with much the same kind of -friendliness, but giving it to Miss Carrington in warmer degree. She -was evidently emancipated from the prejudices of an earlier generation, -for she touched on subjects once taboo, treating them as if they were -part of daily life without emphasizing them. But Kit remembered that -Joan Berkley Paul hardly knew this part of life, and that possibly -little Anne would never know it. He thought of Anne Dallas, also, as a -sheltered type of mind, as one that sought shelter. - -After dinner, when they had returned to the drawing room, Kit asked, - -“Does Helen sing to-night?” - -“No, Helen doesn’t sing to-night; she waits till she has had a night’s -sleep after her journey, because she makes it a rule not to use her -voice when she is tired. Helen talks to Kit and gets his view of some -of her problems; Miss Carrington says that she has three unescapable -letters to write. Bless her old heart! What should we do, we women, -without heads to ache and letters to write! Of course it’s obvious that -these letters are for Kit’s and Helen’s benefit! So come along, Kit! -Take me to your particular shrine, where you smoke, for I’m going to -smoke and talk with you.” She put her hand in Kit’s, waiting to be led. - -“You’re a great one, Nell!” cried Kit. “What others think you say. Aunt -Anne doesn’t know you smoke.” - -“Doesn’t she? Well, then, she gives herself the benefit of her -ignorance. I’m sure she suspects it, with reason! And feels she’d have -to protest if she knew it. Funny, when she’s so up-to-date, that she -minds smoking! So many other things are intrinsically wrong, if you’re -going to bother about it, and she doesn’t mind them, plays and novels -and so on.” - -Helen swung his hand as she talked and they went down the hall to the -small room at the end which had been set apart for Kit’s use. - -Helen threw herself on the couch with careless ease, freeing her narrow -feet from the twist of her skirt, and crossing them a little above her -pretty ankles. - -Kit laid out a box of cigarettes and held a light for Helen, who -accepted it with her eyes fastened on his as she drew her cigarette -into a glow. - -“Fine, Kit! This is the kind I like. Nice boy; you’d never offer me -feminine substitutes, would you? Say, Kit, I was looking at you. You’re -not a genius, but you have sense. I believe I honestly do want your -opinion, though I set out to ask it in order to be nice, rather than -from actual craving for it,” she said. - -“Go to it, Helen!” said Kit, throwing himself into a deep chair and his -used match into a small hammered dish at the same time. “What’s wrong? -I suppose I should say: Who is it? since it’s a girl’s confidence that -I’m to receive.” - -“Oh, piffle, Kit! You know me better than that,” cried Helen. “In -fact, it’s the opposite sort of confidence. I’m not a bad-looking girl, -you know. Kit----” She paused. - -“Ripping. Stunning,” said Kit. - -“And my father is at once a coming man and a man that has arrived,” -Helen nodded acknowledgment of Kit’s interpolation, “so men, several, -want to marry me! Kit, I’m trying to decide whether I’ll ever marry, -or go in for a career. Now, just wait! I’ve brains as well as looks; -I sing well, but not well enough to follow it up too far. My father -could get me pretty much anything I wanted. I don’t care to marry as -most women do. I know precisely its value, both as an arrangement, -we’ll call it, and as a supplement to a clever, handsome woman’s -assets. But I can get on without marrying; in fact, I’m not sure I’d be -happy married. I think I can reach my goal, in the shape of a career, -just as well unencumbered. What would you say to me as a Power, a -Lady-with-a-Salon, a Personage to be Reckoned With in the State at -Washington? Look here, Kit, wouldn’t that be a game to play alone? I’d -lose a lot of my winnings with a partner. And besides, I couldn’t carry -out the game if I married for love. A friendly, able partner would -be the only one for that, and they’re not common. Men aren’t often -friendly to a girl who is ripping, as you call it.” - -“Well, my gracious, Helen, what makes you put it up to me? What do -I know about it? And exactly what are you getting at?” cried Kit, -perturbed. - -“Because, Kit, and you’d have seen this if you weren’t the sort you -are, there’s a man who wants me bad; right away, too! And I don’t know. -He’s richer than the Ind. I like him, but he loves me. That’s likely to -be a nuisance. It wouldn’t do, would it? And I’ve got to decide pretty -soon as to him, and I’d like to decide as to myself, too, and get about -my job. It’s tiresome to hang along, and time is valuable. Youth for -beginnings, you know.” - -Helen waited, and Kit looked at her from a new angle. He did not know -this Helen. He saw her with eyes that viewed her as a man sees a woman -who is desired by other men. And how mistaken his aunt had been to -think that she was ready to marry him! She was not considering him; she -was frankly his old friend who liked, trusted, consulted him. In this -rôle he liked her. - -“Well, Nell,” he said, slowly, “I don’t quite see how I can answer you. -You’re hard on this man, on all the men you know and whom you don’t -care to marry. It’s wasteful for a woman like you, with all you are and -have, not to marry, isn’t it?” - -“Wasteful?” Helen laughed her pretty laugh. “I suppose I may as well -tell you the whole story! I’m thinking of ‛commencing author,’ as our -British cousins say. I can write!” - -“Sure. You can do anything,” said Kit, sincerely. - -“Richard Latham lives here. I’ve never met him, often as I’ve been to -Cleavedge. You know him, don’t you? I wish you’d take me to see him, -Kit. I’d like his help. I’ve begun something and I’d like to insinuate -myself into his acquaintance till I’d dare ask him what it amounts to.” -Helen waited, watching Kit under drooping lids. - -“That’s easy,” said Kit, unsuspiciously. “I’ll take you there.” - -“Good boy!” said Helen, lying back against her pillow. - -Plainly Kit did not suspect the long, confidential talk in which his -aunt and she that afternoon had discussed him and his possible error in -taste and judgment. - -“Oh, Kit, how I must have bored you! What a good sort you are to be -so patient! As if I had to decide my problem the minute I got here! -But you did look so sane and reliable when I first saw you! Let’s put -off the momentous decision of vacillating Helen’s fate till the next -time--or far longer! I’m getting sleepy, and your aunt must be through -with those fictitious letters.” - -Helen flung herself off the couch and went out of the room in advance -of Kit. - -“You smell of cigarettes,” said Miss Carrington as they came up to her. - -Helen went closer and laid her long hands on the old lady’s head, as if -to bless her. - -“One does when one has been where they are,” she said, lightly kissing -Miss Carrington’s soft white hair. Her breath was not distinguishable -in that kiss. - -Kit went to his room conscious of having spent a delightful evening. -Helen had treated him in the one way that he could have enjoyed; he was -grateful to her for having set him at ease, for banishing a dread for -which, he was convinced, she was in no degree responsible. Never before -had Kit liked Helen Abercrombie as well as to-night. - - - - -CHAPTER VII - -_The Poet’s Corner_ - - -In the quiet room, with the sunlight shaded, for the day was warm, -Anne Dallas bent over her writing table, absorbed in her work. Richard -Latham sat opposite her, dictating slowly, his head resting on his -hand, his face turned toward her. If he could have seen one would -have said that he was watching Anne, and even though his eyes were -sightless the word was not unsuitable. He was so keenly conscious of -her movements, and his sensitive mind was so intent upon her, that he -perceived her almost as if he saw her. - -Yet this vision of Anne helped rather than hindered the dictation of -the lines of his play. That her permeation of his thoughts did not get -in the way of his developing the imaginary people whom his brain was -moving about like puppets, said as nothing else could say how one with -him she was, how completely, how selflessly she answered to his need. - -Richard Latham was writing a play. It was both comedy and tragedy, as -most real dramas are; it was realism, yet idealized as are all lives -which are worth living. It was that day reaching the end of its second -act. - -No one but Anne Dallas had yet heard a line of it. She took it from -Richard’s lips as it formed in his poet’s mind, feeling that she was -a part of something unspeakably great; it gave her at once a sense of -utter isolation and at the same time a feeling that she was in the -midst of crowding splendours which lay beyond the bounds of daily -events and their actors. - -Anne wondered while she waited for Richard to think out something that -he wanted to express exactly, why it was she to whom this experience -had fallen. Anne Dallas had not an undue opinion of Anne Dallas. She -considered herself one of the majority of average people, not exceeding -in face, mind, nor any way, hosts of girls correctly, but tamely, -described as “nice girls.” Yet it was she and none of the others -who was taking down this play to-day, these words and pictures and -characters so beautiful that she felt sure that they would live on long -after she had grown old and died. - -It was after three, and the rule was that work stopped at three, but -Richard was dictating the last lines of the second act. It was tense -with emotion, complex in situation, and many of the loveliest lines so -far in the play were in this scene. It had not occurred to the workers -to think of time. - -Anne Dallas looked up and saw little Anne Berkley coming up the walk. -Her table was beside the window, and she signalled to the child to be -quiet. Little Anne at once dropped down on the steps and began to fan -herself with her hat, for she understood the ways of the poet from past -experience, and knew that she must wait to be admitted. - -At last Richard Latham triumphantly cried: “Curtain!” and fell back in -his chair, suddenly realizing that he was tired. - -“Will it do, Miss Dallas? Could you judge it as you wrote it?” Richard -asked. - -“Oh, no, not judge it! It does far too well. I could not judge it. It -is supremely fine and beautiful; it sweeps one along with it, but I -know that it is the best thing that you have done,” cried Anne. - -“I don’t know; I’m afraid it isn’t much good,” said Richard, -despondently. “Oh, Lord! To feel something surging against your brain, -your lips, almost as if it literally pushed your ribs out, then to -be tongue-tied, to feel you’ve played it false when it wanted to be -born of you, that you’ve strangled it at birth, or brought it forth -deformed!” - -“If you could express all that you feel you would not feel enough to be -greatly worth expressing. It is neither slain nor deformed, but to you -the wings that bore it to you seem clipped. Perhaps they may be, since -your conception of it must exceed words, but you have made the rush of -those wings audible to others.” - -Anne arose as she spoke and rang for tea. She was used to dealing with -the poet’s reaction from the delight of creation; she understood it. - -“How you help me!” Richard smiled at her and put out his hand; Anne’s -skirt brushed it as she crossed the room. - -“It’s a hard thing to feel one minute like a tower reaching to heaven, -and the next like a toppled card house.” - -“Yes, it’s hard, but it doesn’t really matter, because you know it’s -only nervous reaction. It would matter if you took the tower or the -card house seriously, especially the tower! But you never lose your -perspective. It’s a great deal to be a perfectly sane great poet!” Anne -laughed, and added, “Little Anne has been meekly sitting on the steps -for some time. I signalled her to wait until you were finished. Shall I -call her now?” - -“Surely. Little Anne is as good a restorative as tea,” said Richard. -The little girl came in on her summons with a flushed and happy face; -she at once accepted Richard’s invitation to perch on the arm of his -chair, though she first violently hugged Anne Dallas. - -“I’ve been to instructions,” she replied to Richard’s question. “Yes, -I am warm; I am very warm, I am so warm that I’m boiling hot, only I’m -not to say that. It’s a pity. I think it’s one of the worst things that -ain’t--are not--sickness, or dying, or op’rations, or something, that -you can’t use strong words. I think it makes you hotter’n fury to be -just about roasted and say you’re warm!” - -Richard threw back his head and joined in Anne Dallas’s laughter. - -“You often remind me of Margery Fleming, little Anne, and it seems that -you share her love of strong language! I think myself it’s a useful -safety valve. What instructions are you getting?” - -“I don’t mean swearing, not blasphemy,” said little Anne, looking -shocked by the idea. “I mean words that sort of rip and hit things. -I wouldn’t swear, not for worlds! And I’m going to First Communion -instructions.” - -Little Anne bent her head as she said this and her thin, flashing, -elfin face took on an awed look, awe that her voice expressed. - -“At your age?” cried Richard. “Why, Anne, you are too young! When I -knew about these things we did not join the church before we were -fourteen.” - -“I don’t have to join the Church, I’m in it,” said Anne, puzzled. -“You’re old enough when you understand. And I do understand. Sister -Annunciata says I understand enough to make me dreadful ’sponsible if -I don’t try to be worthy. Though you can’t really be, you know. It’ll -be next month, Corpus Christi; it comes early. Sister says it’s often -later, but it has to come when Easter makes it. But it’s sure to be -warm, she says. We’ll have white dresses and veils, all alike, so if -a girl is kind of not able to get a fancy one, nobody’ll know which -she is. Anyway, mother says pure white and quite simple is the way we -ought to look. It is the happiest day of all my life. No matter what -other day I have, presents, or parties, or--no matter what--that’s the -happiest. How can I wait?” - -She threw back her head and lifted toward heaven a rapt, ecstatic -little face. - -“Do you think it’s possible she will feel that is true? Isn’t it -dangerous to tell her this? I’d be afraid of a disappointment and a -disastrous after effect,” said Richard to Anne Dallas. - -“Oh, no, I think not. Joan would tell us there was no danger. Little -Anne’s faith is strong. She cannot understand how happy she is to be an -innocent child, but later on she will look back to this day and realize -that she was one, and that, in very truth, her First Communion day was -the happiest one of her life,” said Anne, softly. - -Little Anne jumped down from the arm of Richard’s chair and flew to -take Anne Dallas around the neck in a tempestuous embrace. - -“Don’t be sorry you are grown up, my darling,” she cried. “You’re not -so very much grown up. And you are good! I love you. I’m going to pray -for all my dear ones on my First Communion day. You’re one! Sister -says Our Lord will love to give me what I ask for them. I’m going to -ask to be kept a little girl inside me always. Some people are. It’s -very hot--warm, isn’t it? And I see Kit Carrington coming along with a -handsome, elegant lady. She’s _awfully_ handsome! They’re turning -in here.” - -“Do you mind being caught, Mr. Latham? Anne is right; they are coming -here. You have time to escape,” suggested Anne Dallas. - -“I don’t mind. I like Kit Carrington, and the magnificence of the lady -as conveyed by little Anne ought to be enjoyable, even to a blind man. -All right, Stetson. Ask them to come in here--or, no, show them into -the garden; we’ll go there. It _is_ warm, little Anne!” - -Richard Latham, Anne, and little Anne stepped out from one of the long -French windows which gave on the garden from the dining room. Helen -Abercrombie and Kit had already reached one of the curved benches -beneath the elms which interlaced their sweeping boughs over the turf -of the upper end of the fine old garden. - -Helen was such a beautiful figure in her floating white gown, with her -drooping, white-plumed hat shading her golden hair as she arose to meet -her host that Anne Dallas, as well as little Anne, was dazzled. It -seemed a pity that a poet should not be able to look upon such wondrous -loveliness. - -“Mr. Latham, I brought my aunt’s guest, Miss Abercrombie, to see you -because--well, she wanted to come! Miss Abercrombie, Mr. Latham,” said -Kit. - -“Miss Carrington would have asked you to come to tea with us, she means -to still but I did want to come! Kit is right, and I’ve no better -excuse for intruding to add to his,” said Helen, her voice more than -ever like a delicate harp blown upon by a breeze. - -“Ought you apologize for kindness?” suggested Richard. “I am glad to -show you my garden. Kit and Miss Dallas know each---- Oh, really, I beg -your pardon!” Richard broke off with a shocked gesture. “Miss Dallas, -Miss Abercrombie.” - -Helen bowed. She possessed to perfection the art of grading her bows. -This one conveyed to Anne exactly the intended impression of her claim -to recognition for service rendered to the public, but not as a social -equal. - -Anne Dallas returned the salutation quietly. She did not miss its -quality, but it did not disturb her. She would not have been a woman, -a young woman at that, and not have been conscious to her finger tips -of the regal beauty of the girl beside her. She did not know that the -juxtaposition was planned by Helen to show Kit the contrast between -them, but it made her feel like a dull little weed to know that her -simple white gown and her smooth, dark hair were contrasting like -homespun against the elegant clothing of the other girl and the radiant -head held high above her. - -“Kit Carrington will marry her!” thought Anne, ignoring the stab the -thought dealt her. “Mr. Latham, at least, can’t see us together.” Fresh -from the enthusiasm of her day’s work, she told herself that Kit did -not count if she could hold her place in Richard Latham’s mind. But she -had to remind herself of this. - -“It’s not easy to talk to a poet. I have tried to before, but not -to one great enough to make it matter how one talked,” said Helen, -accepting Richard’s invitation to the bench under the elms. - -“Talk to the man, and never mind the poet!” said Richard. “I am not -merely a poet. Therefore I wish that I could see you, Miss Abercrombie!” - -“Now I know how well you fill the rôle I’m to play to! I already had -your measure on the poet side,” laughed Helen. “Who is the child that -looks like a changeling? Your niece?” - -“This is Miss Anne Berkley, my intimate friend, Miss Abercrombie, but I -cannot claim kinship with her except in mind,” said Richard, gravely. - -“How charming!” said Helen, carelessly. “How do you do, Miss Anne -Berkley? Another Anne!” - -“I am well, I thank you,” said little Anne. “There are many Annes in -this place, but we don’t know them all, I s’pose. I didn’t like it long -time ago, but I made an act of it, so I could bear my name, and now I -like it.” - -“What did you make of it?” cried Helen. - -“Anne means an act of mortification. She has many curious bits of -vernacular from the nuns who teach her; curious to others. That is one -of them,” explained Anne Dallas. - -“How interesting!” said Helen, by this time surfeited of little Anne -and not intending to be drawn into conversation with Anne Dallas. -Little Anne was quick to feel atmospheres. She flushed and said -vehemently: - -“The best of all lovely Annes, or anything, is Miss Anne Dallas!” - -“Indeed that is true, little Anne, though you and I love each other -so well,” said Richard Latham. “Miss Dallas stands between me and -darkness; between me and silence, between me and inability to do my -work, Miss Abercrombie.” - -“What a beautiful thing to say, Mr. Latham! Miss Dallas must feel -recompensed at this moment for all that she has done, all that she -will do. Yet I can see how bad it would be for you not to have a good -secretary.” Helen smiled toward Anne, and over her. - -“It would, indeed. But I cannot say that it has ever occurred to me -that Miss Dallas was a good secretary,” said Richard, slowly. “Are you -too tired to walk about? Do gardens bore you?” - -“Not such a garden as this one,” said Helen, graciously. “Please let -Miss Dallas come with us. Kit will look after the little girl. I am -sure that you are accustomed to Miss Dallas’s guidance.” - -“That is another profoundly true remark, Miss Abercrombie,” said -Richard. “You will show our best spots to Miss Abercrombie, in case I -pass them, Miss Dallas?” - -“Gladly,” said Anne, obeying Helen’s gesture to walk at her other hand. -“But you know we think them all the best! This garden is one of Mr. -Latham’s loveliest, though least-known, poems.” - -Little Anne slipped her hand into Kit’s and held him back. - -“Who is she?” she whispered. - -“Like her?” asked Kit, interested in the reply. - -Little Anne shook her head hard. “She is like all the things in fairy -tales,” she said. “She’s like a cloth-of-gold, and a fairy princess, -she’s so beau-ti-ful! But she’s something like Cinderella’s sisters at -the ball. No, I don’t like her, not one bit. What does she want to do? -Is she going to try to be Mr. Latham’s--you know! His writer? What do -you call it?” - -“Secretary? No, indeed, little Anne! Miss Abercrombie is a royal lady; -not even a poet would she serve,” said Kit. - -“Well, what makes her mean?” asked little Anne, candidly; she had used -her keen young eyes and ears to some purpose. “Miss Anne’s ever’n’ ever -so much nicer, and ever’n’ ever so much prettier, even if she isn’t, -because she looks so kind of dear and sweet. I know she’s being not -nice to my Anne, because when anybody isn’t nice to someone I love, -and I don’t know what it is they’re doing, that makes me mad, and I -remember my vocation.” - -“Your vocation, you queer little Anne? What can you mean?” cried Kit. - -“Putting beetles on their legs,” said the child promptly. “When they -get on their backs and can’t get over, you know. It makes me feel -like that. I do not like her one speck, so there! But I s’pose Sister -Annunciata’d say I had to because I’m going to instructions. But ought -you like everything, Kit? I think it’s fearful to be a saint!” - -“Great Scott, little Anne, is that what you’re tackling? No wonder you -find this sinful old world a puzzle!” Kit’s great roar of laughter made -the others turn back. - -“What has little Anne said now?” asked Anne Dallas with a look of such -friendly understanding to Kit that Helen was annoyed. - -“Don’t tell! Oh, don’t, please don’t tell!” begged little Anne. - -“Surest thing you know I won’t tell!” Kit reassured her. “Not now. -Sometime when I’m alone with Miss Dallas you won’t mind? Because she’d -love to know what you said of her.” - -“She knows! She knows we all love her to pieces!” cried little Anne, -seizing Anne Dallas around the waist, to the inconvenience of Helen, -who drew her skirt away. - -“Is this child an orphan? Why doesn’t that Sister Something-or-Other -teach her manners?” demanded Helen, indulging her temper at the expense -of prudence. - -“We find our little Anne’s manners most admirable. Her mother is Mrs. -Berkley, and she is so lovely that no little girl could have a better -model,” said Richard, patting little Anne’s cheek; it was as hot -beneath his hand as he had known that it would be. - -Little Anne swallowed hard several times and clasped her hands tight. - -“Well, that was a _good_ act to offer up!” she said in a choked -voice, and her friends had difficulty in restraining their smiles. - -“When you are ready, Helen?” suggested Kit. “I suppose you have -confided to Mr. Latham the secret that you were planning to tell him?” - -“Not this time,” said Helen, recovering her smile. “Mr. Latham is -coming to tea at your aunt’s; then I shall tell him, because there he -will be at my mercy.” - -“Are not men always at your mercy, Miss Abercrombie? Though I cannot -see you, I have divined that,” said Richard, suavely. - -“If you are walking our way, Miss Dallas, won’t you come with Miss -Abercrombie and me?” Kit suggested. - -Again Helen’s temper slipped its leash. She turned toward Anne, looking -down on the girl who was a half head shorter than Helen. - -“Oh, don’t you sleep in the house?” she said with so much insolence -in the simple words that Richard flushed to his hair, and Kit found -himself as hard put to it for self-control as little Anne had been in -“making her act.” - -“Miss Dallas does not sleep at her post; she boards near by, and all -day and every day helps me in every way that her charity can devise,” -said Richard. “Please do not go yet, Miss Dallas. I want your advice as -to the next act, but more I want the honour of taking you home myself.” - -“Good-bye, Mr. Latham,” said Kit, grasping his host’s hand so tight -that he winced. “I’m proud and grateful that you let me come here. -Good-bye, Miss Dallas. Come, little Anne; you’re going to be taken home -by me. Helen? Are you ready?” - -Helen made her adieux with her most charming grace, including Anne -Dallas in her cordiality. She had allowed her temper to get away from -her, but she had no mind to let it be the final impression which she -left behind her. She was far too wise to stir men to championship of -another girl, however her inferior in wit and beauty that girl might be. - -Anne Dallas, with heightened colour, responded quietly to Helen’s -farewell. She did not betray the slightest annoyance. - -“She surpasses in breeding as she does in all other ways,” thought -Richard, listening to Anne’s courteous replies, spoken in her soft alto -voice. - -“Good-bye, you darlingest! You very sweetest and darlingest!” cried -little Anne, hugging Anne Dallas, and voicing what they all felt, -though the feeling puzzled the child. - -Kit left little Anne at her own door; she had walked in utter silence, -holding his hand tight, while Helen chatted cheerfully, ignoring little -Anne. - -“What a queer, thin, dark, clever little creature!” exclaimed Helen -after they had bade the child good-night. “Even bright children bore -me. I don’t care for crudity in any form. I daresay your least Anne -will make a clever woman.” - -“Well, Nell, I can’t recall consulting you about little Anne,” said -Kit, but so pleasantly that Helen could not resent it. - -“Not about either Anne do you mean?” laughed Helen. “That little -secretary person is a nice girl. Not particularly interesting, not -particularly pretty, but interesting and pretty enough. It’s a mutually -lucky thing that she is working for Richard Latham. If he marries her -it will be quite well--and of course he is going to marry her. He is -blind, so more beautiful women won’t make him repent it, and his wife -will not be criticized as his wife would be if he weren’t blind. She -would be entirely dutiful, and of course marriage to him will give her -a position that she could not otherwise hope to attain. She doesn’t -strike one as having connections.” - -“Marry him! Anne Dallas!” cried Kit. - -Helen glanced at him. - -“Certainly. I should say that it was practically settled now,” she -said. “Latham would be a step upward for most women, but no one would -dream of opposing anything that he wanted. He really is pathetic, so -gifted, so handsome, so polished--and so blind! I was not prepared to -admire him as I do. It would be wicked to cross him in whatever he -desired. I, for one, would not put a straw in the way of his marrying -that mousey little secretary, even if I could, and though there are -plenty of brilliant women who would gladly devote themselves to him.” - -Kit did not speak. He walked on whistling behind his closed teeth. - -Helen broke the silence: - -“I’m afraid I was not quite pretty-behaved there, Kit! Spoiled children -are so dreadful, and, till I discovered that the secretary was also the -poet’s dream and to be Mrs. Latham, I hated meeting her; that’s the -truth. I don’t mean to be a snob, but social equality is such utter -nonsense that it ruffles my feathers. I was annoyed that I had to -walk with that commonplace girl, and be shown the garden by her! That -is, until I discovered her future standing. So I’m afraid I was a bit -horrid. I’m sorry! And of course Miss Dallas is all right in her way.” - -Helen leaned forward to smile into Kit’s face. - -He threw his head back and away from her. - -“Oh, damn--ascus!” he said. - -Helen laughed blithely, and tucked her hand into his arm with high good -humour. - -“You needn’t convert your swear words on my account, Kit,” she said. “I -might use one myself were occasion demanding it. If I was naughty, at -least _I_ kept my temper, poor Kit! How about it? Did we all?” - -“It’s a mighty poor thing to keep,” said Kit. “Get rid of it. Yes, you -sure kept your temper, Nell! That’s the kind of temper I remember you -had. You’ve kept it, all right!” - -“What a horrid boy you are, Kit Carrington!” cried Helen, delighted, -but pretending not to be. “I have not a bad temper; I never fly out. -I dislike foolish, tiresome, annoying things, that’s all! I’ve an -excellent temper to live with. My father says I’m the easiest woman -to get on with he ever knew, and a man who has governed a whole state -ought to be a judge of one little disposition! Come on, don’t sulk! It -would be too stupid to bring an unpleasant atmosphere home with us into -your aunt’s house.” - -He looked at her; she was smiling, and was wonderfully handsome. Poor -baited Kit, disturbed by Helen’s discovery and disgusted with the -afternoon, sighed helplessly and gave in. - -“You may be the easiest woman to get on with your father ever knew,” -he said. “From what experienced people tell us that’s not a strong -statement. It’s no fool of a job to handle any woman, they say, and I -believe it!” - - - - -CHAPTER VIII - -_Candour_ - - -Miss Carrington, seated before the hearth in her sitting room and -enjoying the wood fire partly because it crackled; partly because it -was too warm for the day, heard Minerva moving about in her dressing -room and called her. - -“Isn’t Helen back yet?” she asked. - -Minerva appeared in the doorway, disapproval in every line of her black -taffeta gown. - -“Miss Abercrombie came in three quarters of an hour ago; she went to -her room and it’s likely is resting there, though not having seen her I -am not able to say positively,” she replied. - -“Oh, well, Minerva, it will never come to a trial for perjury,” -observed Miss Carrington. “Ask her if she will not join me?” - -Minerva withdrew and shortly there appeared in the same doorway a -figure in sharp contrast to Minerva’s. It was Helen’s, tall and lithe, -swathed in a pale blue Japanese negligée, heavily embroidered in white -and faintest pink. Her golden hair was dishevelled; one hand carried a -box of chocolates, the other clutched her robe and a novel. - -“Want me?” she asked, and crossed the room as Miss Carrington invited -by a gesture to a chair at her side. - -Helen took it and piled three down pillows around her, twisting her -body into perfect agreement with the pillows. - -“How inconsiderate you are not to come without a summons!” Miss -Carrington reproached her. “Aren’t stay-at-homes always eager for -bulletins from abroad?” - -“I thought you’d be napping, or would come into my room if you wanted -me,” said Helen. “There isn’t much to report; a perfectly ordinary -visit. Of course the most interesting things about it aren’t those that -happened.” - -“Precisely. And your keen eyes would see them,” agreed Miss Carrington. -“First of all, is there the least ground for my suspicion of Kit?” - -“Oh, dear me, yes,” said Helen, promptly. “I more than suspect him, but -he doesn’t suspect himself. He is attracted by the girl; he likes her, -is ready to range himself on her side if any one doesn’t unreservedly -admire her, but the feeling has not taken on alarming proportions. I’m -sure he has no notion that he’ll fall in love with her if he isn’t -careful, that the ‛goblins will git him if he don’t watch out!’ He -doesn’t think she’s a goblin, and he isn’t clever enough to watch out. -Please don’t mind me, because you know what I think of Kit! She’s a -pretty little thing enough, but not more than pretty. And she has a -gentle, amiable way with her, unsophisticated and all that. One of -those _good_ girls! Men are drawn by sweetness and goodness at -first, and then, when they have to live with it, they are sure to be -drawn by the other thing! Beauty unadorned, beauty of character, is -pretty deadly daily diet, Aunt Anne-elect!” - -Miss Carrington laughed. “These are not original remarks, Helen, though -they may be the result of your original research,” she said. “The point -is not how wise you are, nor how accurate a prophet, but what Kit -thinks of her.” - -“Oh, well, do you suppose Kit thinks of her?” Helen asked, lightly. -“It strikes me that it is only that she is here, and nobody else is, -most of the time. There must be lots of pretty girls in a place this -size, but this little brown thing is new. I suppose she must have -brains, for Richard Latham finds her the greatest help; he spoke of -her as marvellously perceptive, says her criticisms are a great help -to him. But Kit has been drawn to her simply because--he is! That’s -the only reason it ever happens, of course! And I don’t imagine he has -thought about her; not actual, appraising thoughts. She is essentially -feminine. I am dead sure he is attracted to her, but I’m also sure he -isn’t analyzing himself, nor her, and it ought to be possible to divert -his attention. Have a chocolate?” Helen extended her box. - -Miss Carrington accepted a chocolate with a twinkle in her eye and a -laugh that was not wholly flattering to her guest. - -Helen’s embroidered robe had fallen to the floor on each side of her; -her white skin gleamed above and through the thin crêpe and lace of her -underclothing; her white, lace-trimmed skirt was drawn tight above her -knees as she sat back in the chair; her thin, lustrous silk stocking -outlined the beautiful curve of her leg. - -“If Kit could see you now he might be diverted,” said Miss Carrington. - -In her youth, with girls of her own age, she had never been so -unreserved. - -“Call him in,” suggested Helen. “I’ll tell you in confidence, Miss -Carrington, that I never found a trusting youth hard to divert, if I -went about it.” - -“What did Thackeray say? That any woman could marry any man if she had -sufficient opportunity and had not a positive hump? Something like that -in _Vanity Fair_.” - -“Anticipating G.B.S.? I remember Shaw better than Thackeray. I read -_Vanity Fair_ when I was about fourteen. Of course everyone admits -that the woman chooses, but how about two women choosing the same man, -each with the ‛sufficient opportunity?’ Then it does seem as though the -man cast the deciding vote, though that would be only another way of -saying that one woman had the stronger attraction. I never heard that -threshed out. It’s interesting, opens out vistas. The only thing I’ve -heard that might bear on it is that once seven women laid hold of one -man. I don’t know what came of that. I haven’t read the Book that’s in -much, not even at fourteen!” Helen laughed, throwing herself back and -crossing her ankle on her knee as if she had been a man. - -Miss Carrington did not smile. Her brow contracted slightly, and her -eyes did not applaud Helen. - -“You funny old dear!” Helen cried. “When you are so emancipated, boast -of your modernity, read the books, novels and philosophy, love the -plays you do, why do you suppose you are half-scared of me at times? -And you are. I jar you.” - -“A matter of taste, Helen,” admitted Miss Carrington. “I was bred up -in old-fashioned conservatism. I can theorize; I don’t mind the new -ideas in print, on the stage, provided they are cleverly put, but I -admit that I like to see young women what I was trained to consider -well-mannered. I don’t defend my inconsistency; I’m explaining myself.” - -“Atavism; Shintoism,” said Helen, carelessly. “No one is consistent. -Taste is stronger than principles, I’ve always noticed that. It will -take two generations to get our mental clothing fitted, and by that -time the fashion will probably swing back; that’s the way it works. -You’ve got your grandmother’s and mother’s minds grafted on your mind. -You’ve survived; you were born before the old ways had passed. But to -return to our muttons, which means the Dallas lambkin: Richard Latham -is in love with her himself.” - -“Oh, Helen, do you think so?” cried Miss Carrington. - -“Know so,” Helen corrected her. “And I warned Kit. I went so far as -to try to ingraft upon his trusting mind the suggestion that no one -would snatch her from a man so important to the world, so afflicted as -the poet. I hoped that it would seem to him later that he had thought -of that himself. And, really, Miss Carrington, Richard Latham is a -peach of a man, aside from his poetry. He is charming; modest, clever, -gentle, and you feel that he is stainless. I wondered for a moment -if it wouldn’t be worth while rescuing him, instead of Kit, from the -little Dallas? I could put him on a pinnacle, give him the rewards of -his genius while he lived, instead of after he is dead. I could do it -alone, and I am always plus father. But I decided it would be a pity to -waste my looks on a blind man.” - -“Your conceit is so colossal, Helen Abercrombie, that it is raised -above ordinary weaknesses,” declared Miss Carrington, energetically. - -“Dear Aunt-elect, you are quite right. I do not think that I am in -any way a small woman. If you call it conceit, so be it. But if I did -not know that I am handsome I should be a fool, and like the fool say -in my heart that ‛all men are liars.’ I am clever. Experience teaches -me that, and my will is not easily downed. You may call it colossal -conceit, but I call it an intelligent appraisal of myself. I know -that I can do for the man I marry what few women can do, and that I -shall do it, and I do think it would be a pity if my husband could not -see me.” Helen ended her frank speech with a downward glance at her -generously displayed beauty. It was her complete disregard of any sort -of concealment that shocked the elder woman, who had been trained in -the reserved manners of what used to be called “a gentlewoman.” Miss -Carrington realized that in this she was at variance with her views -which admitted freedom, equality, the right of every human being to be -and to do what he, and she, as much, saw fit. But the application of -the theory, especially in the case of a fair young girl, hurt her. - -“Indeed, Helen, I know that you will do for your husband more than -other women can,” Miss Carrington said, almost humbly. “That is why I -want you for Kit, as you understand quite well. But just why do you -want my boy? He is a fine, honest, loyal lad; has a good mind, nice -manners; would be no end fond and unselfish, and he is personable--I -like that word!--but there are others far richer, others with famous -names, better placed in the world. I am glad that you do want Kit, -but--why do you? I am sure you are too candid to mind telling me.” - -Helen sat erect, drew her drapery around her, and leaned her elbows on -her knees to elucidate. - -“Aunt Anne,” she said with considerable earnestness, and omitting the -restrictive word in the elder woman’s title, “I suppose no one quite -understands these things. I don’t altogether. But I have decided that -when I say I want Kit that about covers it. It’s precisely what I said -awhile ago about Anne Dallas. Attraction attracts, and you can’t define -wherein it lies. Kit’s strong, virile beauty--he really is an awfully -well-set-up chap--attracts me. Others may have it, in fact they have; -the average college boy gets a lot of it if he trains, but in Kit I -like it best. I like the way he nods at me when he says something which -he thinks is profound and which I’ve always known. I especially like -the way his hair grows in the back of his neck, and he has one funny -ear lobe, sort of kinky--ever notice it? He doesn’t know what fear is, -either physical or moral; doesn’t stop to find it out that it exists. -He has a dandy voice in talking, and he says deliciously fool things -about girls! He’s strong, clean--I could do a lot with him if he’d love -me. And I’m pretty sure he’d get taught how to love me if I married -him. I’d put myself out to teach him, and I know how to teach! I think -that’s about all there is to it. As I say, it comes to the one thing -with which I started: I want Kit Carrington!” - -Miss Carrington always sat straight in a straight chair, so she could -not be more erect than she had been, yet she had the effect of sitting -straighter as she listened to Helen; she became alert. - -“Helen, child, all that you say must mean, it _does_ mean, that -you are in love with Kit! I never dreamed that you were in love with -him, but you surely are. I am glad of it. This atavism of mine, as you -call it, makes it easier for me to carry out our bargain knowing that -you are in love with the boy,” she cried. - -“Oh, come, now, Miss Carrington,” laughed Helen. “I play the game -with you, cards face up on the table. You are the sort of woman with -whom one can do that; you can’t with most of them. I’m not in love -with Kit sentimentally; there isn’t a drop of the Elizabeth Barrett -Browning slush in it! What’s that thing she wrote? ‛Unless you can -muse in a crowd on the face that fixed you?’ Heavens! When I’m in the -midst of a crowd I’m busy seeing to it that it knows I’m there! And -no face ever fixed me--sounds like a spitted chicken! Stuff! If I get -Kit--and I mean to--I’ll be as pleased as Punch, and so shall he, I -promise you. But if I don’t get him I’ll take someone else and make a -good thing of it. What I won’t do is to fail in life. I want Kit, do -you see? He suits me; I want him. I like all the things about him that -I enumerated, and then some. Simply and truthfully, I want Kit. We’d -make a corking pair. He’s good material. As far as this is worth, I am -in love with Kit. But you and I are wide-awake women, with the right -labels on ourselves and our world, only I’m beginning to think I’m -the elder, you nice old Anne Carrington! Help me to capture your boy -and we’ll never repent it, you nor I, nor that silly Christopher, who -thinks, or will think if we don’t straighten his thoughts for him, that -he wants that demure mouse! She would make him gruel, possibly, but she -would surely make any clever man who had to put up with her monotony -sick to the point of needing gruel! She’s just the average woman since -Eve, Aunt Anne!” - -“There’s no such thing as an average woman, Helen Abercrombie!” laughed -Miss Carrington. “Untold millions of them since Eve, and every one of -them a special creation--ending with you, who are, I confess, the least -average of any I have known.” - -Helen laughed with her and said: - -“Helen fired Troy; it’s queer if she can’t set Kit afire. See here, -Miss Carrington, why aren’t we riding, Kit and I? Don’t you know that -on a horse I inevitably ride to victory?” - -“I’ll have them here in the morning, Helen,” said Miss Carrington. -“Make Kit start early enough to ride to the Daphne Woods. It’s the most -exquisite, the most emotional road I’ve ever seen, here or abroad.” - -“Its name is all of that; I remember it from other visits. I always -thought there must have been a poet here before Mr. Latham’s time to -name those woods. All right; Daphne Woods it shall be for Kit and me -to-morrow morning. And thanks, Miss Carrington, for this satisfactory -confession I’ve made. Do I understand that I am shriven?” Helen asked, -rising. - -“Of what you intend to do? Even an old pagan like me knows that you -can’t be shriven of an intention to act, unless you give up the -intention. And I hope you will not abandon your plan to steal Kit!” - -“Not I!” declared Helen, her soft silks gathered into a spring-like -mass of blue and white and blush pinks, turning to wave her hands, thus -filled, from the doorway. “I’ll be an improved robber, not with a kit -to steal, but a stolen Kit!” - - * * * * * - -Early the next morning the horses were at the door, Kit’s own horse, a -fine-skinned, chestnut sorrel, and one that Miss Carrington had secured -for Helen’s riding, a spirited black horse, high-headed, high-stepping, -whose magnificent strength made a perfect pedestal for the girl’s -blonde grace. - -Helen came down the stairs in her golden-brown riding clothes, russet -boots, trousers and full-skirted coat of russet-coloured cloth, -wearing a silk beaver hat of the same colour, and russet gauntlets, -her ivory-handled stock under one arm. Her hair glinted below her -hat, brought down low and held by a net in golden masses above her -high white collar and white cravat. Not everyone could have triumphed -over this uniformity of tint, but it turned Helen into an autumnal -sun-goddess, and Kit, buttoning his gloves as he waited for her, -uttered a note of satisfaction on beholding her. - -“You’re a sight, Helen!” he said, opening the door for her to pass. - -“There are sights and sights, Kits! It doesn’t as a rule convey -anything complimentary to call a person a sight, you know!” Helen said, -gaily. She had decided that her rôle for that ride was to be youthful -light-heartedness, that of the girl revelling in sunshine, air, and -contentment. - -Kit gave Helen a hand to mount, which she did not require, swung into -his own saddle, and they were off with a wave of their stocks to Miss -Carrington, who was smiling on them from the piazza. - -“They are a glorious pair; Helen is right, and it does seem as though -Kit must perceive the value of such a mate,” she thought. - -After they had passed out of the city streets they trotted and galloped -by turns eastward. The apple trees were in full blossom, and the -orioles, those bits of flame amid the sweet delicacy of the springtime -bloom, were singing their ecstatic warbling note. - -“The May Day of the world and the heyday of youth, Kit! Aren’t we lucky -to be so young, prosperous, well-mounted, healthy, and handsome among -this ravishing beauty?” cried Helen. “I go into the world so much--the -world in the other sense--that I often feel almost old; I see and learn -so much that is not a part of youth. But when I come here and am out -with you, a healthy, wholesome boy, though you are a year older than -I am, it all falls away from me, and I feel like a nice little girl -rolling her hoop!” - -“Poor old Nell,” said Kit. “You are mixed up with a whole lot that -you’d be better without. I’m glad that you get sips of the Fountain -of Youth here. I seem to hate worldliness, do you know it? Now I know -people here, Antony Paul and his fine little wife and that wife’s -family; oh, you saw the child, little Anne, yesterday! They’re the most -unworldly people----” - -“Oh, well, you know, Kit, one mustn’t go to extremes,” interrupted -Helen. “It’s a good thing to get the finish and knowledge given by -contact with the world. I don’t like unworldliness. That’s only another -name for stupidity. It’s no better than a badly furnished room, or -poor music, or fake art, or any other ignorance. My idea is to conquer -the world, to get the best it has to give you and rise superior to -it; to be--what’s that trite way of putting it?--in it but not of it? -Well, that’s the thing. I’d not give up the sense of power, moulding -things and people, being one of the worth-while things in the world, -for--well, for the world!” - -She paused to laugh at herself, but went on: “Don’t you think, Kit, -that what my father can do, and what he can put me into the way of -doing, is great? And what’s the matter with using one’s advantages to -improve things? Isn’t that quite possible, and isn’t that a worthy -ambition? Frumpy folk can’t do anything for the keen old world; it -knows a good thing when it sees it. You may be sure, Christopher, -my son, that half the unworldliness is self-delusion. It is -lazy-mindedness, or else an instinct that warns of unfitness for the -world; that the person can’t play a part in it. He thinks he’s superior -and renouncing; in reality, he’s inferior and thrown out.” - -“Honest, Helen, that’s true!” cried Kit; he looked at Helen with -cordial admiration. “I often wonder if I’m not too commonplace to -amount to a whole lot, and so I think that I don’t want to make a -splash. I never saw this side of you; that you cared to help and all -that. You are a wonder, Nell; I take off my hat to you. There isn’t -much that you couldn’t do or be. I’m one of your ‛frumpy folk’ and -couldn’t keep step with you.” - -Helen drew up her horse beside his; she leaned toward him with her -bright hair close to his face, her beauty within his reach. - -“Ah, Kit,” she said, softly, “you are not frumpy! You are a dear, -humble-minded fellow; all truly great men are humble; they are -simpler than women. There is nothing that you might not do, if you -would see yourself as your friends see you. Let me inspire you to -self-confidence! Let me feel that when you are a man honoured by others -for your benefits to the world, your achievements--for I am sure, Kit, -that you could be a power for good with your clear vision and your -simple incorruptibility--let me feel that I kindled in you the desire -that bore such fruit. Even though after all is said I am but a pretty -girl, yet I am one that can love what is worth loving though you think -me only a shallow, vain creature!” - -Helen’s face bent forward; she dropped her lids over her eyes as if to -hide their flame, or their tears; her voice thrilled, her beautifully -trained, silvery voice. - -Kit’s hand went out as if to draw her to him; the space between them -was slight. He flushed and quivered to her beauty as to her emotion. -Then there arose before him a small figure, simply clad; a low, broad -brow and beneath it steady eyes of brown, like a fire on a home hearth, -and sweet, firm lips moved to let a soft alto voice say in memory to -him again: - -“It would be a pity for you to fail with your life, because you can use -it well if you follow your instincts. And what is counted gain is often -tragic failure.” - -Kit straightened himself in his saddle. - -“You are mighty kind, Helen,” he said. “I don’t mistake myself; you see -I have my own measure fairly accurately. Miss Dallas was saying the -other day what came to almost the same thing that you’ve just said, -only she didn’t get it from the same angle. I’ll try to play up when -the time comes.” Helen’s horse leaped at the sudden pull which she gave -the curb and the blow that she dealt him. The horse dashed away and Kit -rapidly followed. - -“Say, Helen, don’t give Jack-of-Spades surprise parties; he’s one of -the sensible sort that doesn’t care for them, and he’s capable of -giving a return surprise party,” Kit warned her, regaining his place at -her bridle. - -“I can conquer any fool brute I ever attempted!” said Helen, her colour -high, her eyes flashing. Then she conquered herself. - -“Did I scare you, good old Kit? You were the one I meant to surprise. -Isn’t your aunt a dear to get me a horse like this? Isn’t she an old -darling, anyway? She’s truly fond of me, I’m gratefully sure of that. -It’s a big thing to win the love of a lonely old woman. She loves me -next to you, Kit, and I’m not unappreciative. How these horses keep -pace! What a pleasant thing it is to ride at the same gait, in unison -of hoofbeats! That’s a sermon in brief, though unintentional, and it’s -for you to draw the moral. So this is Daphne Woods! It’s the loveliest -spot I ever saw. I’m glad that you are showing me this shadowy, green, -mystic loveliness for the first time. We have many memories in common, -my dear old pal. Daphne Woods is a dream. Don’t let me waken, Kit!” - - - - -CHAPTER IX - -_Soundings_ - - -Helen and Kit rode on through the verdant shade of Daphne Woods with -few words spoken between them. At times the brown accumulations of the -leaves of past springs deadened the sound of the horses’ feet, but -oftener their rhythm was distinctly beaten out on the perfectly kept -road. - -“Riding at the same gait, in unison of hoofbeats.” Kit found himself -dwelling on the words as if they were an oracle’s prophecy and its -fulfilment. - -Was it possible that Helen meant what she surely conveyed? Was it -possible that a nice girl would intentionally convey it? - -Helen rode on pensively sweet and preoccupied. She rode somewhat in -advance of Kit; the honest boy thought that it was to hide her face. He -was right, but by inversion; Helen wanted Kit to see her back, which -she had been told was provocatively graceful on horseback. He felt, -as he had repeatedly felt in this visit of hers, that he did not know -her. The Helen of her exhortation to him he knew, keen-witted, worldly, -strong-willed, but this girl? Gentle, wistful, affectionate, dependent, -almost child-like in appeal for sympathy? This was another Helen; this -one might be as lovable as the other was dazzling. Suddenly she turned -to Kit, resting her hand on her saddle, swinging halfway around in it -to face him. - -“Kit, you don’t understand women,” she said with a quaver in her voice. -“Perhaps I mean girls, _a_ girl, _this_ girl! Can’t you see -how one may be defeated in victory? How little it means to be pretty, -clever, rich, admired, when one is all alone? Father is a dear to me, -but he can’t play the game of politics for such high stakes as those he -is out for and have much time to spare for his girl. Well! I pretend a -lot, but I don’t mind my old pal’s knowing that I’m just plain girl, -and no goddess, not even an ambitious woman at heart. Daphne Woods -stirs in me everything that I fight down. It doesn’t do to let it poke -up its head to be fed when I can’t feed it! It’s too lovely in here, -too ideal to be good for me. Oh, Kit, take me home!” - -Kit’s heart beat faster. Helen was intoxicating with her eyes downcast, -her voice low and vibrant. Her simple, direct appeal moved him by the -pathos of its revelation of sweetness where he had known only hardness; -of weakness where he had thought there was only self-reliant strength. - -“Why, Nell, dear,” he cried, “I didn’t know you felt like this! Spring -in the woods always sets me off, too. Funny how all human beings are -casting about for something, they’re not sure just what. Nature gets -us going, doesn’t it? October is as bad as May, in another way. Yet it -is a sweet sorrow, don’t you think? Something like parting! Sure, I’ll -take you home. You’re probably tired, too. Lunch will be ready by the -time we get there.” - -Helen swung back again in her saddle and turned Jack-of-Spades sharply. -Then she looked hard at Kit and laughed, her softened mood flung from -her. - -“It’s hard telling, Christopher Carrington, whether you’re a bit -clever, or more than a bit stupid,” she said, and rode ahead of him, -Jack-of-Spades on a gallop, toward the end of the woods. - -Kit went up to his room to get out of his riding clothes into his daily -attire. He was slow about it; considering hard, puzzled, interested, -confused in thought, clearer in impressions than he liked to admit. - -“Well,” he ended his meditations, arousing himself with difficulty -to be aware of the knot of his tie, “it makes you feel like a yellow -dog to think it, but what am I to think? Looks as if Aunt Anne knew; -probably women always know. But why in thunder----? Nell is strictly -and within bounds of statement a winner. There are such a lot of -fellows--I never have altogether liked Nell; that is, I never fell for -her. Worldly women strike me about the way an angel stock broker would -hit you. But apparently I haven’t got her right. I suppose it’s hard -for mere man to know ’em, fathom ’em. A kaleidoscope is stable compared -to ’em! Nell isn’t so worldly after all. She’s capable of unambitious -attachments, it seems. I suppose nice ones are cut on the same pattern -in their general lines. They all want affection, children, the things -best worth while.” - -Kit went downstairs feeling benignant. He was human, and though not -as conceited as most of his age and sex, there was no denying that he -found it pleasant to suspect that a clever, beautiful young creature -turned toward him, innocently betraying that she could love him. It -gave Kit a calm, uplifted, vague sense of pitiful but delightful things -enveloping him. It perturbed him, of course; what he should do about -it must be faced, but in the meantime there was no getting away from -the fact that he liked it. He was fine enough to attribute to Helen -the maternal instinct that led her from the plaudits of society toward -shadowy little hands, impatiently pat-a-caking for her to clasp them -and draw them forth into the world. - -As Kit came down the stairs Helen’s pretty laughter rang out to him. It -was her old mocking laughter, but this time it did not, as usual, jar -on him. He knew that often she did not laugh; she had shown him this. -He did not suspect that she had been describing their ride to his aunt, -who found Helen as entertaining as a Shaw play, and touching lightly -and cleverly upon his failure to take the good things that the gods, or -rather the goddess, provided. - -He paused at the hall table to take up and look over a pamphlet which -lay there, paying no attention to remarks which Miss Carrington was -making in train of Helen’s laugh. - -But clear as a bell and perfectly heard, not only by Kit’s ears, but by -his brain, came Helen’s reply. Her voice was as modulated as always, -but it rang to an uncommon degree with the fervour of strong conviction -and determination, and with no small amount of contempt. - -“No, indeed, dear Miss Carrington,” she said. “Not I! I cordially -dislike children. It used to be an admission of the lowest criminality -to say this, but any number of my generation feel as I do. Why should -I want children? Horrid, crude little animals at first, and later on -men and women who go off and leave one to get on as one can. Better -cultivate adults, select amusing friends, than to set up children and -waste one’s best years on a most improbable chance of getting something -out of it. I am free, strong, graceful, good-looking. Do you think for -one moment I’d lay all that down and be ugly, in order to have a thing -that I’d abominate to look at and positively would not handle? Poms or -pekes are more sensible, but I’ve no yearning for pets. As to someone -to come after me, inherit, all that idiocy, what do I care what happens -when I am dead? Ugh, horrible to be dead! Children would perpetually -remind you that they were posterity, and posterity is a _memento -mori_. No children for me, ever! Selah! I didn’t intend to wax -eloquent, Aunt Anne, but it always riles me to have anyone attribute to -me the maternal longing--like a cat, who really is a model mother; I -know none more devoted.” - -Poor Kit! Grateful to his rubber heels, he turned and walked away. -He felt like an aviator whose engine had gone wrong above the clouds -diving down to the ground with dizzy speed. - -Which was Helen? What was Helen? Could she be playing a part to Miss -Carrington? No; her voice was strained with sincerity, and why -should she play a part? Kit knew that his aunt’s devotion to the new -philosophies would not prevent the shock with which she would hear a -young, beautiful woman, endowed in every way to fulfil her rôle in -life, repudiate and denounce motherhood. - -Then had Helen played a part with him? Much more likely. - -He ate his luncheon almost in silence. At intervals he stole a glance -at Helen, saw her serene, exquisite; the charm of femininity and grace -in every motion of her slender hands, her willowy body. But the meaning -of her femininity was gone; only the shell of her beauty was left, if -those long, curling fingers would refuse to caress a baby’s cheek. - -As soon as lunch was over Kit went toward the door. - -“Going off, Kits?” asked Helen. “Not going to stay and be -pretty-behaved to me?” - -“I’m going to the Berkleys’,” said Kit. “Sorry, but I’m going to the -Berkleys’.” - -It was like him to make the statement baldly, not to invent an errand -to the Berkleys’. It had come to him as he spoke that this was where -he was going. The simple happiness of that household, its effortless -mutual enjoyment; the love for one another that permeated the -atmosphere of the house, rose up before him, and made Kit feel that it -was as necessary to get his perturbed mind cleared and cheered by the -Berkley family as it could be to find a spring if he were parched with -desert thirst. - -“Going to play with little Anne?” inquired Helen. - -“If she’ll let me! Nice kid!” said Kit, shortly, and was gone. - -“Don’t mock Kit’s idols. He’s like most quiet and peaceable people; -when he’s offended he’s hard to placate, and when he’s disgusted he’s -not to be won back. Kit’s tremendously fond of his friends. But I -share his pleasure in that precocious innocent, with her delightful -combination of normal mischief with abnormal conscientiousness,” warned -Miss Carrington. - -Kit found all the Berkleys at home, as he had hoped to, with the -addition of Joan Paul and her baby. - -Little Anne saw him coming and ran shrieking joyously to haul him into -the house, as if he would be likely to escape her unless she put forth -her best strength. - -“Here’s Kit! See, here’s Kit, Motherkins! Kit’s come!” she announced -needlessly as she towed him into the room. - -Mrs. Berkley arose with her white sewing held in her left hand, and -gave her right hand cordially to the young man. - -“Very glad to see you,” she said. “I’ve tried to make Anne remember -that you are Mr. Carrington, but she loves you too well to retain my -instructions.” - -“Sure! Because I’m not! I’m Kit, eh, Anne? Your little purring kit, or -at least I purr when I see you!” said Kit. - -“You’re lovely!” Little Anne sighed enthusiastically over his nonsense. - -“Hallo, Mother Joan! Don’t break that baby! Aren’t you holding her -carelessly?” Kit demanded, shaking Joan’s hand and looking anxiously -at Barbara, held under her young mother’s left arm, her head in front -sticking up like a turtle’s, her heels kicking hard and fast on Joan’s -waist at the back. - -“Can’t you trust me with her, Kit? I’m glad that you recognize how -precious she is, but, honestly, I like her myself and don’t want to -damage her,” laughed Joan, bringing her daughter right side up into her -arms and kissing her fat neck till the baby choked herself with giggles. - -“Say, Joan, there’s something I want to be told. Set it down to my -scientific bent: investigation of socialism, or economics, or anything -statistical you please, but I do want to learn something: Does that -baby ever tire you?” Kit asked his question hesitantly. - -“I should say she does, half to pieces,” said Joan, promptly. “I’m -sometimes tempted to try ether on her at night! You know those verses -of Mrs. Kilmer’s about keeping her children asleep? Maybe I don’t say -them!” Joan kissed Barbara again to punctuate her confession. - -“But you don’t tire of her the way I mean, do you?” persisted Kit. “You -don’t ever feel as if she weren’t quite worth while, as if you’d rather -be free from the bother----” - -“Christopher Carrington,” Joan sternly interrupted him, “one more word -and I’ll call the police and commit you as a dangerous ogre, not fit to -be at large. What in all this world makes you ask me that? As though -any woman worth her salt would feel that way to a little child, even if -it weren’t her own! And when it is----” Joan could end this sentence -only with more violent kisses in the neck and all over the face of the -ecstatically squirming Barbara. “Why, I only wish she were twins or -triplets! I’d like a houseful of the darlings, all sizes, sorts, and -colours! To be the mother of such a creature of God as this baby--Kit, -it’s the most awful, the most beautiful thing in the world! Why did you -ask me that? Whom have you heard talking like a monster, corrupting -your naturally good heart?” - -“You’re a sharp little woman, though you don’t betray it always, Joan!” -Kit said with amused admiration. “I’m not corrupted; I only wondered -how you felt. All girls don’t like babies.” - -Joan gave him a keen look. - -“Avoid the kind that doesn’t,” she advised, tersely. - -“First God made angels, then us, and He made everybody but Adam and Eve -a baby,” said little Anne, anxious as she always was to elevate the -conversation to a catechetical standard. “So it would be wicked not to -love babies when God made ’em for us to love, and then went and made -’em so darling that you have to love ’em. Herod didn’t, but he was a -fearfully wicked king. They were all boys, anyway.” - -“And Barbara is a girl,” commented Kit. “I hope you don’t think boys -are less fit to live than girls, little Anne?” - -“Well,” said little Anne, slowly, “Sister Gervase teaches the -middle-sized ones at my school, and she says boys pass through a -trying--I think she said ‛stage,’ but there aren’t any in Cleavedge; -there are buses in New York on Fifth Avenue, and I rode on top, but I -do think she said ‛stage.’ Sister says they have to be rather bad, but -that there’s lots of good mixed up with it, too. Anyway, she says, what -would we do if there weren’t any boys to grow up men, and that’s what I -think.” - -“Do you?” said a gruff voice from the doorway, laden with pessimistic -contempt. “What I think is that no boy at your age ever talked -one-sixteenth part as much as you do, and if boys were more trying than -girls I’d pity ’em. But what’s more, I’d pity their families.” Peter -stalked into the room and threw down an armful of books, nodded to Kit, -and said with the air of one who had outlived emotion: - -“I got your books changed at the library, Joan, but what you wanted was -out, except that history essay stuff Antony wanted. And the girl over -there sent something she hoped would suit you, but I don’t suppose it -will.” - -“You poor dear Pete!” cried Joan. “You’re a trump to do this tiresome -errand! If they’re not right, never mind; I’ll take them back in the -baby’s carriage when I go out with her to-morrow. I’m sorry I didn’t do -that in the first place; I’ve no business to be such a nuisance!” - -“You’re no nuisance; you never were, Joan,” said Peter, graciously. “If -I thought Anne would ever grow up to be a little like you it sure would -be a pleasant thought!” - -“Now never mind about little Anne,” interposed Mrs. Berkley, seeing -little Anne getting ready for self-defence, at which she was only too -adept. “She’s a loving little girl who tries to correct her faults, -especially now.” Mrs. Berkley held up the thin white material on which -she was sewing. “You see, Peter, dear, you are too near Anne’s age to -remember how it feels to be that age; we understand it better from our -greater distance. But you are the best lad in the world, Peter the -Second, just as Anne is the dearest little girl.” - -Mrs. Berkley, having contrived to suggest to Peter his extreme youth, -proceeded to rejoice the heart which adored her by beaming on him -affectionately that his vanity might not be too deeply wounded. - -As Kit looked on and listened to this talk the disturbance of mind with -which he had set out faded away. They were not saying wise things that -could be quoted; they were not doing great deeds, unless it were both -wise and great thus to correct, guide, make happy. Kit felt that it -was. He was not an analyst; he instinctively felt much that he could -not formulate in words; he possessed a code for his own guidance that -he would have found difficult to write out for another. Now he began -to see by the steady light of inward vision recent events cast upon -the screen in their true proportions, the unconscious goodness of this -simple family, the standard by which he measured them. - -“I’ve some money that my mother left me,” he said, aloud, as -unexpectedly to himself as to his audience. - -Mrs. Berkley looked up, trying to mask her surprise. - -“Have you, Kit? That’s nice, though it is not likely that you’ll need -more than the Carrington inheritance,” she said, in her motherly way. - -“I didn’t mean to inflict upon you an item of such limited interest,” -said Kit. “I didn’t know I was going to say that; I thought aloud. You -know, Mrs. Berkley, that Aunt Anne loves me in a way that may easily -unlove me if I ever displease her.” - -“Well put, Kit,” said Mrs. Berkley. “But do you think you are likely -to displease her? I’d be sorry to have you, not only for your own sake, -but because Miss Carrington is such a piteous, denuded person. It is -ghastly to think of her bleak horizon!” - -“I don’t suppose many people pity Miss Anne Carrington,” said Kit. -“But you are right; she is denuded, with a bleak outlook. I don’t know -whether or not I’ll ever displease her, nor how hard it would hit her -if I did; I mean how much she’d resent what I wouldn’t do. But a fellow -can’t go too far, from a sense of duty.” - -“Don’t you mean that a fellow can’t go too far, from a _mistaken_ -sense of duty, but must go all the way for the sake of actual duty?” -suggested Mrs. Berkley. “You are mysterious, Kit, but we’ll always be -glad if you come to us when you want to thresh out your bothers.” - -“I know!” cried little Anne with one of her flashes of unchildlike -perception. “Miss Carrington likes the splendid princess lady, who is -one of the proud step-sisters, better’n you do, Kit!” - -Kit gasped. “Anne!” he cried. “What under the sun----?” - -“Anne doesn’t realize as much as her remarks convey to others,” -interpolated the child’s mother. “Children of her sort are sensitive -to atmosphere, but they can’t gauge all that it envelops. You haven’t -asked what I am making, Kit, and that is a safe subject!” - -“I ask now,” said Kit. - -“A dress for me!” cried little Anne, forestalling her mother. “It is -for my First Communion. Mother is making it only straight and full -because she likes it simple, she says. These queer places with the -threads all pulled out aren’t wrong, Kit; they’re for hemstitching and -it’s lovely. Mother’s making it every bit by hand, by her hand. I’ll -pray for you that day, Kit; then you’ll be all right. Is anything not -all right now, dear Kit?” - -“Everything is perfectly right, little Anne,” Kit answered, “but I -wouldn’t mind being prayed for by you, if you wouldn’t mind doing it. -Queer little Anne!” - -He kissed her thin cheek, clasping the small eager face raised to him, -its great eyes searching his face as if they would read his soul. - -“Everyone! Everyone in all this world that I love!” little Anne -solemnly assured him. “It will be on Corpus Christi, at the -nine-o’clock Mass, in the real church; not the basement. Kit, I shall -walk up the aisle all in white and have on a veil, and, and, Kit, I do -hope, _hope_ I shall not die before that! And Father is going to -give the flowers, and so is Antony. And we shall all be there, in the -church, all my own I love. Even Peter-two!” - -“And I? Might I come?” asked Kit, hesitating whether he should ask the -privilege. - -“Oh, goody, goody!” cried little Anne, instantly changed back into a -joyous little girl, and whirling madly about, clapping her hands. “Kit -can come, Kit can come! All K’s--no; all C’s--no; well, it sounds all -something alike, anyway! What a day it will be! Mother, Kit will come -to the church for me!” - -“Yes, dear,” said Mrs. Berkley. “Thank you, Kit, for loving my little -Anne. Must you go? Come again soon, dear Kit Carrington!” - -Then all went out on the steps to see him off: Joan, with her baby on -her hip; Peter, dignified, but affectionate to Kit, whom he admired; -Mrs. Berkley, motherly and kind; little Anne clinging fondly to his -hand. - -As he walked down the street he felt that he had learned the wisdom -that he had gone to seek. - - - - -CHAPTER X - -_The Stray Page_ - - -Richard Latham, his dictation over for the day, had gone with Stetson -to the bank. He had been unusually silent, Anne Dallas had thought, -absent-minded, and he looked pale, as if he had not rested well. - -She had not asked him questions; more than most men he disliked to -discuss his health, but it seemed to Anne, considering after he had -gone, that Richard Latham was not himself. - -She sat in the poet’s beautiful garden at work on some lace, the pillow -on her knee. The fragrance of apple blossoms was on the warm breeze -that brushed her face. - -“‛Sumer is icumen in,’” thought Anne, skilfully catching her thread -into a knot on her needle point. She felt more than usual pity for -Richard, recalling his patient face, to know that he, of all men best -fitted to dwell with enchanted eyes on summer’s loveliness, never again -would see it. - -“Miss Dallas! Miss Dallas! Miss Anne! Miss Anne Dallas! Anne! Anne!” -shouted someone in such rapid-fire calling that reply was impossible. -It could be but one person, and Anne Dallas looked up expectantly to -see little Anne coming flying down the garden. Her long, thin legs, in -their long, brown stockings, her brown, straight frock, her bobbed hair -standing out around her head, all combined to give her the effect of a -forked branch of a tree which had been snapped off and blown along the -path by a higher wind than that which was actually blowing. Behind her -ran the beagle, Cricket, his black-and-tan ears streaming backward, -his tongue out, his eyes excitedly rolling, his breath visibly short. -He did not venture with Anne into most of her explorations, but he had -learned that the Latham garden was safe for timid bow-legged dogs, and -hither he confidently came. - -“What is it, Anne, dear?” asked Anne Dallas, guarding her work against -little Anne’s imminent onslaught. “Glad to see you.” - -“Guess what!” cried little Anne, throwing herself upon Anne. As she -spoke she waved papers held together by a fastener. - -“I never could guess!” declared Anne with conviction. “Are you -appointed Queen of the Birds, or are you sentenced to exile in an ant -hill, you little quicksilver creature?” - -“Oh, you are nice!” panted little Anne, appreciatively. “This isn’t -a--a--an appointing dockerment. What do you s’pose?” - -Anne shook her head, and little Anne cried triumphantly: - -“It’s these is; Peter’s!” - -“These _is_? These _are_, Anne. And what are Peter’s? That -isn’t English.” - -Anne looked puzzled. - -“That’s just what it is; his English class; he said so,” little Anne -insisted. “Peter-two said he’d bet I couldn’t make him mad, a child -like me! That’s when I got kind of mad with Peter-two, and I said so’d -he be, and he said I couldn’t make him mad, ’cause I wasn’t ’nough -importance. And he had his these is--these are--but, Miss Anne, I know, -at least I pretty near know, Peter said these is--and he had to have it -in school this morning, and I got it, and hid it, and here ’tis, and -he’s gone without it, and I guess he will be good’n mad, won’t he?” - -In spite of herself Anne laughed, then she arose to her duty. - -“Anne, that is poor Peter’s thesis!” she cried. “Let me see it. Of -course it is that! And you have sent Peter to school without it! Don’t -you know, dear, that Peter will be reprimanded for his carelessness, -and receive bad marks besides? You should not play tricks on Peter that -will get him into trouble at school.” - -Instantly little Anne dropped from her height of triumphant glee into -depths of contrite shame. - -“Oh, dear, oh, dear! Oh, Miss Anne, is it bad? And I’m preparing and -trying to be good! I mustn’t do one least, littlest sin. Is it a sin, -Miss Anne? Do you think it could be a mortal sin, or just venial? -But I’ve no business to commit even the weeniest venial sin when I’m -preparing! Not the weest, littlest one! Is it a mortal sin, Miss Anne?” - -“Goodness, what a child!” sighed Anne. “Dear little Anne, I suppose I -don’t know as much as I should about it, but if mortal means what it -usually does, this isn’t a mortal sin. It seems to me a fault, not a -sin, you small Mediæval Survival! It isn’t kind to vex Peter, and you -ought not to get him into a scrape.” - -“What’ll I do?” Little Anne looked profoundly downcast for a moment; -then she cheered up. “It’s too late now to do anything,” she said in -a relieved tone. “Peter’s school gets out at two and it’s ’most noon. -I’ll tell him I’m sorry, and I’ll give him--give him--my new blank -book. He’ll love it and it’ll be good for him to write these ises in, -to remind him his little sister’s sorry--and how she _could_ make -him mad, even if she is little!” - -Anne grew more and more consoled as she looked longer at the brighter -side of her fall. - -“And I’ll ask my mother what kind of a sin it was; she knows all about -every kind of sin. Should I say the Act of Contrition?” - -Little Anne looked ready to fall on her knees and do penance with -hearty enjoyment, and Anne said, hastily: - -“Better ask your mother about that, too, dear. What a queer child you -are!” - -Then Anne’s changeable little face lost its elfin look of mingled -regret and satisfaction, her eyes dilated and were raised, her lips -quivered, a flush slowly spread to her hair; she clasped her thin, -quick hands and said: - -“Just to be good! Just to be so good that there never would be one -stain on me and I’d never be mad, nor make Peter-two mad, but be a -white, loving soul in the world!” - -Anne looked at her, startled. She was accustomed to little Anne’s -flights, her strange, unchildlike aspirations and depths of -understanding, and her mercurial falls into human mischief. But there -was on her small face now such a rapt look that Anne was conscious of -awe that was partly fear. She laid her hand softly on the child’s hair -and little Anne came down to earth without the loss of a moment. - -“I found something,” she said. “Can Mr. Latham write?” - -“Write? Do you mean---- Oh, you mean write as we do, with his own -hand?” asked Anne, trying to adjust to this new topic. “Yes. He was -not always blind; he lost his sight in an accident. He writes a tiny, -tiny hand, hard to read, though every letter is clearly formed. He uses -paper with raised lines, else his lines would run together. He does -not often try to write; he writes to a few friends, to Mr. Wilberforce -most. Why did you ask that, dear?” - -“I found something,” repeated little Anne, “when I was looking for you. -It was on the floor, upstairs in the hall. I went upstairs and I called -you, but of course you didn’t hear out in the garden. I picked it up.” - -Little Anne produced from the pocket in her skirt, of which she was -inordinately proud, a sheet of paper, folded small. She spread it -out on her knee and carefully smoothed it; Anne saw that it was an -ordinary sheet of letter paper, unruled, covered with Richard Latham’s -microscopic characters, running together in places, straggling apart in -others, lines of irregular length, verses. - -Anne hesitated a moment; she probably had already copied these verses, -dictated to her by Richard. They could not be anything that he did not -wish her to see. If it had been something in prose form she would not -have looked at it, fearing it might be a letter not intended for her -eyes, but verses written by him belonged to her official care. - -“May I see, little Anne?” she asked, and took the paper. - -She knew at once that these were not verses that she had ever copied. -She read them with difficulty in deciphering them, with greater -difficulty in controlling the terror, actual terror, which they -inspired in her. - - -FOR ANNE - - “_There is a song I must not sing - Which sings itself the livelong day; - There is a plea I must not bring - Which ev’ry breath I draw must pray; - There is a word past uttering - The only word my tongue would say: - Oh, sweetest, fairest, dearest, best, in silence I must go my way!_ - - _Oh, blinded eyes deprived of light; - Oh, hunger that is never fed; - Oh, love that yearns, denied the right - To kiss a tress upon that head; - Oh, broken life, creep far from sight - To hide where pity makes thy bed - For glory, fame, and wealth are stones to me, a beggar craving bread._” - -“I love poetry,” hinted little Anne, but checked herself when she saw -the elder Anne’s face. - -It had turned quite white, tears stood in her dark eyes, her lips -quivered. - -“Oh, little Anne, what can it mean? Who is it? Why didn’t I have it to -copy?” Anne murmured. “Oh, he mustn’t know we read it!” - -“I didn’t,” said little Anne, reproachfully, and Anne kissed her, -grateful that the child made her smile. - -“Promise me on your honour, little Anne, that you will never speak to -any one of having found these verses. Promise! And remember that a -promise is a sacred thing, faithfully to be kept,” she said. - -“I never in this world break my promises,” declared little Anne, -proudly, but truthfully. “I promise! Not even Mother?” - -“You may tell her that you found the verses, but that no one is to know -it; you can say that you did not know what they were like,” Anne said, -wisely deciding that this concession would be a safety valve to little -Anne’s unimpeachable honour. - -“Do you know where you found the paper, Anne? Then take it into the -house, please, and lay it where it was, and come back to me. Hurry, -little Anne! Oh, if Mr. Latham should come in before you did this!” - -“He can’t find it on the floor, can he?” little Anne demurred. - -“Then Stetson will. Don’t delay, dear; please be quick!” Anne fairly -turned the child around by the shoulders and pushed her toward the -house. Little Anne was speedy; she was back before Anne had time to -worry over the likelihood of Richard’s coming, or Cricket to fall into -utter despair at being abandoned by his small mistress. - -“I think I’d better go home now,” announced little Anne on her return. -“I heard the Angelus down at our church quite a long time ago, so it’s -’most my lunch time. You look kind of pale, Miss Anne, dear. Was that -bad for me to pick up that paper? I thought it was only neat when it -was lying around like that. Was that a sin? Like troubling Peter-two? -It’s very, very awful hard to walk sinlessly in this world, isn’t it?” - -“Oh, Anne, darling, of course it was only neat!” cried the girl, -kissing little Anne heartily. - -“Well, you can’t do sins unless you know they are wrong and just go -ahead and mean to, but I kind of forget that; only when I recite it, -you know,” said the thin theologian. “I’ve got to tell Peter ’was me -took his these is, and nobody can tell what he’ll say to me! Mother -won’t let him _do_ anything, but she’ll talk to me, and that’s -worse. It’s the most fearfullest of all when mother’s sorry! But I’ve -got to be willing to bear it, if I didn’t do right, and I can offer it -up. Good-bye, darling Miss Anne. I hope I didn’t make you sick with -that paper; you look sicky.” - -“Not a bit, funny little Anne. Good-bye, and come soon again,” she -said, cheerfully. - -Little Anne looked worried, she went slowly toward her acknowledgment -of wrong-doing and her penance, but she forgot all about it as new -thoughts took possession of her. She flew at her customary speed down -the street, Cricket breathlessly running after her. - -To Anne’s inexpressible relief Richard Latham telephoned to her to say -that he would lunch out, and that there would be nothing to keep her -within doors that lovely afternoon. - -She gladly availed herself of this chance to get away from the familiar -beauty of the garden and adjust her perturbed mind to her dismaying -discovery. She went down through the garden and let herself out by the -small gate at its rear that opened on a path which led to a pretty -bit of woods of which she was fond. It must be set down in honesty -that before she went out Anne went upstairs, picked up the paper which -little Anne had faithfully laid exactly where she had found it, and -made a copy for herself of the two stanzas which had so stirred her. -Then she, like the smaller Anne, put the paper on the floor and went -away. - -She walked swiftly to the spot in the woods which she had in mind -in setting forth and dropped on the mossy sod to think. She was not -a vain girl, not prone to believe herself admired, not consciously -seeking admiration. She was singularly direct in mind and simple in -motives. She accepted herself, the fact that she was pretty, that she -had several accomplishments and was generally liked, as a pleasant -thing, but not to be emphasized more than any other pleasant fact like -sunshine, or good green grass. - -In her silent way Anne held strongly to strong purposes in life; young -as she was she “had found herself,” as it is expressively put nowadays. -And the person who is thus balanced, who actually has “found herself,” -is not likely to waste time looking for other things or people. - -In her close intimacy with Richard Latham for almost a year, she had -been flooded with a pity for him that was always at high tide within -her. She admired him for his beauty of character as much as for his -gifts of mind. His gentle courtesy, his sweetness, the modesty that -persevered in spite of the plaudits that he received, had inspired in -her a passion of affectionate pity for him that rather excluded than -led to love for him. Of herself in connection with him--beyond her -ability to be useful to him, to serve him in his work, to brighten his -days--she had never thought. That his reliance on her, his appreciation -of her personally, as well as of what she did, might mean love for her, -had never till that day crossed her mind. He was to her a man removed -from this possibility no less by his misfortune than by his genius. - -Anne laid her head down on the moss and cried miserably. It was -unbearable to think that she had brought pain into this afflicted life. -True, it would be easy to assuage it. Yet not so easy. She did not -love Richard. She held him as one of the dearest of her earthly ties, -but she did not love him. She felt sure that if she were to try to -make him happy, if she devoted her life to him, that he was far too -sensitive not to feel the lack of the right sort of love in his wife; -far too high-minded to be less than wretched at being the object of -her immolation. A strong word, an absurd one to use in connection with -marriage to Richard Latham, Anne knew that most people would say, yet -to a girl like her any marriage without the love that marriage implies -and demands would be immolation. She cried with all her might into the -soft moss. - -Presently Anne heard a footstep and raised her head to see Miss -Carrington near her, standing looking down on her with sincere -amazement, but also with carefully arranged sympathy in her face. - -“I suppose there is no use in denying it, but don’t mind me, Miss -Carrington. It’s only a bother that will probably prove more bearable -than it looks in perspective; most things are less unendurable than you -expect them to be when they come to close range,” Anne said, checking -her tears. - -“My dear child,” said Miss Carrington, coming over to put her arm -gently around Anne with an intense desire to get at the cause of her -emotion, “you are young, and I am at least elderly. You are alone in -Cleavedge. Won’t you trust me, my dear, and tell me what is wrong? I -can hold my tongue, I assure you, and I know what it is to be alone.” - -“It isn’t myself only, Miss Carrington,” said Anne. - -“How could it be? Did you ever hear of a human experience that was? My -dear, it’s my opinion that we not only cannot be separated to ourselves -in this world, but as a rule we should not have troubles if it weren’t -for other people! Won’t you let me try to help?” Miss Carrington -persisted. - -Anne shook her head. “Thank you, nevertheless,” she said. “This is -not the sort of thing that any one else can help, nor I, either, I’m -afraid.” - -“Let me guess!” Miss Carrington took Anne’s hands, cold from hard -weeping, between her silky palms, the soft, cool, frail hands of an -old gentlewoman. “Let me guess! At your age there can be but one cause -of such violent weeping, so I can easily conjecture. You have just -discovered what I have known all along, that Richard Latham loves -you.” She hoped that this was a good guess and not that this weeping -concerned Kit; she held Anne’s hands fast in spite of her attempts to -pull them away, disregarding her protesting: “No, no, no!” - -“Known all along?” Anne repeated her last words, startled out of her -caution. - -“Surely, my dear. My nephew and I have discussed it; we hope that it is -true,” Miss Carrington assured her, stretching the small “we” to fit -her need. “It frightens you? You are such a dear, maidenly, old-time -girl that I suppose we must allow for your first shrinking when you -learn that you are loved. Then, of course, it awes you to think that -it is a poet, Richard Latham, who loves you, a poet and a blind poet! -But, oh, my dear, my dear, how inappropriate are your tears! How -blessed, how exalted you are! By his genius, certainly, but by his -need of you more. A woman is blessed exactly in proportion to the need -of her in those she loves. Mr. Latham not only loves you, as we all -saw, devotedly, devoutly--that is the better word!--but he loves you -with such complete dependence upon you that it is no exaggeration to -say that, though he might not die if he lost you, he would in no real -sense go on living if he were deprived of you. To be the life of such -a man! To be his inspiration and his repose! Indeed I congratulate -you, I would envy you were I not done with life. And I am sure from -what I know of you that perfect happiness could not come to you except -in the opportunity to devote yourself. You are not ambitious, like, -for instance, the handsome girl who will be Kit’s wife. Of course her -ambition will help Kit, who is going in for a career. It is a most -satisfactory arrangement to me, but it would not do for you! I don’t -mind admitting to you that Helen’s ideals are less fine than yours, -but I am glad to have her marry Kit. Don’t think I’m underestimating -Helen. And of course what has slipped out to you is in confidence; it -is not to be made public yet. Dear child, dear little namesake, with -all my heart I rejoice that Richard Latham has his compensation in you. -We have all feared to conjecture what might happen to him if it were -the wrong woman. I can’t say more of you than that you are supremely -the right woman. I am deeply thankful. Never another tear, my child! -You would have slain our poet if you had failed him; you don’t know how -glad I am!” - -Anne, exhausted from weeping, stunned and frightened by what she was -hearing, made some feeble attempts to check this torrent of delight. -She heard, with terror and a sense of being engulfed, that Richard -Latham’s life was in her hands. It came upon her with overpowering -force that if this were so clear to these sharp old eyes, there was -no alternative before her but to marry him and do her best. She also -heard with a numb ache that bewildered her that Kit was to marry Helen -Abercrombie, who was so far removed from his simple kindliness, his -goodness, his warmth of heart. This secret was for Anne to keep! - -How strange a day of endings and beginnings! - -Patiently Anne submitted to being kissed by Miss Carrington. She -fancied there was an infusion of a salute to the bride in the embrace. -Slowly she went back to her boarding place, weary in brain and body. - - - - -CHAPTER XI - -_Penitential_ - - -If a Roman general ever went out certain of conquest and returned -defrauded of his triumph to be chained to the wheels of a chariot and -dragged through the city in disgrace, instead of gloriously striding -that chariot, then that general and Peter Berkley the Second would have -understood each other’s bitterness. - -Little Anne’s heart sank lower when she heard the outer door slam, -though by the time that she had reached home and had waited, dreading -to hear Peter’s step, it was already sufficiently despairing. To make -matters worse, Mrs. Berkley had gone to lunch with Joan, leaving -Bibiana, Anne’s former nurse, now serving as waitress, to see that the -children were comfortable. Children, indeed! Peter was a ruined man. -He came into the house with a tragic stride, gloom upon his brow, but -in spite of his mature sense of catastrophe--he demanded his mother -instantly as Anne might have done, while he threw his books and hat -in different directions and himself into a chair, like Napoleon after -Waterloo. - -Little Anne rose from a dark corner looking white and small. She was -trembling, but she did what was required of her, albeit her voice was -faint and it quavered. - -“Mother went to Joan’s, Peter. I’m sorry, Peter-two,” she said. - -“So am I. I’d like to talk to her,” growled Peter. “But of course she’d -go when I need her so bad.” - -“No, Peter; she’s ’most always here for our lunch, but Babs has a -cold,” little Anne was still able to justify her mother. “And you don’t -have to talk to her, Peter; I shall tell her myself, and I am sorry, -truly.” - -“Heh?” cried Peter, arousing to the fact that Anne was not sorry only -that her mother was absent. “What are you sorry about? What’ll you tell -her? See here, did you----” - -Little Anne nodded hard, choking. Peter looked dreadfully fierce and -grown-up, and she became sharply aware that she was only seven. - -“You stole----?” Peter’s emotions again choked his speech. - -“Your these is--are,” said little Anne, miserably. - -“What for?” Peter fairly roared at the trembling child. “What good did -it do you, you--you--bad, meddlesome monkey?” - -“It was because you said I couldn’t make you mad,” said little Anne, -rallying slightly. Peter calling her names was more familiar, less -formidable than Peter inarticulate. “I never thought it would make -you trouble till Miss Anne said so. I am dreadful sorry, honest I am, -Peter-two! I’ll give you my new blank book with the red cover to make -rusti--resti--to make up. And your these is--are--is not hurt.” - -“Good heavens!” burst out Peter. “You might think it was bric-à-brac! -You’d suppose even a kid would know it had to be turned in at school -to-day, and isn’t a thing to be harmed. I’m harmed, I’ll tell you -_that_, Miss Anne! I’m disgraced, that’s what! Heaps of the -fellows have been getting out of doing these, so the heads made a -rule that the next one that didn’t have his paper ready would be made -an example. _I_ was _it_! It’s a thing a fellow can’t live -down; I was disgraced. And I hadn’t even a slim excuse to offer. I’d -no mortal idea where it was, went to get it out--gone! When I said -I’d written it, made a donkey of myself generally, looking like a -gibbering idiot, it settled me; ’course they thought I was lying!” - -“Tell them it was me, tell them, Peter!” begged little Anne. “I don’t -want them to know, but it’s truth, so I must. Tell them, Peter-two, I -took it and it wasn’t your fault.” - -“Yes, I guess!” Peter derided her. “I’d look well saying my kid sister -was allowed to rummage my things and steal my papers, now wouldn’t I? -I’d look well hiding behind you, my kid sister, wouldn’t I!” - -“Kind of like Adam,” said little Anne, absent-mindedly. “Then what can -you do, Peter-two?” - -“Bear it,” said Peter through his closed teeth. - -It had such a fearful ring that little Anne began to cry softly. - -“Oh, Peter-two, Peter-two,” she moaned. “I honest-to-goodness didn’t -mean to be wicked. I just wanted to make you mad, ’cause you said I -couldn’t. And oh, dear, oh, dear, I did, I did! Don’t you think you -could forgive me, Peter, when I’m so awful sorry and confessed, and -give you my book for repar--resti--making up? Couldn’t you forgive me, -not anyway at all, Peter-two?” - -“You’re spoiled,” said Peter, sternly, not hard-heartedly precisely, -but with a sense of obligation to make the most of this opportunity. -“I’ve said all along you were dreadfully spoiled, and you are. You’re -getting worse, Anne, and this was pretty bad. It won’t hurt you to do -penance.” - -“All right, Peter-two,” said little Anne, swallowing her rising sobs. -“Wha--what’ll I do?” - -“Oh, I don’t care what you do! Think of the harm you’ve done. Go sit in -a tree, or stand in the river. I don’t care what you do! I’m sick of -the whole business, and I’m going to get some gingerbread and study. Go -on and let me alone.” - -Little Anne looked at him with mournful dark eyes; the hollows which so -quickly showed below them deep and dark. - -“Before I go, Peter-two,” she said, softly, “won’t you please, please -kiss me and tell me you’ll forgive me by and by, after my penance?” - -“Anne, I’ve told you not to bother me!” Peter spoke in a sternly -parental tone. “Certainly I shall not kiss you; why should I, when -you’ve put me in such a position? I will decide about forgiving you -when I see whether or not you mean to behave yourself in the future.” - -Feeling that he had dealt with little Anne in a manner that was for -her welfare, and regretting that his mother could not see this object -lessen in the proper way to discipline her, Peter left the room and -little Anne’s stricken face to go after gingerbread, in the consumption -of which his adult manner was lost. - -He was in his room when his mother returned. She called him to ask if -he knew where Anne was. - -He did not. He had been too busy to think about her, he said, appearing -at the head of the stairs. He further guessed she was around. But she -was not. Bibiana, the waitress, had not seen her since she gave her -lunch. She admitted having thought that the child was not so hungry as -she might have been. - -Mrs. Berkley telephoned the mother of Monica, little Anne’s favourite -playmate, but Anne was not with Monica. She called up other houses, but -there was no news of the child. - -Peter, listening to the telephoning with his bedroom door open, began -to feel an uneasiness which he did not intend to betray to his mother. -It was uncomfortable not to know where Anne was, remembering how -sternly he had disciplined her for her confessed and repented fault, -had refused to forgive her immediately or to seal the forgiveness with -the kiss that she had implored. - -Peter sauntered downstairs with a manner exaggeratedly casual, his cap -on the back of his head. - -“Oh, don’t go away, Peter!” cried his mother. “I am beginning to feel -uneasy about Anne.” - -“Oh, Anne’s all right!” Peter assured her. “I won’t be long. I thought -maybe I’d make her hurry home; I thought you were getting worried by -the way you were telephoning all over. I’ll tell her to hurry in and -not worry you.” - -“Oh, Peter, it sounds as though you did know where she was!” cried Mrs. -Berkley. - -“Not hard to guess,” said Peter, and slammed the door before his mother -could ask what his guess was and he should have to confess to having in -mind nowhere that she had not already interrogated. Once out of sight -his nonchalance fell from him like the mask that it was. He pulled his -cap down over his forehead and set out on a run. He made speed to find -Anne Dallas, feeling that in some unforeseen way she could help him. - -“Gee, if only I had kissed the kid!” he thought, nameless forebodings -gripping him. - -Anne Dallas knew nothing of little Anne; Mrs. Berkley had already -called her to ask, she told Peter. He thought that she looked ill and -her eyes were swollen; there was reason for his own fright, then, if -Miss Dallas was worried to this extent over Anne. - -“Oh, I knew Mother’d call you up,” Peter said, shifting from foot to -foot as he stood. “But I sort of thought if you didn’t know where she -was maybe you’d come home with me, talk to Mother till Father gets -there--though Anne must come before he does!” he interrupted himself -hastily. “Joan couldn’t come at this time very well--baby goes to bed, -and Antony gets in early--and Mother’s kind of worried. Women do worry -a whole lot over their children.” Peter gave Anne the benefit of his -unique experience. - -“I’ll go this minute,” said Anne. “My hat is right here.” - -“You see Anne was feeling down in the mouth on account of something -she’d done to me,” Peter said as they walked along, unable to restrain -this confidence. - -“She took your thesis. Yes, but she went home to tell you and beg for -forgiveness, so that’s all right now. Isn’t it?” Anne cried, frightened -by Peter’s expression. Then, as he did not answer, she understood. - -“Oh, dear! And she is such an emotional child! Oh, poor Peter! But of -course no harm can have befallen her,” Anne said, laying her hand on -Peter’s arm. - -Mrs. Berkley welcomed Anne without many words. She clasped her hand, -and said: “Thank you, dear!” - -Peter went past them up to his room again. It was getting late. - -After lunch that day Kit Carrington had found his home and its inmates -beyond his power to endure. He was seized with an attack of nerves, -made evident by his restlessness of body and complete repose of tongue. - -In vain had Miss Carrington tried to involve him in plans of her own. -Equally in vain had Helen offered suggestions that were practically -requests to Kit to do one of several things which would have -sufficiently amused her. Kit had one of his most obtuse fits; he met -both his aunt and Helen with polite obstinacy and mental deafness. - -It ended in his going off to his room and getting himself into his -fishing clothes, taking his rod, and starting off to fish the river for -a long afternoon of his own unshared companionship. - -He was too unused to introspection to know what ailed him; indeed the -symptoms were confused and contradictory. He felt at once unhappy -and glad; heavily dull and restless; filled with vague expectation -that seemed to urge him on, he did not know whither, as if something -glorious awaited him just around the corner; yet pain that was almost -despair flooded him, as if all the meaning and value were out of life. - -“Well, good gracious, I wonder what’s wrong with me! Must be getting -sick,” thought Kit as he realized the civil warfare within him. All day -long Anne Dallas had been before him, alluring, desirable, close to his -mind, yet removed, as if she had died. - -“Funny!” thought simple Kit. - -Later, his aunt returning from a walk in the woods, might have offered -him a solution, if he would admit telepathy as a premise. - -He began to find the quiet of fields a balm to his perturbed spirits. -The woods, when he came to them and entered them, quieted him still -more. - -“Why didn’t I bring poor old Sirius? What a brute I am to forget -him when he so loves this sort of excursion and gets so few!” Kit -reproached himself. “Just the trip for a dog! Well, that’s queer! -There’s little Anne’s beagle, Cricket. Wonder if I could persuade him -to join me? He’s such a scared beggar! Still, he’s getting reconciled -to me. Here, Cricket, Cricket, you bundle!” - -Cricket came cautiously in wide loops toward Kit, wagging his body -deprecatingly, expressing a hope which he was not convinced had -sufficient foundation. - -“Flattered, I’m sure, that you trust me to this extent, young -misanthrope!” Kit patted the dog with a finger tip, and followed it up -with his palm. “Seems to me you act queer, but then you are always such -an absurdity that it’s hard telling! I suspect that you came out after -rabbits, sir, and are properly ashamed! Though a man with a fishing -rod is no moralist to impress you, eh? Well, Cricket, I admit your -reasoning.” - -Kit got out his bait and began to fish. Cricket left him, returned, -whined, and curved himself imploringly; went away again, returned -again, barked, and finally disappeared. - -Kit paid slight attention to the beagle’s vagaries. He fished along -the bank, waded out into the stream, sat for a time upon a rock and -fished from there, whistling softly, forgetful of the perturbation -which had sent him out to look for peace. - -“Pretty good fun to invite your soul and have no one else at your -exclusive party,” thought Kit, recognizing his own pleasure and that it -was satisfying, though he had taken no fish. “Must get back, I suppose, -when there’s a fair lady to dine. But I’m going to try that other place -first.” - -“That other place” lay farther up the river. It was a quiet spot, -shaded by over-hanging branches. He strode to it in his rubber boots, -his walking shoes hung across his shoulders by their knotted lacings. -He walked in the water, finding it more comfortable with his boots on -than land; he noticed how cold the river was still, although there had -been several days of considerable warmth. - -“Well, now for a last try!” Kit thought as he came to the spot which he -had in mind. - -There on the river bank sat Cricket piteously whining. - -“Anne! Little Anne!” shouted Kit. - -Mid-stream stood little Anne, her skirts gathered up in her hands, her -bare, slender legs shaking beneath her as the ice-cold river lapped -them to the knees. - -When Kit called her name she turned to him a disfigured, tear-swollen -face and fell forward into the water. He strode out to her and gathered -her up in his arms. She was unconscious and her poor little body was as -cold as the dead. - -“Oh, Lord, and so far from everything!” thought Kit. - -He did not dally to consider. Casting away his rod and basket he set -out on a run toward the town, holding Anne close to his breast. Cricket -streamed after them, but Kit had been a sprinter and an all-around -athlete; the beagle’s short bowed legs stood no chance at keeping up. - -It seemed to Kit that he made no sort of time; he cursed his impeding -rubber boots fervently; in reality, he covered the distance to the -nearest drug store at a record speed. - -He laid little Anne on the counter, still unconscious, and supported -her head on one arm. - -“Brandy!” he gasped. - -“Artificial respiration,” said the bland but frightened druggist, -prompt with first-aid knowledge. - -“She’s not drowned; it’s exhaustion. She fainted, fell into the river. -Brandy, man! Don’t stop to talk!” Kit ordered. - -“You know, Mr. Carrington, I can’t sell brandy without a doctor’s -prescription,” said the druggist with finality. - -It is certain that Kit’s exclamation was accounted to him as -righteousness, for it sprang from love for little Anne. - -“Give it and don’t sell it then, you idiot!” he said, savagely. “Give -the child brandy and I’ll give you a present later. Good heavens, is -this child to lie here in this state while I stalk a doctor? Who’s to -know what’s done here, anyway? You use my name; you know me. I’ll be -responsible. But I swear I won’t be responsible for what I do to you if -you don’t get a move on you, quick! And I’m some boxer, if you want to -know.” Kit glared furiously at the small man with the timorous air and -the druggist got down a bottle. - -“It’s the law, Mr. Carrington; I’m not to blame, and I certainly don’t -want to get into trouble breaking laws,” he said, pouring a little -brandy into a glass. - -“Get a spoon,” Kit ordered, disregarding him. - -He poured the liquor down little Anne’s throat and chafed her wrists. -The druggist rubbed her legs. - -“What happened to her?” he ventured to ask, plainly doubtful of Kit’s -patience. “Who is she?” - -“Mr. Peter Berkley’s child. I don’t know what happened. She was -standing in the water and fainted just as I came along to fish,” said -Kit. Little Anne opened her eyes with a sigh. - -“Was it enough? Is it all right?” she murmured and closed her eyes -again. - -“It was a heap too much, little Anne,” said Kit, tenderly. “Help me get -off her wet dress and lend me something to wrap around her, can’t you? -Haven’t you a coat?” - -“I have a blanket which I use when I sleep in the store,” said the -druggist. “Easy to see you have no little girls, Mr. Carrington. Now I -have; two. You unbutton their dresses this way.” - -“Oh, please don’t, Kit! I’d much rather be undressed at home,” little -Anne implored. - -“You shall be. Only this wet dress, Nancy-Bell, and then I’ll roll you -up in a blanket----” - -“Seventy times as high as the moon,” murmured little Anne, feebly -submitting. - -“Another ‛wee deoch and doris,’ Anne!” said Kit putting the teaspoon to -her lips. And this time little Anne could help herself. - -Kit rolled her up in the blanket which the druggist produced and which -he could not help being glad to see was a bright-coloured Navajo; he -wanted little Anne to be wrapped in something cheerful. - -“I’ll be back to-morrow and bring the blanket and some money. I haven’t -any with me. I beg your pardon for cussing you, but time counts in such -a case--so does a stimulant!” said Kit, as he shouldered his precious -burden and went away. - -Little Anne rallied enough to want to explain. - -“It was penance, Kit, dear,” she said. “I did a fearful thing to -Peter-two and he couldn’t forgive me yet. He told me to do penance and -said stand in the river when I said what kind. He wouldn’t kiss me. So -I did it. It’s a cold, an _awful_ cold penance, Kit!” Little Anne -shuddered. - -“Oh, little Anne, didn’t you know Peter didn’t mean that? Fancy, -penance! It sure _was_ cold! What a foolish child you were! -If only it hasn’t harmed you! Were you there long?” demanded Kit, -anxiously. - -“I don’t know; I think so. Peter-two gets home half-past two, or -something, and I went pretty soon. I’m sleepy, Kit. Is Mother worried? -I forgot my mother.” Anne spoke wearily. - -“Dear, I don’t know about going to sleep; perhaps it would harm you. -You see I don’t know what it might do to you. Keep awake, little Anne! -Let me tell you how worried your Cricket was about you, and how he -tried to say there was something wrong.” Kit accompanied the homeward -journey with chatter about the beagle to which little Anne faithfully -strove to listen, but her heavy lids would not stay open. - -When Mrs. Berkley, her husband, Peter, crowded to the door with -terror-stricken faces, seeing Kit coming and what he bore, little Anne -was asleep. - -“Kit?” Mrs. Berkley managed the word, but could ask no more. - -“I don’t know, Mrs. Berkley; she’s not hurt; she may be harmed,” Kit -answered her. - -He relinquished little Anne to her father and watched her family as -they gently turned away the blanket from the thin face, now crimson, -with pinched lips. - -“I found her standing in the river. She had some sort of an idea of -doing penance; of course, one of little Anne’s queer notions,” Kit -said, for with a groan as his words to little Anne came back to him, -Peter bolted. - -“We’ll put her to bed. Sometime I can thank you, Kit, dear,” said Mrs. -Berkley. - -Little Anne’s father did not speak and he had no hand to give. He -nodded to Kit, tears streaming down his face, and carried the child -upstairs. - -From the corner where she had sat, forgotten, Anne Dallas now emerged. - -She looked haggard; it had been a day of intense emotions. She felt -embarrassed to speak to Kit. She had just learned that he was to marry -Helen Abercrombie, and that she herself was beloved by Richard Latham. -The face of the world had changed. But Kit looked so surprised, so glad -to see her, he seized her hand so cordially, that she could not help -responding to his warmth. Why had she been disinclined to speak to him -in the first place? she wondered. He was the same fine boy; nothing had -happened to alter their friendship. - -“Are you going?” he asked. “I’ll walk with you, please. I’m troubled -about little Anne. She fainted dead when she saw me, been standing no -end of time, and the water is like ice to-day. Good heavens, if she has -pneumonia!” - -“Heaven forbid!” said Anne. - -Her heart leaped with pleasure at Kit’s kindness, his anxiety, the -warmth of his love for the child. She glowed with joy that he was so -good. - -“Saint Christopher bore a little Child out of the water, across to -safety, you know. Let us hope he will bless this Christopher’s rescue,” -she said, softly. - -Kit stared. “What nice things you think of; sweet, womanly, lovely -things,” he said, simply, and took Anne home. - - - - -CHAPTER XII - -_Making Alive_ - - -During three days and for as many long nights Anne Dallas lived -intensely in unrealities. Richard Latham was not inclined to talk; she -herself was submerged in feeling that silenced words. It seemed to her -that it blanketed thought, yet all the time she was thinking intently -and, unknown to herself, was reaching conclusions. She worked fast, for -Richard was working fast; she rapidly took down notes for the first -part of his third act, and was aware somewhere in her brain behind her -absorption that he was dictating to her lines which surpassed himself -at his previous best. - -Little Anne Berkley was dangerously ill. Pneumonia had developed on -the second day after her pitiful penance, and, little-Anne-like, she -was having it hard. Anne Dallas and Richard Latham were surprised to -find what a large place in their days and hearts the child had filled. -The thin little body as it lay prostrate in its fight for life cast a -shadow over the house in Latham Street. His anxiety stimulated Richard -to better work, but in Anne’s mind fear for little Anne aggregated to -her personal anxiety and benumbed her further. The world had grown -still, hushed by anxiety; she was feeling so intensely that she seemed -not to feel. - -Nor did the shadow of little Anne’s suffering darken only the poet’s -house. Kit was so afflicted by her danger that he hovered constantly -around the Berkley door, getting bulletins many times a day, bringing -preposterous gifts to the child who could not see them. - -Once, when she was sleeping, Mrs. Berkley took Kit up to look at her. -She lay with a disreputable doll beside her, her face so pinched, her -breathing so laboured, the look of suffering, of imminent death so -stamped upon her that Kit groaned aloud. Mrs. Berkley led him away as -little Anne stirred. - -“It’s bad, Kit, dear, but we are hoping and praying,” she said with -such a brave smile that when Kit got down to where Antony Paul was -waiting for him he broke down. - -Peter sat with his head in his hands, bowed over his knees. He looked -up fiercely as he heard Kit sob. - -“She isn’t your little sister. How do you suppose I feel?” he demanded. -“There never was such a kid as Anne. Joan isn’t in the same class, -Antony, no matter what you say. More brains than all the other children -in town put together, and never a fresh thing about her; sweet, -obedient, pious! And I wouldn’t forgive her for a clever little trick -that I ought to have enjoyed; yes, been proud to think she was smart -enough to work it! Wouldn’t kiss her! Oh, my Lord! Anne, Anne! Told her -to go stand in the river for penance, when she was so sorry, the little -saint! Wouldn’t kiss her!” - -Down went Peter’s head again and his shoulders heaved. - -“See here, old chap, we haven’t lost her yet. You know what to do. Get -out and do it. I believe she’ll be given back to us,” said Antony, his -arm laid across poor Peter as tenderly as a woman’s. Kit watched and -wondered, but Peter understood Antony. He drew his arm across his eyes, -got his cap, and went out without a word. - -Kit went miserably home. Aside from his sense of personal loss, it -seemed to him unbearable that a child so young, so vital as little Anne -should die. He had not meditated so profoundly on the mysteries of -life in all the brief time that he had lived it as he found himself -doing on his way home that afternoon. He distinctly shrank from going -into the metallic brightness of his aunt and Helen’s presence from the -sublime patience that he divined in Mrs. Berkley, and the solemnity of -little Anne, clothed in the mystery of suffering and death. - -He was met at the door by Helen, her face all gentle commiseration. - -“I am sure that you have nothing good to tell me, Kit, but Anne?” she -asked. - -He shook his head. “Not either sort of news. Of course there’s a chance -she may pull through.” - -“Kit, don’t feel so sorry. I can’t bear to see it. But if you are -sorry don’t exclude me as you do. What makes you? I’m not absolutely -inhuman!” Helen smiled, but she looked hurt. - -“She’s a nice child. You don’t like children,” said Kit, dangerously -near to rudeness. “It’s not excluding, Nell. What’s the use of talking -about things, anyway?” - -Kit went upstairs, leaving Helen where she stood. As he went he was -conscious that he would not have asked Anne Dallas what was the use of -talking about things; he knew that it would be the greatest comfort to -him to go to her and discuss little Anne and his recent thoughts. But, -he reminded himself, this was explained by Anne’s love for the sick -child. - -The next afternoon he did go to Richard Latham’s. He was shown directly -into the peaceful room where Anne Dallas and the poet were sitting. - -“Do I interrupt work?” Kit asked, pausing in the doorway. - -“No, indeed; all done for to-day,” said Richard. “Kit, have you bad -news?” he added. - -“Oh, your face says so!” exclaimed Anne; Richard had caught the note of -strain in his voice. - -Kit came in and dropped heavily into a chair. - -“I don’t know; I suppose it is not anything portentous. They are -waiting for the crisis, now; it’s near. Poor little girl!” He paused, -and Richard patted him on the shoulder. - -“We are all broken up here, too,” he said. - -“But there is something else, some change?” Anne asked. - -“She was conscious this morning and in the night,” said Kit. “She has -been conscious a good deal, they say. She asked what day this was, and -when they said Thursday, she asked if it was Corpus Christi? I don’t -know what that means, but----” - -“Yes, I do. I’ve seen it kept abroad, processions, and----” Richard -began, but Kit interrupted him. - -“Well,” he said, indifferently. “But the point is that this was -the day on which little Anne and some other children were to go to -Communion for the first time, and that through her pain the poor mite -had kept track of the days, somewhere in her fevered brain. And Joan -told me that the priest came and she did--what do they say?--make her -First Communion this morning. And afterward she said--isn’t this like -her?--‛I didn’t know my white dress for to-day would be my nightie.’ -That sort of broke me up.” Kit choked, and neither Anne nor Richard -spoke. - -“Well, little Anne’s father and Antony Paul were to get flowers for her -to give to the church. So they bought them for her room. Her mother -took me up. It was full of flowers, but Anne was not conscious when -I was there. They said she’d asked to have them taken to the church; -Peter was going to take them. They--the priest--he gave her--what did -Joan say? He anointed her for death. Little Anne!” - -Kit’s voice had been getting more unsteady; it stopped altogether and -he dropped his face into his hands. - -Anne was crying softly, but Richard said, though the effort was audible: - -“I’ve been told they often recover, those who receive Extreme Unction. -I am unable to believe that little Anne will die. Something tells -me that she is coming here one of these fine summer days to tell us -extraordinary things of her fight with death, just as she has so often -said strange things of her experiences in life. We won’t grieve till we -must, dear Kit, and dear other Anne. I am hopeful.” - -“Poets have visions withheld from us. We will trust this poet and -hope!” said Anne, trying to smile. “I wonder why this slender little -creature has so deeply entered our hearts? It really seems to me that I -could not bear to see little Anne lying dead.” - -“I only know that she has crawled into our hearts,” said Kit. He went -away comforted. Not only was Richard Latham’s hopefulness a relief when -he had felt that little Anne was doomed, but in an intangible way it -seemed to Kit that Anne Dallas had drawn near to him, that her tears -had been shed so close to him that he had wiped them away, comforting -her. It was not a reasonable feeling, but reason and feeling are often -opposed terms. In their love for this little child he and Anne were -one. How easily that oneness might go further! - -Kit’s simplicity accepted the oneness and rested upon it. His was a -nature inclined to believe in all that was good, even in good things -coming to him. And perhaps the impression of sympathy was not mistaken, -whatever might come of it. He slept little that night. The greater -part of it he spent in a chair at the window, gazing out on the silent -world, at the watching stars. - -It seemed to him now like something inconceivably solemn, rather than -sad, that little Anne might have passed out from this visible beauty. -He had only the vaguest ideas of what the sacraments which the child -had received meant, but “anointing for death” had a sound as awesome -as the sweep of Azrael’s wings. It lifted the child beyond the little -creature whom he had known and loved, the precocious, innocent, elfin, -spiritual child, full of contradictory charm; she was now become merely -a soul, a passing soul, set apart and chosen to know at the dawn of -life all that man had yearned to fathom. - -He no longer cared to keep her. It was as if it were too stupendous a -matter for human desire to interfere in it, that little Anne must be -left alone to go on or come back, the decision untrammelled. - -Kit’s thoughts turned calmly to Anne Dallas; they partook of the mood -wrought by little Anne’s apotheosis. Anne Dallas loved him! Wonderful, -impossible once to have believed as this was, it seemed to Kit quite -certain. He did not know why, he could not have given a reason for -this certainty, but when one knows a thing beyond question it would be -absurd to ask for proof. - -He felt uplifted. Little Anne was close to infinity; he and Anne were -blessed in their closeness to each other. It was a profound, a restful -conviction. There would flow from it, Kit realized, intensely vital -action, but now it sufficed to rest in it, conscious feeling absorbed. -In a frame of mind in which he did not recognize himself Kit passed the -night. It was not unlike the vigil of a youth beside his arms on the -eve of knighthood. - -As the east began to redden Kit dozed, his arms on the windowsill -pillowing his head. He roused and shook himself as boys and dogs shake -themselves after a nap, and went downstairs, winding his forgotten -watch as he went, setting it by the tall clock on the landing. He was -surprised to see that it was after seven. - -He went out on the steps, intending to go to the Berkley house to ask -for news. He shrank from ringing the sharp telephone bell in that house -which he pictured as filled with the silence of oppressive grief. -For now, though the rising sun usually brings hope after the night’s -despair, Kit felt sure that little Anne was dead. - -As he came out he saw on the bottom step of his aunt’s house a figure. -It sat huddled, arms folded, head pillowed, knees drawn up, bowed -forward in a heap that for a moment prevented recognition. Then Kit saw -that it was young Peter Berkley. - -“Peter!” he cried, and went down to lay his hand on the boy’s shoulder. - -Peter jumped and sat up, rubbing his eyes, bewildered. - -“Must have dropped off,” he apologized. “I’m not used to being awake -all night, and this was the third one. I was awake pretty much all of -the two before this one. I thought I’d stop and see you, but I hated -to ring, didn’t hear any one stirring in the house. When I sat down I -guess I went right off.” - -“Have you been here long?” asked Kit, not daring to ask the question -that was uppermost in his mind. - -“Don’t know what time it is now,” said Peter. “I got here about ten -minutes to seven, I suppose. I went around to serve Mass at six. That’s -the first one. I had to go.” - -“Did you?” Kit’s voice was as softly pitying as Peter’s mother’s could -have been. “Is that what you do when----” - -“It’s what you want to do. You can’t thank God yourself; you’re not big -enough,” said Peter, simply. “What I came to tell you, Kit, is that -Anne’s pulled through.” - -“Living? Going to live?” Kit shouted. - -Peter nodded. “The crisis was last night about one. She got through -it like the little sport she is. The doctor stayed and helped all he -could, but he said it was her heart won out. He says her heart’s fine -this morning, so it’s sure she’ll get well with proper care. Think she -won’t get it? The doctor doesn’t know how true what he said was. Say, -don’t you think it was little Anne’s heart? She’s such a good kid and -tries so hard to do what she’s told.” - -Kit nodded. He found it hard to speak, but he patted Peter’s shoulder -steadily, as though something would go wrong if he stopped. - -“I knew how you’d feel,” said Peter, stretching his weary muscles. -“Got to go on home now. I haven’t had anything to eat yet, and I don’t -believe we had dinner; I can’t seem to remember. Isn’t that funny? I -didn’t go to bed; I lit right out for the six--Mass at six, I mean. I’m -going to serve that one for nine days; it takes something to get up at -five. That’s a novena I’m going to make.” - -Kit understood the boy’s elisions, being still a boy in spite of his -approaching third decade. - -“Well, Peter, I’d know you’d be thankful,” Kit said. “I am, too. I’d -like it if I knew how to do something to show I’m thankful.” - -“Oh, thankful!” Peter seemed to inhale the word. “Well, say! If Anne -had died from standing in the river when I was such a fool and a brute -as to say what I did to her---- Thankful! Well, say!” - -The boy walked away, head up, but shoulders heaving. - -Kit stood for a few moments on the steps, his head thrown back, the -sunshine on his face. He looked radiant but stunned. - -“I didn’t think she’d make it!” he said aloud. “I was sure when I saw -Peter sitting here she hadn’t made it. Gracious, but I _am_ glad! -Anne will be glad. I must call and tell her.” - -Anne received Kit’s message at her boarding place. She hurried her -breakfast and went to Latham Street earlier than usual to take the -joyful news there. - -Richard Latham received it as a twice-told tale, not the less welcome. - -“The dear little thing!” he said. “But I felt sure that she was safe. -The first thing I thought when I wakened was that little Anne was all -right. But it is joyful to be confirmed by certainty. How glad you -are! I can feel the happiness radiating from you like an electric -current!” - -“Indeed I am happy!” cried Anne. “I love the child, but it’s not that -alone. That is such a dear family, so simple, so united, so loving that -I couldn’t endure the thought of their loss of little Anne. Though -perhaps it would have been better to let her slip away to the heaven -she’s so fond of talking about.” - -“Nonsense!” said Richard, briskly. “That’s a morbid, wrong notion. Life -is a gift. A wicked life is the gift thrown away, but do you really -think there is great danger of little Anne’s conscience ever abandoning -her to a misspent life--or of her abandoning her conscience, more -correctly? Anne’s conscience is as intrinsic to her as her heart, or -any other vital organ! She’ll be a good woman. So I’m mighty glad she’s -to live to make a happier world, as her mother has done. How good it -will be to have her around again! How did you hear about her?” - -“Kit Carrington telephoned me. Peter Berkley had been there to tell -Kit, and he knew that I--we--would be eager to hear,” said Anne. - -“Ah! Well, that was kind of him; we were eager to hear,” said Richard. -Anne did not see his face; he turned and left the room as he spoke, but -she heard the change in his voice that answered to a drooping body. - -“You do not feel too perturbed to work to-day?” Richard suggested when -Anne followed him to the living room a few minutes later. There was no -note of regret in his voice now. - -“Dear me, no!” laughed Anne. “I feel more like work than usual; there -is a load rolled off, isn’t there?” - -Anne had set down her problem in accurate figures, and had solved it. -There was nothing in the way of her making Richard as happy as she -could make him, except selfishness. She wanted the love that had not -come to her, which was to her the ideal approach to marriage. This -ideal was the true one, but her case was altered by circumstances. -First of all, there was no one whom she loved better than Richard -Latham. If there were, she could not have been untrue to that love, -whether or not it led to joy. Richard Latham was not only a man to be -honoured for his genius, pitied for his blindness, but he was a man to -be loved for himself. Rarely would any woman find in one person the -qualities which he united in himself; the manliness with the delicacy; -the tenderness with the courage; the unbending austerity with the -unfailing mercy. He could love a woman as few men could love one; he -would idealize her while protecting her; serve her in all humility, -yet expect from her all the goodness and strength that was in her. -Anne had decided that if Richard really were giving her this power -and wanted her, it was not for her to refuse his wealth, nor further -impoverish one who had been so bereft. Having reached her decision, she -went serenely on her way, characteristically debating it no more; ready -to give if the demand were made, desiring nothing except not to fail -either Richard or herself. - -This morning Richard resumed the dictation of his third act; Anne, pen -in hand, set down the cabalistic signs which Richard had once accused -of signifying more than he could produce. - -Suddenly she paused, her pen suspended, a shocked expression on her -face. - -“But, Mr. Latham, why are you saying this?” she cried. “What are you -doing with this act? This dialogue? You are turning it all wrong!” - -“No,” said Richard. “I am not going to follow my first plan. Our -friend, the hero, is not to be made happy, after all! I am separating -him from his beloved. They are not to marry, as we meant them to. It -won’t affect the two preceding acts; it will merely make another play -of it, perhaps a sadder one, but not a weaker one--better, I think. -Don’t you approve?” - -“Indeed I do not!” cried Anne. “Why do you want to martyr him? And to -frustrate that beautiful, ideal love! It’s unbearable! I can’t take the -dictation that does this! And really, Mr. Latham, it will frustrate the -play as well as the hero’s life. Don’t you think we all want the happy -ending? It is always possible to get it in a play or a story! I’m sure -the public will rebel, that your play will never succeed if you change -your plot. No one ever drew a more ideal love than you have in the acts -already written. And to spoil it all, sever these two who have dared -for each other, borne for each other with such courage, yet so nobly, -so wisely! Oh, why do you want to do it?” - -“What a little enthusiast!” said Richard. “I am forced to do it. I -can’t tell you why, Anne--Miss Dallas--but I’ve wholly lost the power -to end it as I at first intended. It’s got to be a tragedy, a bloodless -but poignant tragedy. I don’t know any other ending. I’ll make our nice -girl happy with the nice youth, but for the man----” He shook his head -after a moment’s hesitation. “I know no other end,” he repeated. - -Anne laid down her pen. Her face wore an uplifted look, unlike the look -with which a woman goes to her lover, but nevertheless she arose and -went to her lover. She knelt beside him and took his hand. - -“Why do you know no happy end for him?” she asked. - -“Anne!” cried Richard Latham. “What are you doing? What do you mean? -Anne, Anne--what do you know?” - -“I know that if there were any one whom you wanted, Richard Latham, she -would be a happy, a blessed woman.” Anne spoke hardly above a whisper, -yet her words were clearly audible in the intense quiet of the room. -Richard bent toward her, but pulled himself back. - -“Do you mean--Anne, stop this! I love you. What right have you----” - -“Perfect right, Richard,” said Anne, and lifted his hand to lay it on -her bowed head. - -“Oh, my God!” cried Richard, with a sob in his throat. - -Then he leaped to his feet and caught her up in his arms and held her -tight, kissing again and again her soft masses of hair, her closed -eyes, at last her lips. - -“Oh, my God, my good kind God,” he said, hoarsely. “How can it be -true?” - - - - -CHAPTER XIII - -_The Ill Wind_ - - -It was with no small satisfaction that Kit learned that his aunt and -Helen were to spend that day and the greater part of the next one in -the large city three hours distant, returning to Cleavedge only in time -for dinner. There was upon Kit an unwrapping profundity of isolation, -a peace with which the elder and younger woman were in ill-accord; it -was a relief to know that duty would not summon him out of his personal -atmosphere to breathe theirs. - -That afternoon he spent in the woods, contentedly wandering, for some -time sleeping on the moss; his vigil of the preceding night had made -him drowsy. This time he had not forgotten to invite his old dog, -Sirius, the English setter who had been his comrade for years, to bear -him company. On his way to enjoy the silence which he craved, he had -stopped at the Berkleys’ to get confirmation of the good news of the -morning. - -Mrs. Berkley had cried on his shoulder as if he had been Peter, grown -taller, and as she had not cried when little Anne was in mortal danger. -Kit had patted her back and ended by kissing her with warmth in his -heart: it seemed to him that at last his lonely boyhood had ended in -his finding kindred. - -All the while the permeating sense of Anne Dallas’ nearness, the fact -that he loved her and that she knew it and that everything was all -right, made at once the foundation and crown of this blessed day. He -went on to the woods to brood over this sense of blessedness; not to -think of it precisely, not at all to debate, nor demonstrate it, but -to yield to its exquisite bliss. - -Humility is the handmaid of perfect faith. Kit was not conceited, but -he was sure of Anne’s love; he did not know why he felt sure of it, -nor would he have said that there was any reason why she should love -him, but he knew that she did, and he humbly gave himself up to the -wondering joy of it. - -“If you know a thing you know it,” Kit would have said, and that was -all. He went whistling homeward as the loveliness of the sunshine of -the last days of May began to be veiled with the poetical beauty of its -westward lengthening. - -He ate a dinner that was unromantically hearty, but which was flavoured -with romance and elevated into the sacramental. It occurred to him -that he should not always eat alone, nor at his aunt’s table; that one -unspeakable day he should raise his eyes and see Anne sitting in her -quiet loveliness opposite to him. It took his breath away to think -that he should carve a thin slice of the breast for her and lay it on -her plate, with a spoonful of the dressing; it was to be her second -helping. His hand would brush hers and she would be sure to say, “Not -so much, Kit, dear!” - -He should watch her put smooth brown gravy, with dots of chopped things -in it, over his potato, and should tell her, in the indifferent tone of -blessed accustomedness, not to put any on the side of the plate which -he had left for the cranberry jelly. - -It was a fairy dream, though its terms, put into English, would have -sounded prosaic enough, but of all miracles the most divine are the -homely ones. Not least of these is the miracle that the radiant wings -of youthful love can be folded close to brood upon a hearth. This was -what Kit’s true instinct revealed to him, and moved and ecstatic over -the vision of Anne, his wife, he ate, unconscious of what he was eating. - -After dinner he went at once to the piazza and sat smoking slowly, -watching the moon rise, sufficiently companioned in knowing that -he was to see Anne on the morrow, so content in this strange, new -conviction of the possession of her that he was satisfied to delay -the joy of seeing her in the effulgence of this new light. As long as -he knew it was but delayed! If he were not going to see her thus that -would be another, a tragic matter! - -Kit went to bed early and slept like a tired, happy boy, and arose -early to begin another happy day; an endless succession of such days -stretched out ahead of him, to that inconceivable day when Anne and he -should be old. - -He was disappointed when, in the afternoon, he went to Latham Street, -to be told that the poet, with Miss Dallas, had gone in Richard’s small -car, driven by Stetson, to visit the falls, which were the point of -pilgrimage for all strangers who came to Cleavedge. The falls were some -miles distant, where the river gathered itself together and hurled -itself down over rocks. - -“Well, it’s a fine day to go there, and the falls are still swollen by -the spring rains,” said Kit, sorry for himself, but resigned to others’ -better luck. - -“I wanted to tell Miss Dallas--and Mr. Latham--that I stopped at -Mrs. Berkley’s on my way here, and that the little girl has not an -unfavourable symptom. It’s quite certain now that she will live. You -might tell Mr. Latham when he comes in, if you will, please. I’ll see -Miss Dallas to-night at her boarding place.” - -Mrs. Lumley, the housekeeper, Minerva’s gossip, who happened to be -in the hall when Kit sounded the knocker, and so had exceeded her -obligations and opened the door, looked at him with significant -commiseration. - -“Miss Dallas is going to dine here to-night, Mr. Carrington,” she said. -“Mr. Latham is going to pick up an elderly lady who he’s great friends -with, and bring her to dinner with him to-night. And Miss Dallas is to -come with ’em.” - -There was a note in Mrs. Lumley’s voice that arrested Kit’s attention, -but then he was not familiar with her voice, and it glanced off the -surface of his mind as it vibrated against it. - -“I’m disappointed to hear that,” said Kit, “but it’s pleasanter for -Miss Dallas. It’s a tiresome trip to the falls and Miss Dallas finds it -a bore, at best, to board. I did hope to see her! Oh, well, one more -day! And there are many days.” - -He smiled the smile that made everybody his friend and turned to go, -saying “good-day” to Mrs. Lumley. - -“It is truly said, Mr. Carrington, that it is pleasanter dining here -than at her boarding place. This is a beautiful house, so cunning seers -tell me; let alone Mr. Latham’s being even more agreeable as a man than -as a poet. And it is true that there are many days. There are many of -most things, Mr. Carrington; fish in the sea and much besides. So it -is well to keep our minds on this well-known fact so’s’t not to let -ourselves feel’s if there wasn’t hardly more than one of a thing, day, -or whatever it may be. Good-day, Mr. Carrington; I’ll tell Mr. Latham.” - -“Cryptic cook! Or is she the cook?” thought Kit, amused yet vaguely -disturbed. “Sounds like the oracle hinting disaster. That class of -woman eats up anticipation of misfortune and licks the platter clean. -Seems as though she grudged Anne her comfort! Maybe she’s afraid of -automobiles; probably is! But I’m good and ready for a glimpse of my -dear. Those Elizabethans had a nice way of calling things: ‛a glimpse -of my dear!’ Now that’s nice!” - -Kit had mused into less disappointment, but there was still enough left -to give him a subdued manner, and to shadow his bright face of the -morning as he greeted his aunt and Helen. - -He found them on the piazza; their diaphanous gowns showed that they -had returned on a train early enough to have allowed them to change to -these from their travelling garb. Beside Helen there stood a basket -with a small window in one end. Kit’s animal-loving eye quickly noted -it. - -“My gracious! is Helen setting up a pet?” he wondered. - -“How are you, Kit?” said Miss Carrington, extending her left hand -lazily. “I hope you are all right?” She looked him over sharply. “You -look all right! Come, that’s good and sensible!” - -Helen leaned forward in her chair, holding out her pretty hand. - -“It seemed queer to come home and not find you, Kit,” she said. “A big -boy fills up a house, doesn’t he? And his absence fills it up, too--in -another way!” - -“That’s a kind and delicate implication, Nell, but it’s like -Pudd’n-head Wilson’s idea of calling a man a mule; it leaves him in -doubt, though the mule is such an admirable character. There are ways -and ways of filling up a house, Nell, and boys aren’t popular in the -rôle.” - -Kit shook Helen’s hand merrily and talked glibly, with a happy -carelessness that made the girl stare in her turn. - -“You must have liked keeping house alone,” she said. “I never saw you -look jollier, not even when you played on the winning team, ages ago! -What’s the news? Are you rejoicing for yourself, or, altruistically, -for others?” - -She contrived to shake her head at Miss Carrington and signal to her -that Kit did not know. - -“Just general well-being; that the world is so full of a number of -things,” answered Kit. “I’ve been off with Sirius most of the time -since you and Auntie went; haven’t heard any news whatever. Except that -little Anne is coming on splendidly.” - -“Well, after dinner is the best time for news when there is any,” -Helen gave Kit the impression of talking nonsense, but Miss Carrington -understood the hint that ill news interfered with appetite. - -“I knew that the child was going on well the instant that I saw you. -What do you think I have in that basket?” Helen asked. - -“Couldn’t guess! I hope for your soul’s sake that you’ve set up a pet, -but I don’t dare hope for the best,” returned Kit. - -“No, Master Christopher, not even for my soul’s sake shall I ever set -up a pet. I don’t do a whole lot for my soul’s sake, anyway! But it -is a pet, nevertheless. On the strength of the news before we left -yesterday, that little Anne was going to live, I bought one for her. -I thought an Angora kitten would be the best tonic to hasten on her -convalescence. She can have it on the bed with her, and watch it play -and strike fascinating attitudes.” - -Helen was unstrapping the basket as she spoke. - -Kit’s delight was unmistakable, but his surprise was not flattering. - -“What a happy inspiration, Nell!” he cried. “There’s nothing like a -kitten to entertain an ailing child. How did you ever happen to think -of it?” - -“‛A princess of the direct Herodian line, like you!’ your too-honest -manner implies, my dear!” laughed Helen. “Oh, I am not stupid, though -I be heartless, or so I flatter myself! I have been a sick little girl -myself. I remember I was most interested in having kittens visit me -in those circumstances. I never got attached to them, never wanted to -continue the acquaintance, but they did amuse me. Cats have lovely -muscles; I still like to watch them. Your Anne--_little_ Anne!--is -probably a model of affection and will love this catlet personally. It -struck me as a delicate compliment, since you are so fond of the child, -to give her a kit! How’s this?” - -She produced from the basket a snowy-white kitten, high-bred, beautiful -in every line and in each fluffy hair; its face round and expressive, -its eyes still blue, with the look of innocence that only a kitten can -wear and to which nothing created since Eden can hope to correspond. - -“Oh, jiminy!” cried Kit, as pleased as little Anne would surely be. -“Helen, it beats the world! What a beauty! Little Anne will either die -of it, or recover at her first glimpse of it.” - -He took the kitten from Helen, who held it out by her thumb and -forefinger, its legs drawn up into its downy stomach, and nestled it in -his neck. - -“You small, soft thing!” Kit said. - -Helen flushed to her hair. Her eyes gave out a gleam, and she looked, -as she felt, as if she would gladly have taken Kit in her arms--so big, -so simple, so lovable he seemed with the “small, soft thing” creeping -close to him trustingly. - -“Give it to the child yourself, Kit, as soon as she is able to bear -the emotion it will inspire. I want you to take it to her. Don’t say -anything about me; let it be your gift. No!” Helen held up a protesting -hand. “I don’t care to get credit for this sort of thing; I would if -I wanted to win the child, but I don’t. I’ll give you the kitten; you -give it to Anne, and we’ll all live happy for ever after.” - -“Anne will be told correctly the tale of your thoughtfulness, of how -you brought pussyette to her,” said Kit. “What a curious mixture you -are, Nell! I wonder if you pose as a metallic creature, and that it is -all pose? I’ll take this winner to Minerva.” - -He went away with the kitten purring close to his face, the basket -swinging in his hand. - -Helen sighed. She turned excited eyes upon Miss Carrington. - -“He certainly is an attractive boy,” she said. “He doesn’t know a thing -of the engagement, that’s clear. Wait till after dinner. If he does -mind, it would be a pity to damage his inspiring appetite. I love to -see Kit pitch in!” - -At dinner that night Kit certainly “pitched in.” He talked more than -was his custom and he talked well. Miss Carrington, who was sharply -critical of him, not always satisfied with his simplicity, was pleased -to hear him, announcing opinions on some of the events of the day, -well-expressed, logically thought-out from intelligent premises. - -Helen was clever and she had a rare opportunity to learn inside -political facts, as well as to acquire skill in marshalling them to -conclusions. She spurred Kit on and made him put forth his best powers -to cope with her. When they returned to the piazza Kit found himself -aroused, thinking fast, conscious of having enjoyed the past hour -keenly, as a man must enjoy whatever puts him on his mettle. - -“You’re a great girl, Helen Abercrombie!” he said with sincere -admiration. “You will hold your own if ever you get that salon you -dream of, or are launched on a sea wide enough and windy enough for -you.” - -“Helen is the peer of the most brilliant men. She will be a tower of -strength to her associates,” said Miss Carrington, delighted to see -that Kit was impressed. - -“Oh, it’s hats off! When the governor’s daughter passes by! Passes by -us all,” agreed Kit, so readily that his aunt frowned. She suspected -that Kit was thinking that womanly sweetness surpassed Helen’s talents. -But she said pleasantly: - -“Quite right, Kit! I can’t help feeling sorry that Richard Latham is -going to miss complete intellectual companionship. No matter what -nice things he says of her, of course we know that Miss Dallas is not -his equal. However, she is a nice, trusty, sympathetic girl, and on -the whole I am glad--since he can’t have such as Helen, for the good -reason that there is none like her!--that he will be taken care of, and -at least be secure of the self-sacrificing devotion that a blind man -needs. It is hard to keep in mind that he is a blind man; not only a -great poet.” - -“Why do you speak, or did you mean to speak, as though Miss Dallas -would marry Mr. Latham?” Kit smilingly asked. - -“Oh, don’t you know about it?” asked Miss Carrington, blandly. “I -suppose it isn’t talked of yet. You should keep a lady’s maid, Kit! -Here we are just returned and are in possession of facts, while you, -right within hail of Cupid, never saw a flash of his arrow!” - -“Facts, Aunt Anne? Do you mean _facts_?” Poor Kit spoke with -difficulty. - -“Surely, Kit, my dear; why not? Isn’t an engagement usually a -fact? Minerva met Mr. Latham’s housekeeper who knows all that the -principals themselves know, probably more! Mrs. Lumley--that’s the -housekeeper--rather resents it. Naturally a woman of her class would -resent her employer’s marrying below his own. Though I confess I’ve -found Miss Dallas in every way correct, quite like a well-born person. -Then Mrs. Lumley would be jealous of authority, a woman’s authority -over her, where she has reigned supreme. These things embroider the -story attractively when Minerva tells it, but they are not intrinsic -to the fabric. The important fact, important to us all, since Richard -Latham’s work will be affected by it--Cleavedge’s celebrity’s work--is -that our poet is engaged to be married to the little brown Dallas girl.” - -“Aunt Anne, he isn’t! What nonsense you--I beg your pardon! I mean what -nonsense Minerva talks. It isn’t so because--because--it can’t be so!” -Kit exploded. - -Miss Carrington adjusted her glasses the better to look at her nephew. -Helen leaned back in her chair somewhat tense, amusement, yet strong -annoyance in her face. - -“He is hard hit!” she thought, calculating the chances of consolation. - -“_Can’t_ be so, Christopher? But it can be, because it _is_ -so! Why should it not be true? She is at his hand every moment while -he is at work and shares the work with him. She has a nice alto voice, -moves well, would not annoy him; why should he not, lonely as he is, be -attracted to her?” inquired Miss Carrington, temperately, ignoring any -other side to consider in the matter except the poet’s. - -“I don’t believe it!” Kit almost groaned. - -“My dear boy, that sounds rude, but I’m sure you don’t mean it so,” -said his aunt. “Don’t you recall my saying that this marriage was -certain to come off? Miss Dallas read a poem not intended for her -reading--I suspect Mrs. Lumley of eavesdropping to have known this! -Miss Dallas was not dishonourable; she mistook the poem for her work, -I’ve no doubt. In it Richard Latham voiced the love for her which he -thought, foolishly, when you consider what he is, that he was forbidden -to tell Miss Dallas because he is blind. I talked with Miss Dallas when -she had just learned that Latham loved her. We agreed that she was -free to admit to herself her love for Richard Latham; that it was now -her right, her duty to walk the beautiful way open to her. I have no -doubt that she will be happy. He is a rare man. There is no question -that they both are now blissfully happy. Miss Dallas is dining there -to-night, and Mr. Latham, instructing Mrs. Lumley as to the table, -himself told her to put an old lady friend of his, who is also dining -there, at his right, but to put Miss Dallas opposite him. ‛Though I -cannot see her, Mrs. Lumley, I shall know that she is there. I want to -say to you that it will not be long before Miss Dallas will preside -over my table, seated opposite to me. She has consented to be my wife.’ -Mrs. Lumley quoted this to Minerva with what I feel sure was dramatic -accuracy, for Minerva’s repetition of her words carried conviction. -I am sure that though she hates the marriage, the housekeeper enjoys -having her feelings harrowed! It is really more exciting than a movie, -I make no question!” - -Miss Carrington laughed her light, amused, tolerant laugh. - -With an imprecation Kit shoved back his chair and went away. - -He was numb with puzzled incredulity, yet he knew that what he had -heard must be true. How it could be true--how this could follow -to-day after his certainty of yesterday, of this afternoon, till this -moment--Kit could not think. He could not think about it, anyway. All -that he could do was to feel. Poor Kit was one dull ache, stunned by -the blow that had fallen upon him. He recalled the significance, the -pity with which Richard Latham’s housekeeper had regarded him. -His secret must be suspected then; he was warranted in his feeling that -Anne had understood, if the housekeeper knew. - -Kit went to his room and sat by the window at which he had spent the -night of anxious vigil before Anne Berkley’s fate was decided. Then -Anne Dallas had seemed to be with him, sharing his sorrow for the -little girl, but also sharing the love which upheld him. He tried -to think back to discover what had made him so sure that Anne had -understood and had answered to the call of his longing for her, but he -could discover nothing that she had done or said. - -“I am a fool, an utter, consummate, wretched fool!” he said, aloud. -“It’s like that pocket knife that I was sure Aunt Anne was giving me on -my eighth birthday; she had a set of kid travel books for me! It was -only that I wanted that knife so badly! I still remember how I felt -when I opened those books! I wanted Anne so much I thought I’d get her. -Of course any one would love Latham. He’s fine. And it isn’t her fault. -I--I’m the blind man!” - -It was a comfort to decide that Anne was in no wise to blame; it was -such a comfort that Kit did what he must have done when he was eight -and the knife that he had convinced himself was coming never came. He -was alone in his room with no one to see, and he dropped his head on -his folded arms and sobbed over his ruined hopes. - - - - -CHAPTER XIV - -_Adjustment_ - - -After Kit had left them Miss Carrington and Helen remained till late -talking earnestly, with their chairs drawn close. Their voices rose -and fell--the fall emphasized--in all the earnestness of an important -discussion, but never did they rise to the point at which words were -distinguishable at any distance. - -Minerva passed in and out of the room behind them, and though its -windows were open she heard nothing except a clear yet muffled murmur. - -“She will know all about it, _plus_, but there is no reason why -she should be gratified now,” said Miss Carrington, malice in her -eye. At last, when the old clock on the stairway struck eleven, Miss -Carrington rose. - -“Well, Helen, it will be past midnight before we get our chapter read -and are in bed,” she said. “Of course, my dear, you read your nightly -chapter? I am sure I can’t predict. Men differ almost as much as other -animals; in fact, I’m not sure that they don’t vary more--sorrel -horses, black ones, maltese cats--it’s easy to generalize on their -traits. I’ve never known Kit under these conditions; I can’t say how -he’ll react. It’s notorious that widowers are easily consoled. Still, -it is often easier to console a man for the loss of what he had than -for what he missed. Death is supposed to soften the hard heart. Kit -might easily be caught on the rebound; then, again, he may not rebound, -but drop. You handle a racquet well; can you bat him? That’s the wrong -term!” - -“Serve him?” laughed Helen. “That’s the word, and a lovely word it is -in this connection.” - -“Well, I don’t know. My recollection is that you serve into another’s -court, which is not to our liking in this case. I think I mean pick him -up; you do that with racquets, don’t you? I don’t know why I should -insist on a tennis term! The whole thing, Helen, is that you are to be -nice to my boy, and wisely nice. You will slip along, pussy-footed, -your hand on the leader. I believe, from my experience with youngsters, -that Kit will learn to lean upon your satisfying comradeship. It can’t -be more than a fancy for the Dallas girl. He was ready supplied with -ideals and she stood convenient, as a sort of rack, to hang them on. -That’s the explanation of most first love. No harm done, my dear! -Except that it is keeping us up, and that is harmful to me at my age! -Unless there’s something going on, and then tiny hours don’t harm me!” - -The dauntless old lady laughed and went into the house, Helen following -with her forgotten knitting bag. - -Kit presented himself at breakfast with the marks of misery on his -face. He was not used to unhappiness; aside from the actual pain, the -discomfort of its friction hurt him, as a chain galls in addition to -its weight. He did not know how to adjust himself to what had happened. -He had the good sense to see that the only thing for him to do was to -occupy himself with something that demanded genuine effort of body and -mind. - -“I’ve got to get at something that I can’t foozle over,” is the way he -put it to himself. - -He had amused himself so far through life successfully, but he -instinctively realized that entertainment did not entertain, except -when one’s light-heartedness might dispense with it. - -Helen and Miss Carrington had made a compact to be unconscious of Kit’s -depression. At breakfast Helen talked happily of inconsequent matters, -not to Kit, yet not excluding him; she did not suggest his sharing any -part of that day with her; instead, she announced plans for herself -that excluded him. He was grateful for what he mistook for Helen’s -unintentional mercy to him and rewarded her with a friendly smile as -he left the dining room. He had added to his advice to himself while -dressing the sane counsel not to show it if he felt sore, and not to be -a grouch. - -The first necessity upon him was to make an errand to Richard Latham’s -house to see for himself. There were moments when he did not believe -that what he had heard was true, yet at every moment he was surer that -it was true. - -He found work going on so briskly in the poet’s room that, like little -Anne on an earlier day, he bestowed himself outside the window to wait. -Anne waved her hand, the pen in it, to him, but Richard did not know -that he was there. - -Where he sat Kit could not help catching every movement that Richard -made. They were not many: Richard sat with his head resting against the -back of his chair, his voice flowing steadily on, rising and falling -so expressively that, though he could not hear the words, Kit found -its cadences dramatic, interesting. The poet’s slender hands moved -ceaselessly, the long fingers rapidly opening, closing, pointing, erect -or drooping, but otherwise he was motionless. - -The look that passed over Richard’s face at intervals when he turned -his blind eyes upon Anne; the tone with which he sometimes asked a -question that Kit fancied was extraneous to the dictation, gradually -destroyed whatever slight hope had lingered. - -At last Richard straightened himself, and Anne began gathering up her -papers, laying one upon another. Richard held out his hands with a -smile that told Kit all that there was to tell. He saw Anne’s lips -move, though her voice did not reach him, and Richard jumped up to -hasten to the door. - -“Why, Christopher Carrington!” Richard cried, boyishly. “What are you -doing here? Come in, come in! Glad to see you.” - -Kit let the poet shake his limp hand, though Kit’s tight grasp was -famous. - -“Good morning, Miss Dallas,” Kit said, and Anne greeted him with the -sweet cordiality that had always been one of her chief charms. - -“It was silly of me to wait,” Kit said, “but that’s a nice step to sit -on! Now it’s too late for me to do more than say I’m going.” - -“Oh, but we have more than that to say to you!” protested Richard. -“We’ve had a great morning, Kit! We’ve done the third act. And it’s a -great third act, if I do say it as shouldn’t! We’ve made our notes on -it these past two days and to-day we’ve written it. I needn’t hesitate -to say it’s great, either: Anne did it. She saved it from being a sad -third act; she changed the play back to our first idea of it. I was -going to spoil it!” - -“You don’t as a rule,” Kit managed to say; he had had too much of the -“we” to answer easily. - -“There is no rule, Kit, my son!” Richard laughed. “There is no rule, no -precedent, because there is no old me! There’s not even English grammar -left of my old self, you see! All the world is new. Do you know that -this is _Anne_ now?” - -He held out his hands to Anne and she came over to him and laid her own -hands into his. She was pale, her eyes cast down, her lips parted as if -she were breathing quickly; Kit saw her breast rise and fall. He could -not guess that Anne was wondering why she found her new part almost -impossible to play. She had been thankful to find herself peacefully, -unemotionally happy since she had made Richard ecstatically happy, but -now the situation crushed her. - -Kit made an attempt to answer, but Richard forestalled him. - -“She was Anne all along, you are going to say? Indeed, she was not! She -was my devoted, wise, unselfish little secretary, Miss Dallas! But now -she is Anne. Don’t you see, Kit? We have made a happy end of the play. -I didn’t know how; I should have spoiled it, but she saved it--and me! -We made a happy end of the play, good old Kit!” - -Anne raised her eyes and looked at Kit, gravely, steadily. Then she -smiled at him. He had no idea of what that smile conveyed; for that -matter Anne was equally in the dark. Kit threw back his head, pulled -himself together as he had done on the football field more than once -when the game demanded him and he was nearly finished. He smiled back -at Anne and put out his hand, first to her, then to Richard. - -“I had heard something about it,” he said, and his voice rang out -cheerily. “I suppose, to be honest, that is why I came around to-day -and why I waited; I wanted to know. Wish you all sorts of luck, Miss -Dallas, and whatever good comes to you won’t be luck, you know, after -all! Congratulations, Mr. Latham! You surely do deserve the best thing -in the world. I know what it is, too, though I don’t use your label on -it: she’s Miss Dallas, not Anne to me, but there’s only one best thing, -anyway.” - -“What a trump you are, Kit Carrington!” cried Richard, jumping up and -seizing Kit’s hands delightedly. “Why, you’re a poet yourself! That had -the ring of imagination and beauty! Sit down. You’re here to lunch, you -know.” - -“Sorry, but I’m not, thanks,” said Kit; he could not wait to escape. -“I’m on my way to Paul’s, Antony Paul’s. Miss Abercrombie bought -a white Angora kitten for little Anne to play with while she’s -convalescing. I’m going to find out when it won’t be too exciting for -her to have it. Good-bye. Thanks for telling me. I don’t wonder you -made a big thing of the play, Mr. Latham. Good-bye, Miss Dallas.” - -Kit hastened out of the door, thankful to get into the air, yet -tortured in leaving Anne with her betrothed. - -If he could have seen how gently Richard touched her hair and let her -take the low Greek stool on which she sat to read to him; how tight he -clasped his hands lest he forget and draw her to him where he hungered -to have her, Kit would have been a little consoled. - -Richard knew that Anne shrank from a caress. He loved her for it; it -seemed to him part of that rare quality of soul for which he adored her. - -It was too soon, he was still too new to the wonder of the happiness -that had fallen upon him when he was schooling himself to do without -it, to miss in Anne the warmth that would have glowed in her had she -loved Richard as he loved her. Thus far Richard was content, and waited -as a worshipper to become a lover. - -Kit walked fast to the Berkleys’; he had decided to go there first. -Very likely Joan was at her mother’s, admiring little Anne’s progress. - -He found that he had been right. The first thing that he saw when -he was admitted was the baby, standing beside a chair, her rings of -hair exceedingly up-standing and tousled, waving one hand lightly, -proudly, to show that she was balancing with but one little fist on -the chair seat, yet that she did not disdain to salute a world of -her inferiors. The inferiors present--Mrs. Berkley and Joan--made no -claim to equality. With a delight that surpassed the baby’s, as if -countless millions of human beings had not once stood alone for the -first time, they waved their hands at Barbara in return, making sounds -as rapturously inarticulate as hers. It ended in Joan’s swooping down -on her, snatching her up, burying her face in Barbara’s tiny mound of a -stomach and swaying her up and down, till baby and mother were gasping. - -“Oh, Kit, forgive us, dear!” cried Mrs. Berkley. “You saw how Barbara -stood? Isn’t it wonderful, the beginning of living? Think how far those -little feet will carry her through the world and beyond the world! Anne -is gaining every hour, thank you.” - -Joan righted the baby, then her clothing, and set her down to her toys -on a blanket on the floor, to which Barbara, who was the embodiment of -health and hence of contentment, turned with the interest of an hour’s -separation from them. - -“Kit, nice boy, anything wrong?” asked Joan, seeing, now that the baby -was settled and she looked well at Kit, that he was changed. Kit sat -down on a chair that allowed him to rest an elbow on its arm and shade -his face with his hand. - -“Richard Latham is going to marry----” - -“Anne Dallas!” cried Joan, and exchanged significant looks with -her mother. “I was afraid of that; he’s so fine and she’s so -sympathetic----” - -“Joan!” warned Mrs. Berkley. - -She shook her head hard at her daughter. She and Joan had long -suspected that the interest growing up between Anne and Kit was -stronger than either had gauged. It would never do to let him know that -they feared that Anne loved Richard less than she should love the man -whom she married. - -Kit made no secret of his unhappiness to these two simple, sweet women. - -“He’s the finest fellow I ever saw,” said Kit. “He’s all around fine. -Always makes me think of the Round Table, those great old knightly -chaps. She couldn’t find another like him short of--Camelot!” Poor Kit -made a sorry attempt to laugh. “All the same, I’d rather she’d choose -someone more ordinary, provided that I could nominate him.” - -“I, myself, would have selected another sort of man for Anne,” said -Joan, making up for her narrow escape from indiscretion by her most -mature manner. “I’m sorry, Kit! Mother and I are both sorry, aren’t we, -Mother?” - -“I’m profoundly sorry if Kit minds,” said Mrs. Berkley, gently. “I -think Kit means us to understand that he does mind. Anne is a dear -girl; she is worth loving. But I’ve no doubt it will make you a nicer -boy than ever to carry a cross, though we can’t endure seeing your -young shoulders bend, dear Kit, and you are nice enough now, in all -conscience! Little Anne will stand by! You will have lots of help, -dear, and win through with benefit from the experience. Little Anne has -been asking when she should see you. Would you like to see her?” - -Mrs. Berkley rose and laid her arm over Kit’s shoulder as she would -have over her Peter. Kit rested his head against her for a moment, and -felt better. - -“You know I lost two children between Joan and Peter, and one between -Peter and Anne, Kit, so I know that denial is good for us. It taught me -a great deal to relinquish the babies that I loved,” Mrs. Berkley said, -softly. - -“Oh, what a peach, what a dear, sweet, good, good woman you are!” Kit -exclaimed, ashamed that he had seemed to complain of a loss that was -but a denial of his hopes. - -“Surest thing you know I want to see little Anne! I’ll go up, if I -may? You don’t think I’ll be exciting and bring on fever? I wouldn’t -consider myself that sort. And when may she have a kitten, Mrs. -Berkley? Miss Abercrombie has bought her a white Angora that gets me, -and I’m sure will make it necessary to put a strait waistcoat over -little Anne’s gown!” - -“Could anything be luckier?” Mrs. Berkley demanded of space. “Anne has -begged me to get her a pet that may stay with her on the bed. She asked -for a kitten, a puppy, a rabbit, or a small monkey, and she added that -if I couldn’t find any of these beasties she’d try to love a white -mouse, though the poor little heroine, longing for a comrade, shuddered -as she said it! Her strong preference was for a kitten, an everyday -kitten. I’m sure I don’t know what will happen when she sees yours!” - -“It’s the cream of creation!” declared Kit. “But it isn’t mine; it’s -Miss Abercrombie’s. She didn’t want me to say so, but of course I -should.” Again Joan glanced at her mother. They wondered if Helen was -to solve Kit’s difficulty, after all. - -“You are going to lunch with us,” said Mrs. Berkley, and Kit did not -demur. “You shall see Anne after luncheon. You won’t mind the baby? We -bring her to the table, in her high chair, inherited from Anne. She -pounds, but otherwise behaves with decorum.” - -“The baby and little Anne--but little Anne first in order, by your -leave, Joan--seem to me the most desirable of comrades to-day,” said -Kit. - -Mrs. Berkley smiled on him and patted his shoulder. “Good boy and true -instinct!” she approved him. - -It was a happy little luncheon party. Kit felt unaccountably soothed -and heartened. The sense of loss, the jealous pang of leaving Anne -to Richard, were softened. They did not talk of great things, nor -brilliantly, but Mrs. Berkley and Joan talked well; their subjects were -interesting, and it seemed to Kit that they judged justly and expressed -themselves with temperance. - -“Balanced, wise women!” Kit thought, judging in his turn. - -The baby did pound, it was true, but except for a frustrated attempt on -the cream, and, later, on the rosily alluring strawberries, she behaved -with propriety, admitting her premise that a spoon and a drum stick -were made for like purpose. - -“Why not let me cut around home and get that kitten? It won’t take me a -half hour, and if you think little Anne’s reached the kitten stage of -recovery I’d love to see her with it,” suggested Kit when luncheon was -over and Joan offered to take him up to see little Anne. - -“Won’t to-morrow do, as long as she isn’t told about it?” asked Joan. -But seeing Kit’s disappointment, she added: - -“Of course, if you don’t mind going, it would be dear of you to get it -for her right away.” - -Kit ran off, racing down the street like a boy, and Mrs. Berkley went -up to make sure, mother-fashion, that the carefully tended little -patient was ready for a caller. - -“What’s up, Kit?” asked Helen as Kit assaulted the piazza where she sat. - -“I’m allowed to give little Anne the kitten,” Kit explained. “I came -after it, told them it was your gift, Nell. Would you care to go with -me?” he added as an afterthought, unwelcome, but due. - -“Yes, I would,” said Helen. “I won’t wear a hat, I’m ready.” - -Kit fetched the kitten in its basket; he found that Minerva had allowed -it to entwine itself around her affections and was loath to let it -go. Helen and Kit took longer to cover the ground than Kit would have -consumed alone. He tried to keep in mind that the kitten was due to -Helen and not to regret her coming. She did not bother him with much -talk, and when they reached the Berkleys’ she refused to go upstairs. - -“No, indeed! I’ll stay here, happily, with a book and don’t you hurry! -Get all the fun there is out of the child’s pleasure. I hope she will -be pleased! I’m perfectly contented alone. Forget I’m here, but don’t -forget to tell me just what the little girl does! It would be horrid in -me to go up; she doesn’t know me,” Helen said with such friendliness -that the Berkleys were charmed. - -Kit followed Mrs. Berkley and Joan up to little Anne’s room and stood -in the doorway. Little Anne was fingering paper dollies but her lack of -interest in them was evident. She raised her eyes, which looked immense -and as dark as night in her thin white face. - -“Oh, Kit, my dear, dear, _dear_ Kit! You saved me, but I loved you -hard before!” she cried. - -“Well, little Anne, I’m glad enough to see you to eat you up!” cried -Kit, sincerely. - -He lifted her in his arms and she kissed him again and again. - -“You are more splendid than I remembered,” little Anne sighed in -profound contentment. “Doctor says I may get up in my wrapper half the -day Sunday. But he says I can’t go to Mass yet, but it’s all right when -you can’t honest-truth go! And then, sooner than you’d think, I’m to -be dressed! And by the Fourth you wouldn’t know anything’d happened, -’cept I’ve got to look out and not catch cold. That’s what he says. I’m -grateful, Kit, that I’m going to stay right here with everyone! I know -lots of people in Heaven, nicer’n anybody, but, well, don’t you think -you love those you know sort of closer? And I’ll have to be just’s -good! Because I stayed here. And prob’ly I’ve got something to do, or -I’d have died.” - -“Just the same, little Anne!” Kit thought, but he said: - -“It’s reason enough for letting you live that we all wanted you so -badly, little Anne. Now, what have I here?” - -“Window in the end!” cried little Anne, all excitement in an instant. -“Alive? Oh, could it be a kitten, Kit?” - -“It could be. It is!” said Kit. - -He unstrapped the basket and took out the small white creature with the -appealing face. - -Little Anne fell back on her pillow, clasped her hands, and closed her -eyes for an instant of intense feeling. Then she caught the kitten to -her and kissed and kissed it in wordless rapture. - -“Oh, God, I thank Thee for making kittens like powder puffs, and giving -me one!” they heard her whisper as she held the kitten off, then -clasped it to her breast, passionately. - -Kit told her how Helen had brought it from the city to her, and she -listened with dilated eyes. - -“How wonderful! I shall love her now whether I can or not,” little Anne -said. - -“Thank her; oh, do thank her, and tell her the way I feel about it, -though no one on earth can ’magine! Would you mind if I named her -Kitca, for you, dear, dear Kit? Short for Kit Carrington? ’Cause you -fished me out that day and brought this angel-thing here?” - -“I should be honoured, little Anne! I must go now, or you’ll be tired. -Good-bye, dear! Some day, when you’re able to hear it, I will tell you -a story about Kit Carrington, and how he sat all night watching the -stars, heavy-hearted, when little Anne was so ill,” he said, bending -over the child to kiss her cheek. - -Little Anne clasped her long, thin arms around his neck, and drew his -ear to her lips, and whispered: - -“You don’t look well yourself, my Kit, but when I get up I’ll look -after you! Good-bye; and all the blessings of all the blessedest -blessings be upon your rather tumbled head. ’Cause I have tumbled your -hair, Kit, quite outrageous!” - -Kit took Helen home feeling happier than he had thought that he could -feel when the day had begun. He knew that his wound would throb again -in the darkness of night, but little Anne and that peaceful household -had helped him. - -Behind her Helen left conflicting opinions. Mrs. Berkley was inclined -to give her credit for her sweet consideration, but Joan was not sure -of her. Again Helen walked with Kit in silence. She was affectionate in -an unobtrusive way, like a kind sister. Kit, thinking her over as he -dressed for dinner, was forced to acknowledge to himself that she could -be very nice. - - - - -CHAPTER XV - -_Opportunity_ - - -Cleavedge was a place of comfortable averages; it did not offer -brilliant opportunities in any direction. It was a pretty city, but not -strikingly so; it gave many men an excellent living, but it did not -afford them chances to amass great fortunes; its society, its library, -its schools, its shops were all up to the average, but not beyond it. - -It was understood to be the height of impropriety for Cleavedgians to -doubt that their city excelled all others of its size and rank. It was -an article of their faith that Cleavedge had advantages of situation -and climate unequalled by any other town of some seventy thousand -population in the United States. - -Kit realized that he must decide upon his course in life. Temptation -assailed him to let it all go. He was his aunt’s heir, provided that -she did not disinherit him, and at the worst, he had the small income -which his mother had left him. - -He did not rate himself high; there was no particular thing that he -wanted to be, or to do. He knew that he could do well anything that -demanded clear perception, accurate judgment, industry, fidelity; but -these are characteristics universally applicable, and Kit did not -recognize in himself any marked qualifications. - -The loss of Anne Dallas pushed him farther into quiescence. He was -surprised to find himself deeply wounded. Effort seemed less than ever -worth while in a world wherein he was to be denied what fell easily to -other men’s share. - -Still there was in Kit Carrington that essential manhood that inspires -human beings to strive, though the motive for striving has not been -made clear to them. He was impelled onward in the spirit that he had -shown when he was a young athlete in college; the spirit that has made -Kipling popular; the shibboleth of “being a man,” of “standing by,” -“not being a quitter,” though what the man is to stand by, what it is -that he is not to quit, in what especial way and why he is to be a man -are not formulated. - -If Kit had been asked to explain, he would have answered that you must -play the game and be decent; so, decent he was, and therefore he knew -that he must play the game, although he did not know its rules and he -had lost his first heavy stake. - -He turned over in his mind the facts of his situation and made his -decision. Until September he should not be able to act upon his -decision; in the meantime, he lived his accustomed life, surprised -to find it unfamiliar. Hitherto he had passed his days as a careless -boy; he went heavily now where he had run lightly; it struck him as a -curious way to find jolly Kit Carrington going about. - -Helen was a comfort as the time went from May into late June. She never -made demands upon him, never bothered him, but she was always ready -for whatever was his mood, and he gratefully admitted that she was an -all-round pal when she put her mind to it. And Helen kept in abeyance -all her attraction except that clever mind. Kit had shrunk from her -former emphasis of her physical charm, but mentally she was all that he -could ask; he let her make him cheerful, tide him over a hard place. He -rarely saw Anne Dallas. Miss Carrington had given a dinner for her and -Richard Latham which was a Cleavedge event, and a hard one for Kit to -bear his part in. - -The dinner acted upon him as a tonic, as his aunt had foreseen that it -would. The coffee that evening had much the same effect upon Kit’s -grief that the final sods of a grave have on another kind of sorrow. He -had buried Anne and must turn with his best ability to living. - -Occasionally Helen revealed another side to Kit, a side that stirred -him, dazzled him, yet repelled him. But this happened rarely, only at -intervals; as if to remind him that having a pal was all very well, -as far as it went, but that in the case of a beautiful girl it went -but a short distance. Helen did not purpose to let him settle down to -incompleteness, but for his completion she bided her time. When the -time came she intended to sway him to her will. - -With consummate skill she played her part. She was determined to win; -she herself was surprised to see how desperately intent she was upon -winning. - -“Christopher Carrington,” she told herself, “is just an everyday boy,” -yet she knew that this was not true. Kit’s qualities, his simple, -genuine personality, were uncommon. He was handsome, and Helen knew -that his vigorous beauty was the main factor in his charm for her, yet, -she told herself, there were many young men handsomer than he. As to -that, as Helen knew well, there was no reasoning; Kit attracted her; it -was Kit, Kit and not another, whom she wanted to marry. - -It took all of her prudence, her self-control, not to defeat her own -ends by forcing them too soon. She was not accustomed to dally on her -road to getting whatever she wanted. She began to find her impatience -mastering her, to try to set the stage for the part that she meant -to play. She had no doubt whatever that she would succeed. Kit could -not be blind; she had never found her beauty ineffective. He was one -of those queer people who have to be aroused from slumber, but Helen -believed that, once awakened, she would find Kit wide awake. - -“What about walking, Nell?” Kit asked one afternoon when July was -ten days old. “It’s too hot to walk, but it’s also too hot not to! -It makes me worse to sit around and think how uncomfortable I am! I -wondered if it might not be bearable down by the river; I know a fine -spot there, near where I fished out little Anne that day.” - -Helen outwardly hesitated; her mind instantly leaped to the suggestion. - -“I’m not shod for walking,” she said, extending her foot in its silly, -pretty covering. “I suppose I can change. Yes, I’ll go. I’ll not be -long Kit. I’ll put on stout shoes and come right back.” - -Helen was as good as her word. She came cautiously down the stairs with -her shoes unlaced; she knew the value of asking favours. - -“You don’t mind lacing them for me, Kit-the-kind, do you? It’s too warm -to stoop!” Helen said, and thrust out a foot as she spoke, its ribbon -dragging. She had the most shapely little foot in the world; there was -no reason why Kit should not like to hold it and pull the ribbons over -the high-arched instep. - -“Delighted, Miss Coquette!” said Kit, dropping on one knee, and Helen -laughed, enjoying the thrust. “But didn’t you say _stout_ shoes?” - -Helen surveyed the delicate kid oxford as if it were a new acquaintance. - -“Of course they are stout, Kit; stout enough, at any rate,” she said, -and sank back apparently relieved that her shoes had not deceived her. -They went down the shaded street: Miss Carrington lived on the best -street in Cleavedge. But as soon as possible Kit led the way into -by-paths and across fields. Cleavedge had not grown large enough to -push fields far from its best section. They had been driven a long -distance away from its business streets and poorer homes--where they -were more needed--but it did not take long to reach them from Miss -Carrington’s house. - -“Let’s be babes-in-the-woods, Kitsy!” cried Helen, and put her hand -into Kit’s. - -He took it cordially and they went on, swinging hands in imitation of -childish ways, Helen singing softly. Her highly trained, light voice -was a pleasure for its accuracy of tone and method. - -Helen’s pulses beat rapidly; through her quick brain rushed words that -strove against her lips. She felt certain that her time had come, -and for once did not stop to analyze whether it was the hour, or she -herself, that was ready. Her will, her desires, were slipping their -leash, and she was no longer equal to whipping them down. Yet, though -they had got away from her, she was still able to follow them in -silence. She ceased singing and went on, her hand clinging to Kit’s, -still swinging her arm with his and smiling, her lips tight, her eyes -straight ahead, avoiding his because she knew what was in them. - -He glanced at her two or three times, wondering what was wrong. The day -was uncomfortable enough to account for anything; he remembered how -small and light Helen’s shoes were and charitably refrained from asking -whether she was tired. - -Since the day of little Anne’s rescue the leafy banks of the river had -grown dense with green, spreading luxuriantly from the watered roots -of trees and shrubs. Midsummer blossoms, insects, and birds filled the -moist, hot air with fragrance and murmurs and songs. - -“It’s great, isn’t it, Helen?” sighed Kit, throwing himself down in the -shade with a deep breath of enjoyment. - -“Worth the tramp,” she agreed. - -She rested lightly against a tree, her hands raised and clasped behind -her head, her fair hair fluttering like golden petals in the slight -breeze. Suddenly she turned, threw herself on her elbow, and crept a -little nearer as if drawn by the earnestness of a thought. - -“Kit, it isn’t too hot to talk! It’s tropical enough to cast off the -conventionality that ordinarily clothes our thoughts. I’ve wanted for -weeks--forever--to get you to talk to me with the honesty no adult ever -uses,” she said in a low voice. - -“Go ahead, Nell,” said Kit, uncomfortably. - -“Look here, Kit, what are you going to do? Do you realize that you are -wasting opportunities? Well, then,” she went on, rapidly, as Kit nodded -hard; she was not ready to let him speak, “when are you going to put -yourself in my father’s hands? He can make you, put you right on top, -Kit! Kit, dear, handsome, splendid Kit, let him do it!” - -“Oh, hold on, Nell!” he protested. - -He was crimson and he edged away from her. - -“I don’t mind telling you, but it is in confidence; Aunt Anne is not to -know yet; I’m going to New York in September. A college man I knew--he -was soph. in my fresh. year--took a liking to me and told me that when -I wanted to seek my fortune he was ready to push it. He’s inherited a -big business. I am going to get a job with him in September.” - -“Nonsense!” cried Helen. “You’ll do nothing of the sort! Aunt Anne -has heaps; it’s all yours, unless you displease her. Father will put -you into a berth in the English, or some other first-rate embassy, -and you’ll go on to be minister, or something like that! And, in the -meantime, travel, art, luxury, and _love_! Kit, are you a fool, or -a man without eyes and blood?” - -“It’s good of you, Helen, to take this interest----” began Kit with -difficulty. - -“Kit, stop!” she whispered. “Look at me!” - -He looked at her--slowly, reluctantly, and quickly again averted his -eyes. She half lay upon one hip, supported by her elbow, her face -turned toward him pillowed in her curved hand. She was handsomer than -Kit had ever before seen her, but he did not want to look at her. - -“You idiot!” Helen said, fiercely. “Are you a girl of twelve? Though -I don’t know one who is such an idiot! Kit, see me! I know what I am, -what I can give you. Will you marry me?” - -“Oh, my good Lord above us! Helen, for mercy’s sake,” he gasped. -“Don’t! It--it--it isn’t funny! It’s a poor joke!” - -“You know as well as I do that I mean what I say,” Helen said. “In -these hands I hold influence, wealth, fame, every prize you can name. -In this brain and beauty of mine I have all the treasures a man could -desire. Humble? No. Why should I be? Vain? No! Not that, either. Sure -of myself and honest; saying what you can see is true. How many in your -place would turn from me? Let’s talk it out, Kit. Why won’t you marry -me?” - -“I--I---- Oh, Helen! For heaven’s sake! I can’t!” cried Kit, tugging at -his collar. - -“You _can’t_!” Helen mocked him. “Ah, but you can, my dearest! -Listen to reason. Your aunt wants it above all earthly things. She -will be happy herself and endow you richly if you do what will pay -for itself without her help. Father is a winning card; you’ll hold -him. You’ll be playing in luck every day, with him up your sleeve. -And I? Haven’t I proved what I can be on the chummy tack? Haven’t -you had a good time with me lately, though I kept down and out of -sight everything really worth while? How could you have a better -travelling pal, or a hostess to back up your game in the embassy, or -at Washington? And the other side of me, the lover, the wife? Oh, Kit, -I’ll play that part till you’ll be drunk with happiness! Am I not a -princess? Haven’t you said so? Just look at what is here for your -taking!” Kit was compelled to meet her eyes. He stared at her and stood -transfixed. - -“Ah, Kit!” Helen purred. “Why can’t you marry me?--_can’t_, -forsooth! I haven’t told you that I love you, but I do! I want you, -Kit, and no one else, though I can have any one else on call. Are you -imagining yourself in love with the girl Latham has chosen? Nonsense, -Kit! That was the stirring of fancy, not love! What could make you -forget that surface scratch like real love, love for me, _me_, -your wife? When you learn what love is, as I will teach you, Kit, how -absurd all trifles will seem! Keep your eyes on mine, Kit, you young -sun god, and then tell me, if you can, why you will not marry me? Are -you afraid of love, Kit, as a girl is afraid? But not I, oh, not I! -I’m not afraid to take what I want, what wants me! Tell me, now as you -stand looking at me, why you who are strong, and young, and free, and -able to love, would throw away this Helen who will not let you go! Who -will _not_!” Kit had retreated farther, but he could not take his -eyes from Helen. - -There was left in him no power to think; only to feel. - -Helen had thrown herself against a tree; she was looking up at him, her -eyes like glowing coals, feline, compelling. Her face was white, her -lips parted by her quick breathing. She was irresistible, yet as Kit’s -will swayed to her, he blindly struggled against her. - -There was in him no sense of attraction nor of repulsion; all the -ages which had preceded him fought on Helen’s side, drew the youth to -the woman. Yet in Kit’s veins some beautiful inheritance from sweet, -patient, chastened women, as well as the ideal which he had formed, and -to which he could not then consciously revert, stood him in good stead. -He bent toward Helen and she lifted her arms to him. Then he stepped -backward, and muttered hoarsely: - -“Helen, help me! You are mad!” - -“I’ll help you, Kit! Oh, Kit, it’s for your dear sake, as well as for -my own that I want you! I swear this is true. But how I do want you, -want you, want you, _want_ you!” - -She went over to him and knelt, laying her glorious head at his feet. - -“Say you’ll marry me, Kit. You’ll be happier than you can dream. It is -for your sake, too. See, I’m at your feet, Kit; take me! Helen is at -your feet! And she will make you endlessly happy, dearest!” - -Kit’s will, his judgment, his hold on his own identity seemed to -crumble and fall into nothingness. He stood for an instant with closed -eyes, suffering, he did not know what. He knew that he would raise -Helen in his arms in spite of himself. He knew that he must not raise -her, for, if he touched her, that identity for which he groped would be -forever lost. She waited at his feet, knowing that in a moment he would -lift her from her self-abasement and then, in his arms, she would kiss -him, and that Kit would marry her. It was but an instant of time, but -it measured an eternity. - -A piping voice came singing behind the trees, a child’s voice, slight -and not as lovely as a guardian angel’s, but it broke the spell as -effectually as St. Michael the archangel’s could have done: - - “_Astre propice au marin, - Conduis ma barque au rivage; - Préserve-moi du naufrage, - Blanche Étoile du Matin. - Lorsque les flots en courroux - Viendront menacer ma tête, - Calme, calme la tempête, - Rends pour moi le ciel plus doux._” - -it sang, not inappropriately, Kit thought, listening intently. He -felt weak and dizzy from the sudden relaxation of the strain which -he had borne. Little Anne appeared from among the trees. In her hand -she held jewel weed, wilted from her hot little palm, but valiantly -bright-coloured as it drooped. - -“Why, Kit, dear Kit!” cried little Anne in the glow of surprised -delight. “I had no idea you’d be here when I came! And Miss -Abercrombie, my kind Angora Kitca friend! What you doing down in the -grass, Miss Abercrombie?” - -“Looking for four-leaf clovers for luck,” said Helen so savagely that -little Anne fell back a step and looked up inquiringly at Kit. - -Kit managed a smile that sufficed for little Anne, though it added to -her bewilderment, it was so unlike his usual bright friendliness. - -Little Anne was a lady with innate social instincts; here was something -oppressive, not understandable, hence she must, obviously, arise to the -occasion. - -“I was singing French, Kit,” she said. “I haven’t known how so very -long. Could you understand what it was? Is my pronunciation pretty -fair? That’s what Sister said it was. That’s a hymn to the Blessed -Virgin. Mr. Latham taught me it. He heard it over in France; fishermen -sing it, so do their children when they are at sea, sing it for their -fathers, you know. Mr. Latham just said the words at first; I didn’t -know what they meant. But afterward he took it to pieces and showed me -every sybable, so I’d know exactly what I sang, and I do. Don’t you -think it’s very remarkably nice?” - -Little Anne had talked on, her bright eyes roving from one to the other -of her perturbed adult hearers. She felt that there was a gap for her -to fill, a strange disturbance for her to cover, though it eluded her -curiosity. But no one, be she ever so tactful, could be expected to -talk on forever, and at last little Anne paused for a reply. - -“I think, little Anne, that it is indeed remarkably nice,” agreed Kit. -“It was also remarkably nice of Mr. Latham to dissect it and to teach -you the meaning of each separate sybable! Are you alone, little Anne? -Will you go home with--” Kit hesitated--“Miss Abercrombie and me?” - -“I am alone,” said little Anne with dignity. “My mother knew I was -going walking and she knew it was safe. But I’d love to go back with -you. Why did you come, Kit? Looking for me doing penance again?” - -“No. Mr. Carrington came here to do penance himself, à la St. Antony, -and he has done it,” Helen said, and laughed; the laugh frightened -little Anne. “Mr. Carrington has done penance, but he has also -inflicted it upon another, which must be a joy to him. You don’t read -the Bible in your Church, I’m told. If you did you would read with -profit the story of Joseph. He was a righteous youth, also. I’ve no -doubt he enjoyed Mrs. Potiphar’s discomfort, as a righteous person -would. She deserved what she got. Wait till I screw up my hair, Kit. -It’s hard on hair to practise the virtue of humility.” - -Helen let down the masses of pure gold which crowned her. They fell -around her like a veil, and till she twisted them into her hand and -began to wind her hair around her head, it hid her from sight. - -Little Anne cried out ecstatically: - -“Oh, oh-ee! It’s like Jenny Wren, the dolls’ dressmaker! Mother read -me that out of a grown-up book that Dickens wrote. But we read the -Bible a lot, Miss Abercrombie; that’s not--I mean that’s a mistake. -It’s a golden bower, like Jenny Wren’s. Aren’t you the beautifullest, -Miss Abercrombie! I think Kitca takes after you; she’s the most -beautifullest of all the kittens that ever could be ’magined, and all -my life I shall bless you for her.” - -Helen threw back her head, her hair in place. Tears of rage and defeat -were on her lashes. Her lips were grim and her pallor had given way -to crimson in her cheeks. She was intelligent enough to know that she -was defeated. Never again would she have Kit in her power. Since he -had escaped her when she would have sealed him beyond the possibility -of honourable escape, he was lost to her. Calm reflections upon this -afternoon’s scene would put him beyond her grasp. - -She looked malignantly at little Anne. - -“What do they put on pincushions for innocents yet-to-be, or rather -used to do it in the good old days? ‛Bless the Babe?’ David Copperfield -had that on his prenatal pincushion. I shall work one for Anne Berkley, -but there will be the difference of a word in the sentiment,” Helen -said. - -“Oh, thank you, Miss Abercrombie, but Kitca is enough and too much for -you to do for me!” cried little Anne, fervently. “May I put in one of -your hairpins? It is rather out.” - -“Miss Abercrombie would rather put it in herself, Anne,” said Kit, -hastily. He took the child on his back. “Let me ride you home, or part -of the way.” - -“And avoid contamination,” smiled Helen, interpreting Kit’s unconsidered -impulse. - -At Miss Carrington’s, Helen went into the house, but Kit went all the -way to the Berkley house, seeing little Anne home. - -Helen turned back from the foot of Miss Carrington’s steps. - -“Kit,” she called after the pair of friends, “I’ve had a lovely time; -I’m fond of the drama. And I think you are right, and I was wrong. I -wouldn’t change it; I wanted to see, and I saw! Good-bye. Little Anne -likes a snowy-white kit, but not I! You’re a nice boy, Kit, but you’re -not much of a man.” - -She ran laughing up the rest of the way and rushed into the house. - -“She seems mad,” observed sharp little Anne. - - - - -CHAPTER XVI - -_Revelation_ - - -“Your daughter has not been rescued this time, Mrs. Berkley; I am -merely her favoured cavalier,” explained Kit, delivering little Anne -into her mother’s hands. - -“Thank you, Kit.” Mrs. Berkley spoke with difficulty for little Anne -had her around the neck in a hug that implied a long separation. “Mr. -Berkley is on the side piazza with Peter, and Antony is here. Joan has -taken the baby and left him. Why don’t you join them there?” - -“I always knew it would come to a separation between Joan and Antony,” -said Kit, gratefully accepting a respite from returning home. - -“And you knew it would be only for the length of a day and night, -didn’t you?” - -Mrs. Berkley looked sharply at Kit’s perturbed face. “Come, Anne; you -must be made presentable for dinner. Stay to dinner with us, please, -Kit.” - -“I can’t be made presentable,” he said, glancing at his tramping -clothes, and betraying his desire to stay. - -“That doesn’t matter; we are alone. Anne has obligations. One is that -her clothes are here; yours aren’t! Stay, Kit, dear, won’t you?” Mrs. -Berkley urged him. - -“Gratefully,” said Kit, “if you’ll put up with me. I think I may go -away to-morrow.” - -“Yes? For long?” asked Mrs. Berkley. Her eyes and her wits were working -fast; Kit looked badly perturbed. - -“I don’t know, Mrs. Berkley. It all depends; I may not go,” Kit said. - -“Depends on Helen Abercrombie’s going,” Mrs. Berkley supplemented him -in her thoughts. “She appeared well here, but Joan didn’t like her, and -I couldn’t help seeing that she meant to marry this boy.” - -“Then you must surely stay to dinner; tramping clothes are all right -when they are not what might be called worn in malice! We like you -better than evening garments, Kit. Come, Anne!” she said aloud. - -Upstairs with little Anne, Mrs. Berkley had difficulty in restraining -the questions that she wanted to ask. She made it a rule not to -encourage Anne in comments on her elders, to which her precocity and -ever-ready interest inclined her, but now her mother cast about in her -mind for ways to get Anne’s story without her knowing it. - -To her relief, little Anne, emerging from the bathroom, rubbing her -thin arms dry with a rotary motion from shoulder to wrist, asked: - -“Why should Kit hate to have Miss Abercrombie hunt for four-leafed -clovers?” - -“Does he?” asked her mother. - -“She was kneeling, hunting them, and he looked awful. I thought he -was sick. She was almost on his shoes, Mother! I was singing, but I -saw him look sick before he heard me. Then he looked for what was -singing. Do you suppose he thought ’twas a brownie? Brownies couldn’t -sing hymns. Fairies don’t either, do they? I was singing a hymn, that -French one. Kit said it was nice. Miss Abercrombie said she was hunting -for four-leafed clovers. You’d suppose they wouldn’t be so near Kit’s -feet. And she didn’t have any. Kit didn’t want her to hunt ’em, I’m -most sure. I couldn’t tell whether he was mad or what. But she got mad, -very mad, indeed! She said I ought to read the Bible about Joseph. -Did she mean St. Joseph, Mother? He’s in the Bible, isn’t he? ’Course! -All about the angel and his dream! Well, I don’t see why they were -so queer. She said something about a lady--Mrs. Potfar--or for--or -something, how she got what she deserved. I’m ’fraid I don’t know -hist’ry very well, Mother. Is that hist’ry?” - -“Why, yes. It is ancient and modern history, Anne,” said Mrs. Berkley. -She had learned more than she had the least desire to know, and without -a word on her part. - -“Shall we put on the straight linen frock, with the little leather -belt? I think so. And perhaps it would be as well not to speak of -four-leafed clovers, perhaps not of meeting Kit, nor of your hymn. If -he was annoyed, though we don’t know that he was, we should not care -to remind him of it and spoil his appetite for our rather nice dinner! -Raspberry shortcake and raspberry ice, little Anne!” - - * * * * * - -“Kit can’t be coming in to dinner, Helen,” said Miss Carrington, -pausing at her guest’s chamber door on her way downstairs. - -Helen had been thinking hard since she had left Kit. Anger still blazed -in her eyes and flamed in her cheeks, but she had decided upon her -line of action. However frank she might have been in prearranging her -course, now that it had failed, her candour should be curtailed. She -would not admit to Miss Carrington how completely she had missed her -aim. She knew perfectly well that Kit’s aunt would condemn her, not -only because she retained the manners of a past generation, but because -she would feel that Helen would inevitably have repelled Kit by what -she had done. Helen would not admit this. If little Anne had not come -along precisely when she came; if Kit had once taken her in his arms, -Helen felt sure that she would have fastened herself within them for -all his life. - -“Oh, didn’t Kit come back?” asked Helen, indifferently, when Miss -Carrington said that she thought he was not returning to dinner. “He -took home that thin little dark marplot. She came wandering where we -were sitting. Kit left me here and went home with her. How common -youngsters do go about without being looked after, and nothing happens -to them! Kit probably went with this scrawny little beast for pleasure. -He has strange tastes and ways!” Helen’s fury escaped her. - -Miss Carrington clutched the back of the chair by the door and stared -at her. - -“What under heaven do you mean, Helen?” she gasped. “Little dark -_marplot_? Anne Berkley? Good heavens, was she a marplot? Did she -spoil anything?” - -“Only all our plans, Miss Carrington,” Helen said, turning from the -mirror with a laugh that was not pleasant. “I had Kit where I wanted -him; a moment more and I’d have been your niece. But it was against his -will. I’d have changed his will; he was past choosing. Then that brat -came singing through the trees, a fool French hymn like a shepherdess -in a badly cast musical comedy, and----” Helen waved her hands to -signify the dispersion of everything. - -Miss Carrington rallied. - -“But it’s not final. If he was entranced, as you imply, it is only -deferred.” - -“Not at all,” cried Helen. “Kit had resisted my arguments in favour -of our sensible marriage. He doesn’t approve in the least of -Christopher Carrington and Helen Abercrombie compounding the felony -of sacrilege--or some such fool notion. And now he’ll be on his guard -against my attraction. Frankly, never-to-be aunt, I won’t bother any -more with Kit. I don’t want him; he’s a fool, a milk-white milk-sop! -I’ll marry George Lanbury soon. He has money enough to buy up the whole -of Cleavedge, and when it comes to appreciating my beauty----” Helen -again ended with a gesture, this time conveying boundlessness. “I hope -that Kit will wait for that child to grow up, and that he will marry -her and have a string of black imps as long as the rosary he’ll be -forced to rattle off at Roman shrines, decked out in tinsel!” Helen bit -her lip, angry that at the last moment she had fully betrayed the fury -that is renowned as exceeding anything known in hell. - -Miss Carrington meekly followed Helen downstairs. She was angry with -Kit, but had not given up hope. She also felt a malicious satisfaction -in Helen’s rage; it somewhat compensated her baffled ambition for the -boy, if it were finally baffled, that he could scorn and infuriate such -a woman as Helen Abercrombie. She still wanted Helen to be Kit’s wife, -but what fun it was to see her gnashing her teeth in desire for him! -Miss Carrington thirsted for entertainment; it was entertaining to see -the humiliation of a woman who held every advantage over her own years -and withered face. - -They dined with but little talk between them, slowly, and Helen -regained her self-control at the orderly, well-served table, by the -help of the food and wine that she needed. - -“I’ll spare Kit’s blushes to-night, Miss Carrington,” Helen said, -laughing, as she put an arm around the old lady and went with her into -the drawing room. “I will go to my room before he comes in. And then, -if you please, I’ll leave you in a day or two. I think I’ll go down to -the sea, I and none other, and let Mr. Lanbury come there to see me.” - -“You will do nothing of the kind, Helen Abercrombie! You will stay -with me. Your father is coming here if you remain. Why should I lose -my pleasure because of my foolish nephew? For that matter, have this -Lanbury here later, if Kit doesn’t come to his senses. Though something -tells me, your manner I suppose, that I shall not like him. Helen, -I beg of you not to go away! Don’t you know that I should miss you, -my handsome girl? I am not feeling well lately. Stay!” begged Miss -Carrington. - -“Better see a doctor,” said Helen, carelessly. “Well, we’ll consider my -staying, but the seashore is livelier.” - -Helen went to her room. Now that the motive for taking pains was gone, -she took no trouble to entertain Miss Carrington. She was rather -pleased to be free of the duty; she did not find Kit’s aunt nearly as -interesting and up-to-date as that lady considered herself. - -When Kit came in and upstairs, he found his aunt’s door ajar and she -waiting for him in kimono and slippers on its sill. - -“Here, Kit!” she whispered, motioning to him and opening her door -wider. “One word with you!” - -His heart sank. He had spent a pleasant evening talking with Mr. -Berkley and Antony, and had enjoyed Peter the Second’s exposition of -a plan he had for making an improved ski, a timely subject for a warm -evening. - -Kit had been diverted from his discomfort and the puzzle as to his next -step, but it had closed down upon him on the way home, and he knew that -it was now to become articulate in the person of his aunt. He went into -Miss Carrington’s room: she followed and closed the door behind them. - -“Kit, what have you done to Helen?” Miss Carrington demanded. - -“Nothing, Aunt Anne; I’ve done nothing to Helen,” Kit replied, hoping -that he did not look as much like a small boy called to the teacher’s -desk as he felt. - -Miss Carrington chuckled; her sense of humour was unreliable. - -“I believe that. Not even kissed her!” she said. “But I meant you -to kiss her and be engaged to her, then marry her, in a pretty and -prudent sequence, as you perfectly well know.” She suddenly became -fiercely serious. “See here, Kit, you’re to marry Helen, do you hear -me? I wonder what better you could ask of fate? That quiet little -brown girl, Anne Damask, Darrar, whatever she is, with whom you -fancied yourself in love--oh, dear me, yes; I saw it, but it was utter -tom-foolishness--is going to marry the poet. A good thing all around! -You are to marry Helen. Please make a point of being engaged to her -to-morrow at this time.” - -It was a mistake, of course, but Kit laughed. - -“Sounds like ordering the car, or chops, or something, Aunt Anne!” he -said, his cheerfulness restored. “I shall never marry Helen, and never -make a point of being engaged to her; I’ll make a point of not being! -And to-morrow I’ll get out of her way; go down to New York to see a man -there whom I want to see anyway, and then hang around somewhere till -Helen is gone. In September I’m going into business.” - -“Good heavens, Kit!” gasped Miss Carrington. “And my heart has been -weak lately!” - -She yielded everything so swiftly that Kit was bewildered. - -“Very well, then, don’t marry Helen! It will be you, not I, who loses. -But don’t go away. Stay at home. There won’t be awkwardness; Helen -knows how to break most of the commandments, but she wouldn’t know how -to behave stupidly. Stay here, Kit, at least awhile.” - -“Poor auntie! I am a trial, I know. But you wouldn’t have me be a -regular bounder and marry Helen for her father, now would you? Don’t -answer; it’s bad enough not to be able to handle me without granting -I’m right! I’ll stay on--if I can! Honest, Aunt Anne, I’m not sure I -can,” Kit said. - -“Certainly, you can; nonsense! Good-night, Kit! I’ll try to be grateful -for the concession that keeps you under my roof,” said Miss Carrington, -letting him out softly, as if she wanted to let sleeping dogs lie, and -their kennels were near at hand. - -Miss Carrington had reckoned, if not without her host, yet without her -guest. Helen had been in the cupola star-gazing, or so it appeared. -She came down the narrow stairs which led to the cupola of this house, -built after the manner of ambitious houses erected immediately after -the Civil War. She encountered Kit in the hall. - -“Hallo, Kit!” she said, softly, lest Miss Carrington should hear, but -in such an off-hand, nothing-happened manner that Kit had a fleeting -wonderment whether he had been in bed and dreamed the afternoon’s -adventure. - -“Come in here.” Helen opened the door to her room and drew Kit inside. -“No more occupied chambers, thank goodness, except the servants’, and -I’m not going up there!” Kit thought, with a desperate sense upon him -of an endless chain of bedroom interviews, and no small dread of this -one. - -“Nice little Kit-boy,” Helen began, carelessly. “I want to tell you, -for your own sake, because I know you’re unsophisticated enough to -worry over it, that this afternoon I was trying out a wager I had -with myself. I won it, you’ll be pleased to hear; the real me! I was -straight about asking you to fix up a marriage with me. I truly think, -or rather I did think so then, that it would be a good, sensible, -rather all-around nice arrangement. I don’t think so now, Kit, my dear! -You were right and I wrong. I’m not your sort, and, please don’t mind -one last bit of frankness: I’d simply die of you as steady diet! I’m -like Becky Sharp: I don’t like bread and butter! But the rest of the -racket was--what do you boys call it, chucking a bluff?--was chucking -a bluff. I _thought_ your decency was the real thing, but it is a -foible of mine to study people, preferably on pins, like grubs. I don’t -mind what I do with you, so I put you on a pin, and mighty well did you -wriggle, true to the compass. Though I couldn’t be sure you wouldn’t -have kissed me if that nas--nice little girl hadn’t happened along! -I’m not really a vamp, you know, Kits! It was a mean trick for your -old chum to play on you, but you came out fine; a bit crude, not too -clever, but a mighty nice kid, just as you always were! So don’t let -any constraint creep in, Kit! It was a game and you won it--and so did -I! I wanted to get this said before you slept; it’s an error to allow -embarrassment to develop at breakfast; fearfully hard to get rid of it -in daylight! Shake hands, Kit. I won’t squeeze yours! Only please tell -me I did it well! I have every kind of vanity, but I’m especially vain -of my acting!” - -Kit conquered his natural impulse to speak the truth, to set straight -anything distantly resembling a misstatement. - -“You’ve got Bernhardt and them all beaten a mile, Helen,” he said. -“Upon my honour, till you told me, I thought it wasn’t acting! Well -as I’d known you, for so long, too, you fooled me! Go on the boards, -Helen; it was great! But a trifle exhausting. I’m sleepy. Aren’t you? -You’ve earned the right to rest. Good-night, Siddons-Rachel-Bernhardt! -Good-night, Helen of Troy, whose face lighted fires enough, and still -does!” - -Kit left the room quickly. Helen went over to her mirror studying, yet -hardly consciously seeing her face, now hard and not beautiful. - -“Well, at least I’ve helped him to act like a man! He accepted the lie -quite decently, played up better than I thought he would. It’s bye-bye, -Kit! He’s still to be coveted. If I were sentimental, I’d say I was in -love with him, but, since I’m not sentimental, I’ll say, instead, that -I’m going to marry St. George--also his dragon--and be ridiculously -rich and handsome and haughty.” - -Helen turned off the light to undress in the dark; she did not like to -see herself in the mirror just then. - - * * * * * - -Kit had promised to bring a book from his boyhood’s library, containing -illustrations of Canadian winter sports, to young Peter Barkley on the -following day. - -He found Anne Dallas there, in the deep window seat with little Anne. -The smoothly coiled masses of dark hair bent over the bobbed, bright -ribbon-tied darker hair, as the grown-up Anne fitted a worldly pink -dancing gown on the little Anne’s big doll whose serious-minded name -was Scholastica. - -Kitca, larger and apparently whiter, sat on Anne Dallas’s shoulder, her -round Christmas-card face set off by a complex blue satin ribbon bow -that formed its background from ear to ear. It was a pretty picture, -Kit thought, as he stood for an instant before he was discovered, -looking at it. - -He had so completely given up Anne, even excluding thoughts of her -as honour compelled, that he looked at her quietly with a slight -tightening around his heart, a little quickening of his breath--but -not with the perturbation which the sight of her had aroused when he -was free to allow himself to go out to her. Anne’s smile was sweetly -friendly, her eyes unclouded as she looked up and greeted him. - -“Are you still in Cleavedge?” she asked. “Mr. Latham was wondering the -other day. Are you well? You look tired.” - -Kit blushed. He had not slept well; he could not bear to recall Helen -in this maidenly presence. - -“I’m all right, thanks: perhaps a little sleepy. I’m going to see Mr. -Latham soon. How about the play?” Kit asked. - -“He has done a great deal of the fourth act; almost all of it. There -is a famous manager coming to lunch with Mr. Latham, so I ran away. I -don’t want to meet him, and Mr. Latham admitted that I couldn’t talk to -him,” Anne laughed, and Kit joined her, thinking this were likely to be -true. - -“Will you take this book to Peter, little Anne?” Kit asked. “Tell him -I’ve marked the pages.” - -Little Anne sped away with the book and Kit still stood by the table, -fluttering magazine pages, while Anne still sat in the deep window -seat, fondling Kitca. - -There was nothing to explain it, but with the going of little Anne -something had come. There was between Anne and Kit constraint, -unforeseen, oppressive. Nothing like it had happened before; each was -conscious of it now, each wondered at it, was powerless against it. -They had not been alone together since Anne had promised to marry -Richard. Now they did not look at each other; for a while they could -not. Then Kit raised his eyes and met Anne’s, dilated, marvelling, -suffused with light, fixed on his. They gazed at each other utterly -unconscious of everything, mastered by a feeling that burned in the -blue and the brown eyes, mutually calling and answering. - -“Anne, I love you! I love you! And you love me!” Kit did not know that -he spoke till the words were uttered, never to be unsaid. - -Anne did not speak, except with her eyes, and they were illumined. - -“Anne, think of it! You love me! I love you!” repeated Kit, and crossed -to her. - -Then Anne recovered sufficiently to remember. She clasped her throat -with both hands and fear drove the light from her eyes. - -“No, no, no! Richard!” she whispered. - -Little Anne came back, but she stopped short in the doorway, not -understanding what she saw, but enthralled by it. Neither Anne nor Kit -knew that she was there. - -“Richard--can’t be helped!” said Kit, fiercely. “How did we know this? -You don’t love him; you love me! You didn’t know that; neither did I. -I knew that I loved you, but--well, yes! Once I did feel sure that you -loved me, but when you were going to marry Richard Latham I gave in, -thought I was mistaken. Now you are mine, Anne, Anne!” - -“No, Kit, never,” Anne checked him with a gesture. “Would you blight -Richard’s life? We did not know this awful thing----” - -“Stop!” Kit cried. “You shall not speak so of it! It is a heavenly, a -blessed thing! Out of pity for a blind man, not knowing yourself, you -promised to marry him. Do you think that counts against _this_? -Would you go on with it, marry a man whom you do not love, when you -love another man? A crime! No less! I myself will go to Latham and -tell him exactly what has happened. Are we to blame? Did we know this -glorious love would leap out of us, leap from one to the other as we -looked at each other? When our lips were silent it tore its way out -through our eyes. It is a miracle, tremendous, no more guilty than the -river hewing its way through the rock of the Grand Cañon! I’ll tell -Latham exactly what has happened to us when we were lying quietly upon -the knees of the gods. He’ll see it; Latham’s a great man; no one knows -that better than I!” - -“Thank you, Kit Carrington, for your praise of my future husband,” said -Anne, tremulous, but fighting for self-control. “You will never tell -him these things. When you’ve had time to consider you will know that -this is false, specious reasoning and cowardly. Neither of us will do -anything selfish or dishonourable. I shall keep my word, Kit, and you -will help me keep it. At any cost we will guard our honour. If Richard -were another man---- But even then, how could we? But he being what he -is, and I being to him what I am--ah, no! He loves me, heaven knows, -but it is not that most. Kit, be true and fine as Richard is, and help -me, for indeed this is cruelly hard! On my honour, I’d no idea you -cared for me, nor did I know that I loved you as I do, oh, as I do!” - -“Say that again, Anne!” Kit implored her, mercilessly. “At least let me -hear it again and yet again! And don’t think this is hard only for you. -Kiss me, sweet, and tell me how you love me. Your eyes said it first! -You’re not any man’s wife. You shall be mine!” - -“No, Kit.” Anne put both her hands, palms outward, between her face and -Kit. “I am not free, but bound. Richard trusts me, he has my word; he -may trust me!” - -Her deep, quivering voice broke and shrilled. She had reached the end -of her endurance. - -“Go away from me, Kit Carrington, go away! I will never again tell you -how I love you, I love you, oh, how I love you! Shame to make me weak! -Horrible, horrible! Richard, come, come, dear, kind, tender Richard! -Kit is cruel to me. Anne, little Anne, come back quick!” - -Little Anne had obeyed an instinct that sent her, frightened and white, -mystified, yet understanding much, away from the door after she had -heard and seen almost all that had passed, but before the actors in the -scene discovered her. - -Now, when Anne called, she came hastily, young as she was, proving her -ability to play a part, saying as she came: - -“Yes, Miss Anne, dear, did you want me?” - -But little Anne was not equal to the demand made upon her by Anne’s -hysterical weeping. She threw her thin arms around the girl, and drew -her head down into the hollow of her very hollow shoulder, mothering -her and patting her. - -“I’m sure I don’t see how you can bother her, Kit, for you are always -so very dear, but I do certainly think you’d better run right away! -It’ll make her sick to cry so. Just go right home, dear Kit, and you’d -better say a prayer to St. Joseph, ’cause he’s the one for husbands. -There, there, my poor darling, please try to feel better! Don’t cry! -I know it’ll come all right. See how I didn’t die when I was so sick; -often things turn out better’n you’d think! Anne, little Anne, will -take care of you. Good-bye, dear Kit. I’m sorry, but Mother’s out, and -I truly think you’d better go home, just this one time!” she said, -coaxing both of her patients purringly. - -“Oh, little Anne, little Anne, I used to be little Anne, too! Don’t -grow up, child!” sobbed Anne, not lifting her head as Kit went slowly -out of the room. - - - - -CHAPTER XVII - -_Honour_ - - -Little Anne expected Anne to recover after a reasonable time. She -had never known a grown person to cry so violently. She had dealt -with no abandon of emotion except her own, and after she had cried -tempestuously she was always done with it. But Anne’s weeping abated -only to begin all over again when little Anne began to hope; despair -of its ever ending seized her. Her arm ached, too, but Anne remembered -that it would and withdrew from it to lie face downward in the window -cushions, which relaxed the muscles of little Anne’s strained body, but -tautened the cords of her heart. - -“Please, please, please, dear!” little Anne repeated constantly, -patting Anne’s shoulder steadily, changing hands that the action in -which she had undefined confidence might not cease. - -Then little Anne, getting desperate, bent over Anne. - -“Wouldn’t you like to see somebody?” she anxiously suggested. “Shall I -call the doctor, or someone?” - -“I think it’s a priest I need, Anne; I’d like to go to confession!” she -sobbed. - -Little Anne was not only relieved by this first coherent speech from -her patient, but she hailed the suggestion as the most fitting thing. - -“Sure you can go!” she cried. “But I guess you’d better go to the -church. They’re not just exactly hearing now, I s’pose, but there’s -a bell and you ring it and one of ’em comes right out. If you get a -chance to choose you’d better go to Father Denny; he’s mine. He’s kind -of old, not very old, but his hair’s gray, but he’s as nice! I’ll take -you, Miss Anne.” To little Anne’s inexpressible relief Anne laughed, a -sorry sound of merriment, but a stride from passionate crying. - -“You dear, funny little enthusiast! I don’t go to confession, I’m not -a Catholic, though ‛almost thou persuadest me’ to be one! I can see -why confession would help. I’d like wise, dispassionate guidance now. -Suppose you call Joan, since your mother is out? Ask Joan if she’s too -busy to come here and let me talk to her?” - -Anne sat erect and dried her eyes. Little Anne ran rejoicing to the -telephone; she knew the symptoms of recovery. - -She was back in a few moments, short of breath, but beaming. - -“Came near missing her! But it wouldn’t have mattered; she was coming -with the baby. She’ll be here quick; going to stop at the grocer’s, she -said, but that’s all,” little Anne announced. - -Little Anne found the interval of waiting for Joan a strain. It was -hard to make conversation after such a scene, and with her active brain -teeming with curiosity. She was quick to perceive that Anne preferred -silence, so little Anne sat mute, hard though it was on her. - -Joan arrived full of sympathy; she knew no more than what little Anne -had told her, that Anne was crying dreadfully. As Barbara’s mother she -felt adequate to cope with any problem, console any grief, though for -the latter office she would have nominated her baby as better able to -fill it than herself. - -“Suppose we go up to Mother’s room, dear,” Joan proposed. “It’s the -nicest room in the house; its walls are soaked with her wisdom and love -for us. I think Barbara will walk soon; only fancy! We’ll take her with -us; she’s darling when you feel blue! Anne, will you ask Peter to get -the baby carriage up on the piazza, dear? Anne, Anne Dallas, what has -happened? You look killed!” - -“Yes,” assented Anne, wearily. Then she remembered how good to her -little Anne had been. - -“Don’t mind our leaving you awhile, will you, dear?” she said to the -child. “I’ve got to tell Joan a secret that isn’t my own alone. You’ve -been a dear little soul, such a comfort! I’d love to tell it to you if -only you were as old as Joan.” - -“I don’t mind,” said little Anne without the slightest indication that -she already knew as much about it as she could understand, and that was -all the facts of the case, though not their consequences. - -“I think I’ll stay with Peter after I tell him about the carriage. He’s -out in the backyard, working. He likes me there; he didn’t use to want -me chattering, he said. I think Peter will prob’ly be a priest. He’s so -good to me since I was sick that I’m ’most sure he’s got a vocation.” - -Little Anne betook herself to the backyard, where she found Peter as -she had expected. She helped him with the front wheels of Barbara’s -carriage, lifting it up on the piazza, and then returned with him to -sit in her favourite attitude, elbows on knees, hands supporting her -elfin chin, watching him work. But even to Peter, absorbed though he -was, her interest in skis was plainly distracted. - -“Would you like a pair, Anne?” he asked. “You see I’m trying to fix up -a sort of steering gear, rudder-like attachment. Do you suppose you -could use skis without going on your nose?” - -“Could I!” exclaimed Anne, scornfully. “Funny if I couldn’t. There -isn’t much boys can do I can’t. And those things are only ’cause I’m -rather small. When I’m as old as you I’ll do every single thing you do, -just’s well you do ’em.” - -“That’s no idle dream, either, Anne,” agreed Peter, admiringly. “I’d -back you for a Marathon.” - -“Well, that’s nice of you, Peter,” Anne said with a deep, indrawn -breath, as gratified as if she knew what a Marathon was. “Peter, I’m -cast down and ’flicted in my mind.” - -“Gee!” exclaimed Peter, stopping short to look at little Anne. “That’s -going some, even for you, Miss Berkley! What’s tuned you up on the -Lamentations?” - -“The Lamentations in Tenebræ; I guess I know that!” little Anne rebuked -him. “It isn’t Holy Week in July! Peter, is it perfec’ly awful to love -someone and not be going to marry that one, but another who is truly -glorious?” - -“Oh, my sainted aunt!” cried Peter, sincerely shocked. “Anne, for the -love of Mike! Mother doesn’t let you go to movies, and you don’t read -novels, as far as we know. Would you mind telling me what under the -canopy started you on that?” - -“Yes, Peter, I would,” said little Anne with melancholy dignity. “It’s -not my secret alone; if ’twas my secret alone I wouldn’t mind telling -you. I just asked.” - -Peter lacked the clue to this quotation from Anne Dallas which little -Anne had adopted on hearing it. She had treasured it up to use on -Monica the next time that her most intimate friend wanted to be told -a secret, but it came in so admirably now that she tried it first on -Peter; these bits of beautiful diction fortunately serve more than once. - -It had such an effect upon Peter that little Anne esteemed it more -highly than before. - -“Anne,” he declared, solemnly, “I’ll be darned! I certainly will be -darned! Of all the kids! I hope Mother knows what to make of you!” - -“Oh, she does! But you didn’t tell me, Peter-two,” little Anne reminded -her anxious brother. - -“No, and I’m not going to,” said Peter. “You put your problem-play -plots up to Mother, or Father, or Father Denny, or someone; I shall -not talk to you about such things! Great Scott, what shall we do with -you when you’re in your ’teens?” - -“You needn’t act’s if I was wicked; it’s not a sin, Peter-two! And when -I’m in my ’teens I’ll prob’ly be a Carmelite. The Little Flower went -when she was fifteen, and I’ll be eight in October.” - -“Well, thank goodness, here comes Mother! You certainly have got on a -string to-day, Miss Berkley!” sighed Peter. - -Little Anne rushed to meet her. Though she had been talking calmly to -Peter, at the sight of her mother all her excitement boiled up again. -She threw her arms around Mrs. Berkley’s waist and began to talk as -fast as she could. - -“Mother, my dearest, there’s something dreadful upstairs!” Mrs. Berkley -dropped into a chair. - -“Anne! What?” she gasped. - -“It’s Anne. Not the old Anne, the middle-aged Anne--no, she isn’t, -she’s young, but----” - -“Miss Dallas,” suggested her mother, patiently striving to make little -Anne realize that all her friends were not at the Christian-name age of -equality with her. - -Anne nodded. “She’s cried and cried! I really didn’t know what to do -about it! We had what to do when people faint; in school, you know, but -she didn’t faint. Kit was here and they got to telling each other how -they loved----” - -“Anne! Anne, my dear child!” protested Mrs. Berkley. - -“Mother, it’s the truth and nothing else! Isn’t it fearful?” Little -Anne had not been sure how to regard what had happened till she derived -from her mother’s horrified face a sense that it was shocking. - -“Kit wanted her just to kiss him quick, but Anne wouldn’t. She kept -saying she didn’t know a thing about it before, and ‛no, no, no,’ -and ‛Richard!’ She told him to think of Richard--that’s Mr. Latham, -Mother--and how splendid he is, and how well he likes Anne. And Kit -said it was more ’portant about the way they loved each other than Mr. -Latham, but Anne wouldn’t stand for it ’tall. She kind of got going, -you know, Mother! Her nice soft voice that sounds like a sealskin muff -got real high and funny, sort of splitted. And she cried awful! Right -on my shoulder, Mother! And I told Kit he’d better run along for now, -because he made her feel upset, _badly_ upset! So he went. And I -telephoned Joan, not till she’d cried till I thought she’d die, and now -she’s upstairs with Joan, telling her and asking her what she thinks. -She didn’t know I knew all about it, Mother; please don’t tell her; she -might rather not,” wise little Anne ended her story. - -“Oh, dear, oh, dear!” sighed Mrs. Berkley. “What a misfortune! If only -Mr. Latham weren’t all that he is, or Kit so nice! What shall we do?” - -“If you ask me, Mother,” said little Anne. “I’d let me take Anne up a -cup of tea.” - -Mrs. Berkley looked at her small daughter blankly, her mind so fixed on -the insoluble problem given for solution to three people who were dear -to her, that she could not quickly shift it to immediate necessities. -Then she caught little Anne into her arms and kissed her. - -“Small feminine Mr. Dick, who sets us all right!” she cried. “I’ve no -doubt that poor Anne Dallas has the postlude headache. Run and ask -Bibiana to make a small pot of her brightest tea and take it on a tray, -with a plate of biscuits, to--where are they, Anne?” - -“In your room. Make them come down, Mother, ’cause Babs will be so -tired staying up there if she isn’t asleep,” said Anne. - -“Another good suggestion, my dear! Better break up the talk; they’ve -said all that can be said--which is nothing! Ask Bibiana for the tray -in the library and I’ll fetch the girls.” Mrs. Berkley arose and went -upstairs. - -Mrs. Berkley was hailed as a deliverer by Joan and Anne. Rapidly Anne -poured out her tale which varied little from the version which Mrs. -Berkley had already heard from little Anne; she did not betray that it -was not new to her. - -“And no matter what pain it entails, I must keep my word, Mrs. Berkley. -Don’t you see it so? Especially when my word is given to Richard -Latham, of all the world?” Anne ended. - -“And I say, Mother, that Anne can’t imagine what it would mean to her -to be married to a man, even to such a man as Richard Latham, when -she loved another,” Joan took up the burden, shuddering as she spoke. -“Isn’t it a sin, Mother? Do you think it right? Oh, I know that there -are honour, pity, all sorts of arguments in the other column, but when -all is said, how can Anne marry Richard, loving Kit?” - -Joan’s vision was unmistakably fixed upon herself married to someone -else with Antony Paul in the world. - -“It would not be a sin, Joan, that is certain. It would be a supreme -sacrifice for the sake of conscience. It might end in sin were the -woman not our Anne Dallas; I am not afraid that she, or Kit, would -play with danger. The honour that made them fulfil the pledge to -Mr. Latham would make them fight against the memory of each other -after it was done. I certainly do not think that a hard battle, a -tremendous sacrifice, suffering, are to be avoided at the cost of what -our conscience says is wrong. The one point for Anne to establish is -where her duty lies. That established, she must do it. I have faith -to believe that doing it will bring her true happiness. Peace is no -slight good, my dears! I’ve not seen people win greater happiness by -self-indulgence than by doing a hard thing because it was right.” Mrs. -Berkley spoke slowly, her hand on Anne’s head. She was not finding her -verdict easy to render. - -“Mr. Latham would not let Anne keep her promise if he knew,” said Joan, -convinced, but still rebellious. - -“Of course not. No man would,” said Anne. “But how could he know? I -can play my part. No one would tell him. Kit said he would, but we all -know he’d die first, and if he did tell Richard, then I surely would -not marry Kit. He would not be himself if he could do such a thing as -that. Ah, well, dear Mrs. Berkley and Joan, there’s no way out! And -I am a happy girl, even though I am a little bit unhappy, to have an -opportunity to do what I can do in helping Richard. How often we’ve -said that!” - -“Too much protest implies a doubt, dear child,” said Mrs. Berkley. “But -I’ve no doubt of your happiness; in one way or another it is coming to -you. Little Anne has ordered tea for you. Come and drink it. Let us try -to postpone further thought of our troubles. Don’t you think solutions -come clearer and quicker when we don’t strive too hard for them?” - -While Anne was crying her heart out and making up her mind to say -farewell to the happiness which she desired, Kit walked away from her -on air. There had been a moment of complete dismay, a crushing sense of -defeat, but it had been but a moment. Three and a half blocks it may -have accompanied him on his way, but then he flung it off with a sudden -reaction of mind, recalling to him his youth, his will, the utter -impossibility that his dominating love for Anne should not conquer all -obstacles in its way. To be sure there was Richard Latham and it was -a pity! It was true that Richard was too valuable to the world to be -further crippled, although it was somewhat wearisome to hear everybody -insisting on this truth. It was also true, even truer, that as a man -Latham deserved the best that the world could give him; Anne Dallas was -decidedly the best thing in the world. - -Kit repeated these facts to himself, but in this case it was literally -true that he could not hear himself think. His heartbeats, the blood -racing through his arteries, the tumult of joy that had set up its -pæans in him drowned all comments that he made in his thoughts on -Richard Latham’s claim. He was going to marry Anne! Anne loved him! -He loved Anne and they both knew all about it! What a miraculous -revelation it had been! How completely unaware of its coming they had -been! What a proof it was that love was actually far greater, far -stronger than the lover! It had broken down barriers and leaped forth, -not so much in spite of them, as ignoring them. They had not foreseen -its escape; they had not known of its presence, or had not admitted the -knowledge to their consciousness. What splendour, what glory, what joy -there was in being an instrument in such potent hands! - -And Anne! Of course he had left her crying on little Anne’s shoulder. -Kit laughed aloud, remembering how troubled little Anne had looked, how -she had patted and purred over Anne and had bidden Kit run along, as if -she had been his small grandmother. - -It was hard to think of Anne as suffering. But that was but the first -shock to her sensitive conscience. She would see, probably saw by this -time, how supremely right it was to love him. It was such a compelling -love that it swept from sight gnat-like scruples. He should see her in -a few hours and then--she would not cry! - -By the time he had reached his aunt’s house Kit had decided that Anne -should be married in his mother’s wedding dress, kept sacredly by his -aunt. Miss Carrington had loved her youthful sister-in-law, and had -treasured her memory as she had taken care of the boy whose birth had -cost his mother’s life. - -Kit also decided that for the first year he and Anne would live in -a hired house near New York. He congratulated himself that he had -arranged to go into business with his college friend before he had -known that he should so soon have a wife to support. He wondered what -rentals were now. He had an idea that they were high and houses scarce, -but he knew that he should find one within his limit, because all these -details would arrange themselves. No question of that, when the supreme -fact that they loved each other had so arranged itself! - -Kit came into the house whistling, his face crimson, his hat on the -back of his head, his eyes so queer that Helen, meeting him on the -piazza, actually thought for a moment that he had been drinking. - -“Hallo, Nell!” he cried, jovially, confirming her suspicion. “How nice -you look! Isn’t it a corking day? Maybe it’s a bit too hot, but I like -heat. Are you going out, or coming in? You look mighty nice to-day, -Helen!” - -Helen’s suspicion shifted; this was not wine. And as to the other, the -second exciting influence of that trilogy, which not to love Luther is -said to have warned, left a man a fool his life-long? Helen could not -see how Kit could have fallen under that influence. - -“Mr. Lanbury is coming, Kit,” she said. - -“Is he? Who is he?” asked Kit. “Oh, is that the chap you told me about? -Coming to get you, Helen? Lucky dog! I hope he’s all right? I don’t -suppose I’ve ever had enough sympathy for happy or unhappy lovers. Are -you going to make this Lonsberry happy, Nell?” - -Helen’s eyes narrowed. She looked as though she might slap Kit, but she -did not. - -“Well, at least you’re not a dog in the manger, Kit!” she said, and -Kit came to himself enough to realize that Helen was establishing the -legend that Kit had wanted her, but could not have her. Well, if she -felt better that way! It did not matter. Anne mattered, nothing else, -and he was going to have her! - -“Mr. Lanbury is not Lonsberry. Please get his name straight. He’ll -arrive to-night. You’ll see a handsome man, Kit-boy, and a wealthy -one, who uses his money in big ways. I wish I could get him to see -Mr. Latham. He’s interested in the theatre. He may not have time to -go there this visit. I suppose Latham is at home, if he could go?” -inquired Helen. - -“Yes,” said unwary Kit. “He has a famous manager lunching with him -to-day. I suppose it has something to do with the play. The fourth act -is well on toward completion.” - -“What a detailed and up-to-the-minute bulletin!” laughed Helen. “Did -you see the manager? Was it Belasco?” - -“I didn’t ask; no, I didn’t see him; I wasn’t there,” said Kit. “I -met--I went to the Berkleys’ with young Peter’s book, and An--Miss -Dallas was there.” - -“Oh-h! I see!” cried Helen, archly. “When the cat’s not precisely -away, but watching another mouse hole, the mice will play, _n’est ce -pas_? Kit, get that small perambulating catechism you’re so fond of -to teach you the commandments! I’ve a vague recollection of one that -forbids coveting your neighbour’s wife.” - -By this time Kit was awake to his surroundings; Helen’s rapier voice -had pricked his consciousness. - -“So have I, and it’s one I particularly admire, because if you don’t -get thinking things you’ll hardly start doing them. I assure you I -have not a neighbour whose wife I envy him! There’s another nice -commandment, Helen, about bearing false witness against your neighbour, -isn’t there? You’re judging me uncharitably, Helen, the fair! What -shall I give you when you marry this Mr. Longworthy?” Kit smiled -guilelessly. - -“Proof that I’m not worth the trouble to remember his name!” said -Helen, furiously, tears of rage springing to her eyes. “I could hate -you, Christopher Carrington, quite easily, and if ever I do it won’t be -well for you!” - -“You won’t hate me, Nell; you’re too good a sport,” said Kit. “Why -should you? I’m the same old Kit you’ve known and liked a little bit -for so long!” - -“Heavens above us, Kit, don’t I know that?” cried Helen, and fairly ran -away. - - - - -CHAPTER XVIII - -_Made in Heaven_ - - -“Minerva,” said Miss Carrington, “I am not feeling well. I need -diversion.” Minerva scanned her mistress critically, and said: - -“You may be pale, but you don’t look sick. You are probably bothered.” - -“Do you like him, Minerva?” asked Miss Carrington, peevishly. - -“He would be called handsome by most people, and his clothes are just -about it,” said Minerva, cautiously. “But for what there is about him -which isn’t bought I’m not able to say much. No, Miss Carrington, if -I was to speak freely I would say that I don’t care for him. Miss -Abercrombie’s going to marry him whatever I say, or you, either, so I -put it to you: What’s the use of saying it, or thinking it, for that -matter? I guess you were worrying over it, instead of sleeping as you -might better have done and the result the same, and that’s why you feel -sort of used up. Miss Helen’s made up her mind and you may’s well go -along with it. I’ve noticed the only thing you can do about a marriage -is to order a present for it. What they set out to do, they do for the -most part. She’s none of your responsibility, anyway.” - -“No, that’s true. I shall have her father here in a few days, I hope. -But they’ve gone to ride, and I’m certain they will come back with -everything settled, Minerva,” said Miss Carrington. - -“’Twas before they started,” returned Minerva with a Gallic shrug that -accorded ill with her most un-Gallic stiffness. “Miss Carrington, Miss -Helen has that horse you got for her, the black one, but Mr. Lanbury -wanted to ride Master--Mr. Kit’s own, and Mr. Kit wouldn’t let him. You -and I know he won’t let any man set astride that horse whose character -and hand on the bridle isn’t known to him, but Mr. Lanbury didn’t know -it, and he took personal offence at getting refused. Miss Helen lifted -her eyebrows at him to signify: ‛What could you expect of a young man -who wanted to ride with her himself?’ and Mr. Lanbury lifted his back -at her to mean: ‛Is that what’s the matter?’ He looked as pleased as -every man does when he’s carried off the girl the other chap wanted. It -was pictured in our illustrated lectures in connection with Sabines. -So Mr. Lanbury’s been given to understand that Mr. Kit’s gnashing his -teeth, when the real truth about his teeth is that he wouldn’t bite.” - -Minerva looked outraged by this perversion of facts affecting the -dignity of the Carringtons. Miss Carrington regarded her with -amusement, realizing that Minerva should not be allowed so much as -implied comment upon her guest, but finding rebuke difficult when -Minerva had for so long ably seconded her own efforts. - -“Well, Minerva, I am bound to acknowledge that I see no symptoms of -Kit’s estimating his own folly properly,” Miss Carrington said instead. -“But I am disturbed. I believe I’d enjoy a call from that amusing -Berkley child. Will you step around to Merton’s and telephone Mrs. -Berkley; ask her if little Anne may come to see me? But before you go, -get me into my kimono and make me comfortable on the couch.” - -Minerva did as she was bidden and departed for the drug store to ask to -borrow little Anne. - -She returned with the message that little Anne would shortly appear, -and, indeed she came sooner than could have been expected, because she -had already been made ready for a call in Latham Street. - -“Be careful, Anne, not to say the smallest word to Miss Carrington of -Miss Dallas’s unhappy morning here. Remember, no one wants that sort of -thing repeated,” warned Mrs. Berkley, smoothing the child’s bobbed hair -before putting on her hat, merely for the pleasure of stroking her head. - -“Oh, Mother, as though I would when she was crying about Kit!” cried -little Anne, reproachfully; and Mrs. Berkley felt helplessly, as she -so often did, that her younger daughter was aware of and equal to the -situation. Minerva, on the watch for little Anne, met her and took her -up to Miss Carrington’s sitting room. - -“Oh, I’m very sorry! I didn’t know you invited me because you were -sick,” said little Anne, her solicitude banishing her shyness as she -entered and saw Miss Carrington on the couch. - -“I am not ill, my dear; only not equal to playing my part. Do you -understand that?” Miss Carrington waited for little Anne’s reply. - -“I think so,” said little Anne, doubtfully. “In school last winter -I was like that. Sister said I must be growing, but it was tonsils. -Afterward they found out they were swollen. I didn’t remember to tell, -but they looked and saw.” - -“My tonsils are all right, and I hardly think I am growing. Do you -suppose it could be that I am grown--grown old, Anne?” suggested Miss -Carrington. - -“Well,” said little Anne, delicately, “I don’t think when a person is -seven--although I’m ’most eight--you can tell so well when people are -old. I don’t believe you are, or anyway, not much. My mother seems -not--not quite so old, but there’s Mr. Allen, the grocer’s father who -carries things when there’s no boy, he’s much, much older! And you are -so quick, Miss Carrington, when you’re not lying down and are feeling -well! Oh, no; I’m sure it isn’t being old! Could I read to you, do you -s’pose? I can read pretty well, much better than I can do arithmetic.” - -“I hardly think that I should enjoy your doing arithmetic half as well -as reading, child,” said Miss Carrington. “I should not care to have -you add up my totals. I am a lonely, disappointed failure, little Anne, -with nothing before me but to die. And I don’t know how to die!” - -Instantly little Anne jumped up and caught Miss Carrington around the -neck. She kissed her cold cheek hard, crying: - -“I know how to die! I know just how; I almost did die. It’s as easy! -I’ll love you and come to see you lots. What shall I read?” - -“Suppose we try ‛Cranford’: I’d like to see you reading it. You are as -appropriate to it as an illustration. It is that red leather book on -the table. Do you think you can get on with it?” - -“If the words are not too long, and if the sense isn’t sort of -underneath,” said little Anne, possessing herself of the book. She -bestowed herself on a straight chair beside Miss Carrington’s couch, -her feet on a stool, fluttering the pages, her dark, short hair falling -forward around her eager face. She made a dear little Reynolds picture, -Miss Carrington thought, feeling that she had been wise to send for -Anne. - -“Don’t you think it’s strange the way meaning of books gets ’way -underneath, when the words on top are quite easy? Sometimes when I -understand all the words I don’t understand the book one bit. Oh, -what very nice pictures!” Little Anne looked appreciatively at Hugh -Thompson’s beruffled ladies and small-waisted gentlemen. - -“Shall I begin at the beginning? I can’t stay to read it all, I’m -afraid, because I’m going to Mr. Latham’s. He called me to the -telephone, me, myself, and told me to come because he had something -splendid to tell me. And I talked to him and told him I’d come, and he -could hear me perfec’ly; he said so. What shall I read, please?” - -“Shut your eyes and open the book, and read wherever it opens,” said -Miss Carrington. - -The reading was but begun when Miss Carrington held up a finger. - -“I hear Miss Abercrombie coming with a friend of hers. We can’t read, -Anne. They are coming up.” - -Miss Carrington seemed disturbed. - -Little Anne let the leather-bound volume drop in a V on her knee like a -red velvet cap, and looked curiously toward the door. - -She saw Miss Abercrombie, in her russet riding clothes, come in and -run swiftly to Miss Carrington’s side, and drop on one knee, her other -russet-leather-booted foot resting on its toe as she laid her radiant -head on the old lady’s hands. - -Behind her followed slowly, halting midway to the couch, a tall man -with dark eyes and hair, perfectly clad, smiling an amused smile beyond -little Anne’s analytic powers, but which she did not like. - -Miss Carrington, looking over Helen at him, knew that he was appraising -the scene with no intention to take part in a comedy. - -“Oh, dearest old friend,” cried Helen, her voice thrilling, “give me -your best wishes and loving sympathy! George and I----” - -She stopped, as if overcome. - -“Congratulations, Mr. Lanbury!” said Miss Carrington, extending her -hand. “I cannot rise. You surely will be the justly envied man of this -year!” - -“Thanks, Miss Carrington. Also of all succeeding years,” said George -Lanbury. “Helen is not merely a jewel; she’s the crown jewels and the -crown. I flatter myself that her wit and beauty, with my wealth and -her father’s position, will be a combination hard to beat. I didn’t -show her the ring, but I brought it along. She wouldn’t give me an -answer in the spring, but she did say she’d send for me if she decided -my way. I rather thought she’d see it as I did. Nice girl all the same, -Helen, to see it! Come and get your ring, my royal princess!” - -With a deprecating and inquiring glance at Miss Carrington, Helen -obediently arose and went over to her betrothed. He produced from his -pocket an immense diamond and a guarding hoop of diamonds. He put them -both on Helen’s finger, kissing her repeatedly, with an ardour that -declared an old woman and a child not to be worth minding. - -Little Anne hastily slid down from her high chair; her eyes were wide -and alarmed. - -“I must go right away, Miss Carrington,” she said. “I’ve got to go now, -thank you; I’ve had a pleasant time.” - -“Who’s the lean squab?” asked George Lanbury. - -“Good-bye, little Anne. I like to have you beside me. Thank you, dear, -and come again,” Miss Carrington quickly interposed. - -“Is it possible that you are joining the cult?” asked Helen. The sight -of Anne Berkley at this moment--recalling where and how she had last -seen her, underscoring the contrast between the great stone flashing -on her hand, the man who had just put it there, and what she had -hoped would be her fate--came upon Helen as an evil omen. “Small dark -banshees seem to bring bad luck,” she added, involuntarily. - -“I tried to find four-leaf clovers for you, Miss Abercrombie, because -you hunted for them so hard that day with Kit, and I wanted you to -have good luck for giving me Kitca, but I couldn’t find one. I’ll try, -though, to get you some.” - -Little Anne ran every step of the way to Latham Street. She was late -and the desire to get there was strong upon her. Something had made -her uncomfortable; she did not know what it was, but she wanted Anne -Dallas and the beloved poet. - -“Well, dear mite, how late you are!” cried Richard Latham as little -Anne came running down the garden to join him and Anne where they sat. - -“I was calling on Miss Carrington; she asked me on the telephone, too, -only it wasn’t her own; she hasn’t one, and I didn’t talk myself this -time. She isn’t ’xactly well; she was lying down. I was going to read -to her, but Miss Abercrombie came in, all in goldeny riding things, and -kneeled down to Miss Carrington. There was a man, too. He called her -over to get it and he gave her the biggest diamond ring ever in all -this world, and another crusty diamond one to put on top of it. And -he--he--he said they would be married, and so did she.” - -Little Anne poured forth her story rapidly, but she could not say that -George Lanbury had kissed Helen. - -“Dear me, Anne, what a fairy tale!” cried Richard. - -“Oh, no; honest it isn’t, Mr. Latham,” protested little Anne, -misunderstanding. “It’s all true, and I didn’t tell quite all.” - -“The man wasn’t Kit!” cried Richard, startled by this hint of something -withheld. - -Little Anne shook her head hard and glanced with a wise little smile at -Anne. Anne hated herself for it, but she laid a warning finger on her -lip. Little Anne shook her head still harder and said: - -“I guess it wasn’t Kit! He’s a big man. When he laughs it doesn’t look -like something funny, but as if you were funny yourself. He’s not like -Kit, dear Kit! He’s named George. That’s what she called him. So I came -here, and I’m glad I did.” - -“So are we,” said Richard Latham. “When I called you up, Miss Anne -Berkley, it was to tell you something that makes me so happy that I had -to ask my best, most intimate lady friend to be told about it.” - -“Me?” cried little Anne, ecstatically striking her breast. - -“You and this other Anne are my very dearest friends,” Richard gravely -assured her. “The other Anne knew all about it; I did not have to tell -her. Little Anne, my play is finished!” - -“Oh, is it?” cried little Anne, clasping her hands fervently as she -always did when moved. - -Though she did not understand precisely the full import of what she had -been told, she realized that Richard Latham had long been at work upon -this play. That it was finished meant something so great that she could -not grasp it. This only proved it the more glorious. - -Anne Dallas with an effort that little Anne could not see, though she -did see how white and worn the girl looked, took up the tale. - -“It is the most beautiful play that ever was, dear little Anne. And it -is done, every word! It is called ‛The Guerdon.’ The great New York -manager, who was here the other day, is going to put the play on in the -autumn, if he can get it ready. It will be acted by the best actors -in the country, and the scenery will be a dream! And on the first -night--what do you suppose? Mr. Latham will have the big box next the -stage, and he is going to invite some people who are dear to him to sit -with him in that box! Mr. Wilberforce, the famous painter, will be one -of them, but who else do you suppose, little Anne?” - -“I don’t know,” little Anne managed to say, huskily, choked by a hope -that she dared not admit. - -“Little Anne Berkley for one!” cried Anne, triumphantly, seizing the -child’s face between her hands to kiss it. - -“Me? At night? In New York? Oh, oh!” Little Anne looked almost faint -from the shock of this overwhelming joy. “Never, never in all my life -have I been once to the theatre, and I have to go to bed at eight, no -matter what! And I’ve only been to New York three times, and once was -to a dentist, and once to the zoo--the other I was a baby. Oh, I’ll -pray my mother will let me go! Mr. Latham, I’d die for you over and -over.” - -“Live for me, little Anne, please!” Richard laughed. “Come here, small -Dynamic, and thank me at closer range.” - -Little Anne ran to him and perched on the arm of his chair. She bent -over and kissed him gently, in spite of her tumultuous delight. Little -Anne always felt that Richard might be hurt if she touched him as -recklessly as she did people who could see. - -“But who else do you think will be in the author’s box, that’s Mr. -Latham’s, you know?” Anne resumed the game. - -“I don’t--Kit?” guessed little Anne. - -“Oh, no!” cried Anne, sharply, taken by surprise. She covered the cry -with a laugh. “Can’t you guess, when Mr. Latham just told you who were -his two best friends?” - -“’Course!” exclaimed little Anne, scornful of herself. “Miss Anne--you!” - -“No, and yes, little Anne!” Anne said. “There will be no Miss Anne -then.” - -“What will you be? Why not?” demanded little Anne. - -“I shall be Anne Latham; the other person in the author’s box will be -the poet’s wife,” said Anne. - -She went over to Richard and leaned on the other arm of his chair. He -put out his hand without speaking and took hers. Anne leant her head -upon his; little Anne saw her lips move. - -“You’d think she was saying a prayer,” thought the child. “Shall you be -married?” she asked aloud. Her voice was awed, her eyes big. “Is that -why you won’t be you?” - -“That is why I shall be I! That is exactly why I shall be I, and no one -else,” Anne murmured. “I might not be myself, but quite another sort of -person if I weren’t married to you then, mightn’t I, dear Richard? We -shall be married when that wonderful night comes around, and you and -I are in the box, little Anne! The play is all done, every word, and -you are to see it on its very first night and I shall see it, too, but -then I shall be our poet’s wife. Tell your mother and Joan what we have -told you, and tell them it is not a secret; they may tell whomever they -choose, and so may you, dearie. Are you proud and glad, little Anne? I -am.” - -Richard, smiling and joyous, got possession of Anne’s other hand. He -knew she was talking excitedly to something within herself rather -than to the child. He felt her tremble, but he set it down to her -sensitiveness. He would have known that Anne would not talk calmly of -her approaching marriage, nor of the great First Night of the play. - -But little Anne held in her small hands and child brain the clue which -Richard lacked. Wonder, dismay, a question crept into her wide eyes as -she stared at Anne. She saw what Richard could not see, the tears that -were gathering in Anne’s eyes and which she feared might fall on the -hands with which Richard held hers so fast that she could not dry the -tears. - -Little Anne slipped down and around to Anne. With the corner of her -handkerchief, bordered with kittens, she painstakingly wiped away -Anne’s tears. - -“I think I’d better go home,” said little Anne, slowly, all her -joyousness gone. - -Then Anne knew that her fear that little Anne might betray her by an -unwelcome allusion to that memorable morning at her home was groundless. - -“Why so soon, little Anne, dear?” asked Richard. “Why must you go?” - -“I was first at Miss Carrington’s, and it took too long,” said little -Anne. “I’ve got to feed Kitca and ask Mother if she thinks I may go to -see the play; I want to know quick. Will it be soon?” - -“October is the earliest we may hope for, dear. There’s no end of time -to wait!” said Richard. - -“I was born in October; maybe I’ll be eight by the time of the play; -then I’ll be something different, too. No, I won’t; you don’t see -anything when you have a birthday. I remember when I was going to be -six I thought I’d change. ’Course not! I didn’t know you’d be married, -Miss Anne, darling! I truly must go home. I’ve got to see Mother -right away! Honest, Mr. Latham, I don’t know’s I can bear it, I’ll be -so happy if I go that night! I’ve got to tell Mother Anne won’t be -Miss Anne then; she hates to have me forget to say that! I’ve had one -engagement and one wedding this afternoon--the news of ’em. It’s a -great deal. I feel a little queer. Good-bye. And I couldn’t thank you -no matter how I tried, so I might as well go now.” - -Little Anne passively allowed herself to be kissed, and beat a rapid -retreat. She had corked up her feelings to the last possible instant. -Though the maturity which she anticipated attaining in October, when -she was eight, was still some weeks distant, something told the child -that Anne was hiding an aching heart. - - - - -CHAPTER XIX - -_The End of the Play_ - - -Although Mrs. Berkley readily consented to little Anne’s seeing the -first performance of Richard Latham’s play, and although this was an -event to dream of by night and by day until its distant date, little -Anne was not completely happy in its anticipation. - -The play was so much one with Anne Dallas that they could not be -recalled separately. It loomed above all else in little Anne’s mind -that when the great night came Anne would be married. Everyone spoke -impressively of being married. Little Anne absorbed the general -attitude toward it and was deeply impressed by the fact that her -dear Anne would be in the same box with her that first night of the -play--she wondered what sort of a box it could possibly be--no longer -her Anne, but married. - -Twice little Anne had come upon Anne weeping her heart out as -tempestuously as she had cried on the child’s shoulder. Anne was not -happy; she was growing so thin and pale that Mrs. Berkley and Joan -discussed it in little Anne’s hearing, though in terms intentionally, -she thought, beyond her complete understanding. - -Little Anne was too loving to be quite happy about the play if Anne -were not happy, too; she had grasped the fact that this unhappiness was -connected with the play and being married; evidently Anne dreaded the -night when she would sit in that mysterious box that held several grown -people, but which did not seem to strike any one as an unusual type of -box. - -Kit Carrington came often to the Berkley house these days, also -to Joan’s. Little Anne found him in both houses the same; he was -invariably a gloomy, dull Kit, from whom only she could extract -anything like his old smile, and she but rarely. - -Kit looked not only unhappy and ill, but little Anne thought that he -looked chronically “mad,” and surely there could have been nothing less -like her old Kit than “a grouch!” It was Peter who said that Kit had a -steady grouch on, so little Anne knew that she must be right. - -It was a melancholy state of things, and when she was not playing with -Monica, or interested in something else, which was the greater part of -the time, little Anne, like Miniver Cheevy, “thought, and thought and -thought about it.” - -One day Kit came to Joan’s when Anne was there. It was a Sunday -afternoon, so Antony was at home. Kit stalked in with such a desperate -air that little Anne told herself that he looked as if he was going to -do something awful! He nearly kicked Guard, who had grown enormously, -but had not outgrown his first adoration of Kit, and toward whom Kit -held himself as sponsor because he had endorsed the dog in his infancy -and advised his purchase. Kit did not kick the exuberant animal but he -visibly refrained from doing so, and patted him instead. It was wonder -enough for little Anne that he had felt like kicking. He hardly noticed -the child--another alarming symptom. - -Little Anne retired to a corner with Barbara, now capable of being led -there, and played house with the baby in a one-sided fashion. But her -ears were alert to catch a conversation in which she was forgotten. - -“I’ve stood it to the last possible instant!” declared Kit, savagely. -“Anne will not see me. She shall! Have I no rights?” - -“Don’t you think, Kit, dear, she is afraid to see you?” Joan suggested. -“If she will not marry you, isn’t it better to avoid unnecessary pain? -Poor Anne shows that she already has all that she can endure.” - -“Poor Anne has no right to be enduring it,” retorted Kit. “I will see -her; I must! What do you say, Antony?” - -“I say I wouldn’t like to be in your shoes, and I don’t know how I’d -play up if I were, but the right thing is to get out and not torture a -girl who is trying to be square, who loves you all the time, good old -Kit,” said Antony. - -“Well, if you call that being square, I don’t,” declared Kit. “She’s -got it all twisted. I don’t mean to torture her, you know well enough, -except to talk it out once; we’ve got to! I never had a word with her -except that one time when we found out how we both felt, and then what -was it? We were taken off our feet; couldn’t talk! I want to put it up -to her as temperately as I can. Then if she decides against me, all -right; I go. And I mean to listen fairly to her arguments. But I don’t -go till that is done. I realize that it’s hard to judge a question on -which your own happiness hinges, but it doesn’t seem to me right to -Latham for Anne to marry him. Putting me out of it, it doesn’t seem -right to Latham. If he knew that Anne loved me, not him--wanted to -marry me, not him--would he let her keep her promise to him? Of course -he wouldn’t! So it doesn’t seem fair to him to go on with it. Maybe -that’s sophistry; I’m sure I can’t tell! But I do know that I don’t -feel as though I could go on living if Anne marries Latham.” - -Kit’s head went down on his arms with a movement of such despair that -little Anne was frightened. - -So that was it! Anne didn’t want to marry Mr. Latham, not even to sit -in the box! And she did want to marry Kit; and Kit would die if she -married Mr. Latham. And Mr. Latham would not marry Anne if all this -were as clear to him as it had suddenly become to little Anne. Kit -had said that it was not fair to Mr. Latham; evidently someone was -making a blunder. Here little Anne’s thoughts became cloudy. Could -the blunderer be Anne? Well, this fact was clear: two of little Anne’s -dearest friends were miserable, all because Mr. Latham did not know -that they would far prefer to marry each other than to let Anne go to -the play as the poet’s wife. Now that these points were radiantly clear -to the child, it was equally clear that a simple mistake of this kind -could and should be corrected. - -“Do you think Anne will consent to see you, Kit?” Joan was asking when -little Anne’s attention returned to the conversation. - -“She has said that I might see her to-morrow afternoon,” said Kit. “I’m -to go to walk with her; I told her that I must see her where there’d be -no risk of interruption. I know it’s no use.” - -“I’m sure of that, poor Kit!” agreed Joan. “Anne is not to be moved.” - -“And she is dead right!” added Antony. “I’m bound to say I think she’s -dead right, and no end of a trump to stick to her principles. I’m sorry -enough, Kit, and it seems mean in me to be so happy with my little -old lady here when you’re playing in such hard luck, but honour among -thieves can’t be more binding than among honest folk. I took off my -hat to Anne Dallas when the trouble began, and I’m bare-headed yet, -figuratively speaking.” - -“Easy enough to admire a martyrdom when you’re in heaven,” growled Kit. - -Little Anne, so absorbed in the conversation, forgot Barbara, and the -baby, still uncertain in her balance, lost it and struck her chin -against a chair. Her wail aroused Joan to the presence of little Anne. -As she rescued her child, more injured in feelings than in flesh, Joan -glanced sharply at her small sister, wondering what she had heard and -understood. Nothing could have been more blank of other interest than -Barbara’s possible hurt than was the face that Anne turned up to her -sister. - -“We played house, Joan, and Babs was my child,” she said. “I don’t -think she ’xactly understands, but she played nicely. She sort of -tipped over, but not far. I don’t believe it hurt her badly.” - -“You kept her so quiet that I forgot you both,” said Joan. “Did the -time seem long to you, Anne?” - -“Mercy, no! I was awf’ly interested,” said little Anne, truthfully. -“Maybe I’ll be a Sister of Charity instead of a Carmelite; then I could -have an asylum. Babies are so dear!” - -And Joan dared ask no more lest she should hint what, after all, Anne -might not have heard. - -The next afternoon, strong in her righteous purpose, and, -little-Anne-like, unassailed by doubt when she was convinced of her -facts, little Anne set forth to visit Mr. Latham without taking any -one, even her mother, into her confidence. She passed Anne, looking -white and miserable, but with the light of determination in her eyes, -as she turned into Latham Street. - -“Kit is coming; I saw him ’way down the street,” volunteered little -Anne. Then she ran on, leaving Anne to wonder at her apparent knowledge -of the intended meeting. - -“Well, small Anne!” cried Richard Latham as little Anne came running -down the broad walk through the centre of his garden. “You surely -are Anne, the well-come! I feel precisely like having a comrade of -seven-most-eight! I’m half afraid you are too sedate for me, Miss -Berkley! Do you think you can stoop to play with a poet who has -finished his play and arranged for its production, and with a man who -is too happy to be merely a man? Anne, have I slender, pointed ears? -And do you chance to see pipes sticking out of my pocket?” - -“Your ears are slender, but I think they are round at the top,” said -little Anne, conscientiously examining them as Richard stooped to her. -“And there aren’t any pipes. Don’t you smoke cigars, anyway?” - -“Oh, not smoking pipes! I thought you, of all people, would know! I -mean pipes like Pan’s. The fauns play on the sort I mean. Never mind; -perhaps I am a man. Do you happen to have a string with you? No? Pity! -What I really am is a rose-coloured air-balloon, and I’m liable to sail -over the house-tops unless you tie a string to me and hold me fast. -Have you the string, little Anne?” - -Little Anne was laughing, yet her eyes were gravely puzzled. - -“Must I tie you down?” she asked, not realizing that she had come to do -this and more. “I have no string.” - -“Then let us run a race up and down the broad path, and around the -little paths on the right. Then up and down the middle again, and -around the little paths on the left! I can run faster than you can, -but, on the other hand, I can’t see you and you can see me, so it -will be a fair game. If you catch me I pay a forfeit. I buy you a box -of candy. If I catch you, you pay me a forfeit; you take the box of -candy that I buy for you! I think that’s the best-arranged arrangement -that all the aggregated arrangers ever arranged!” Richard laughed, -triumphantly. - -Little Anne danced up and down. - -“I do think you are the funniest! And nicest!” she cried. “I should -think you would make plays and poetry! I do love Kit dearly; he’s so -nice you have to, but you think of the most things I ever! Why does -Anne, Miss Anne, rather not marry you?” - -Richard Latham’s hand stopped in mid-air on the way to pull down his -hat in preparation for the race. - -“Anne! What are you saying?” he exclaimed. - -“Oh, never mind now; maybe we’d better race first, because we’ll be so -warm we’ll need to sit down; then we could talk,” said little Anne, -comfortably. “I came to tell you about it. Kit said if you knew you -wouldn’t let her; he said it wasn’t fair to you. So I thought I’d tell -you. Anne loves Kit, so does he--I mean they both do.” - -Anne was getting frightened; Richard’s face was ghastly white. - -“How can you, a child, know this?” Richard spoke with difficulty. - -“Why, it was one morning at our house. They kind of looked at each -other and began to say they loved each other such a lot, and Anne -cried: ‛No, no, no. Richard!’ And Kit had to go away. She made him. And -she cried terrible. And Kit says it’s wrong to marry you when she’d -rather not, but she just will, and Antony says she’s a trump, but you -can see Joan’s so sorry she can’t tell what a trump is. And Anne, you -know, looks dreadful, white and thin---- Oh, I forgot!” Little Anne -checked herself, shocked that an allusion to Mr. Latham’s blindness had -escaped her. Of all things she most dreaded to say anything that might -hurt Richard Latham. Richard put out a hand, gropingly. He found little -Anne’s shoulder and held it tight. He swayed slightly as he turned to -go up the garden, slowly, like an old man. He leaned on the frightened -child who walked beside him, looking up at him with dilated eyes. - -“I want to find the bench,” said Richard, whom little Anne had always -seen going confidently about the garden. - -Little Anne led him to the bench and Richard dropped on it heavily. - -“Tell me again. I can’t understand. Anne, my Anne, loves Christopher -Carrington? And he loves her, and they both know this? And she is -marrying me because she thinks she must? It this what you are telling -me? It can’t be true! You are only little Anne. You can’t know!” - -Richard’s voice, faint at first, gathered strength as he spoke; it -ended in a groan. Because this was little Anne, too young to imagine -the story, too clear-brained to distort it, he knew that it was true. -A thousand tiny proofs of it seemed to pierce his memory even as he -denied it. - -“Yes, I do know!” little Anne insisted, nodding her head hard. “I was -there when they found out. They kept saying how s’prised they were. Kit -wants to talk it over; that’s what he’s doing now, but Anne won’t ever -change, Joan said. He couldn’t talk it over, ’cause Anne wouldn’t see -him till now. He said you wouldn’t let her marry you if you knew she’d -rather not; Kit said that. He said it wasn’t fair to you. So I came -around to let you know. Won’t you let her marry you? Can’t she sit in -the box that play night?” Richard Latham started up and fell back with -a cry. His head dropped on the back of the garden bench; he was shaking. - -“Go away, little Anne,” he said. “Go away. Go home. We’ll--we’ll -race--sometime. I’ll remember--the candy. You win, little Anne! Go, -dear, go!” - -“Oh, wasn’t it right to come? Was it a sin to tell you? Was it a sin? I -never did a sin that made any one sick when they were so well before! -Was it a sin?” cried little Anne, terror-stricken by the result of her -mission. - -“It was--just right--little Anne! I’m--delighted--to know. But I’m a -little--a little--surprised, you see. Please, go, dear little Anne!” -Richard managed to say. - -Little Anne went. At the gate she looked back. Richard Latham sat -as she had left him. The garden looked more than usually beautiful, -peaceful. Child as she was she felt the solemnity of the bowed figure -of the blind poet, alone among his flowers. - -In the meantime, Anne had gone on and had met Kit coming toward her -down shady Latham Street. She had not given him her hand; he had turned -and joined her with but the slightest murmur of greeting. They made no -attempt to talk as they went out toward the river. Kit directed their -course away from the spot to which he and Helen had walked on that -recent afternoon. They came to a pretty place where the bank sloped -down under willows, and where there was a bit of white, sandy beach. - -“No use going farther, Anne,” said Kit, peremptorily. “I want to know -what you mean to do about it? I have a right to know.” - -“You already know,” said Anne, as sternly as he. “I have told you all -that there is to say. In less than three months I shall marry Richard -Latham. That sums up all that I could say to you, Kit.” - -“But I love you! You have no idea how I want you, love you!” cried Kit. - -“And that you’re not to say to me!” said Anne with a stern monotony of -voice, with which she bridled her pain as she saw the change in Kit’s -sunny face. - -“It is easy for you. You don’t care, after all! I suppose women can’t -love as a man does,” said Kit. - -An expression of adoring love and pity flitted over Anne’s face. Then -it was gone, and she said: - -“There is no profit in that sort of recrimination, you know. The -instrument for measuring and comparing mental suffering has not been -invented. It is hard enough for me. Be satisfied of that! Do you want -me to be miserable?” - -Suddenly she let herself go, as if she deliberately threw away reserve. - -“Kit,” she began, her voice deep with love and longing, “it is costing -me so much that in simple mercy you must never again add to it by -seeking me. After a while we will be friends--meet as friends. Always -we shall be friends, even before we may safely meet. That is a great -word were we not longing to speak another, greater word, that is -forbidden us. I shall marry Richard and do my best to love him as a -wife should, as any one who knew him would love him, one would think, -best of all! Listen to me, dear: If you were a man who in sober, -sane choice could want me to break my promise to this man, I should -never have loved you. Shall we be selfish, Kit, cruel, false, trying -to justify ourselves with pretty words? Kit, you are so dear to me -that I want to help you to keep your honour bright! I should not have -seen you to-day but that I knew in seeing you I could help you to -see something far greater than I. I can’t cure your grief, Kit, your -lonely longing, nor my own! For a time we must suffer. But I know we -shall win out, because we are doing our best. I came to beg you to -make the renunciation that is the true, manly course. I don’t want you -to do right only because I stand by my word. Say to me--and mean it, -Kit, because in compelling your will to this you will gain peace of -mind--say to me: ‛Anne, keep your word to Richard Latham and God bless -you! I would not have you make me happy by defrauding him.’ Tell me -this, Kit; tell me you see it is right!” - -Kit stood silent beside her, his head bowed, his hands clinching and -relaxing. The tiny waves of the river’s slow flow lapped softly on the -white sand; a sparrow emphasized the stillness with his lovely brief -song. - -“It is right, Anne,” poor Kit said at last. - -“And”--Anne put out her hands to him almost as a mother would put out -her hands to the child who feared to walk--“And I don’t want you to -make me happy by defrauding Richard Latham. Marry him, Anne, Anne, -Anne, my darling, marry him! And God bless and keep you, as He surely -does!” - -Kit threw back his head, holding both her hands crushed in his. - -Anne’s face was alight with triumph; her eyes glowed and warmed Kit’s -heart. - -“I’ll be all right. This is right,” Kit said. “I’ve been crazed, Anne, -but don’t worry over me; I’ll be all right, little Captain!” - -“Oh, you blessed boy!” cried Anne in spite of herself. - -Gently she disengaged her hands. - -“It’s a lot to be able to think of each other in the way we now shall.” - -“I’d better take you back again. Oh, Anne, I was ready with arguments -that you never could have answered, and I haven’t spoken one of them! -Isn’t there another side? Couldn’t you hear me, even yet? I don’t know -what you did to me, but all my arguments seemed answered when you began -to speak.” - -“We’ve settled it, Kit, and I’m too tired to argue. I think you -answered yourself as you went along, only you had not consciously heard -the answers. You are no sophist, dear Kit! So when I spoke of duty it -needed no more than the word. You had argued on the surface of your -mind, but all the time your will stood true! I’m proud of you, dear -Kit, and thankful that I did not love a man less fine than my husband -is. I do love Richard, Kit; we both well may love him. I’m a little -tired. Yes, please take me back,” Anne ended, abruptly. - -“You are deadly white and you’re thinner, Anne,” said Kit, forgetting -his pain in anxiety as he looked at the sweet, weary face beside him. - -“Just tired; that’s all,” said Anne, smiling. “I haven’t slept much -of late. I fancy we both find that night brings the enemy’s hardest -attacks. You are thinner, too. Have you plans?” - -“To go away soon, to New York, and go into business there,” said Kit, -accepting her lead. - -They talked quietly as they returned homeward, till just before they -reached Latham Street, Kit stopped short. - -“It can’t be good-bye so casually, Anne! Am I mad that I give you up -like this, or have you put a spell upon me? I think I’m dreaming and -must awaken. It’s like a nightmare in which you can’t move,” he said, -hoarsely. - -“It’s only good-night, Kit, but good-bye is its foundation. You will -awake, my dear, quite well and strong, for the nightmare is over. -Good-night, Kit, and with all my heart I pray God bless you. When you -get home to think, remind yourself that you spared poor Anne all that -you could, and be thankful that you are her comfort, and not the least, -wee pain to her, as a tiny lack in you would be. Good-night, Kit! -Dearest, good-night, Sir Christopher!” - -Anne forced her drawn lips to smile as she paused for a moment at -Richard’s garden gate. - -Kit looked down on her without an attempt to smile back at her. They -did not touch each other’s hands. - -“Oh, Lord!” he groaned, and turned away. - -Anne stood for an instant, her hand on the top of the gate. Then with a -long, fluttering breath she groped for the latch, lifted it and entered -the garden. - -Before her on the bench, one arm thrown across its back, his head -erect, pale, but quietly smiling toward her as his quick ear heard the -click of the latch, sat Richard Latham waiting for her. - - - - -CHAPTER XX - -_Richard_ - - -Anne halted, frightened by Richard’s face. - -“Well, dear?” he said, and extended his hand. - -She came on slowly, fear clutching her and a sense of guilt. When she -reached the bench Richard lightly clasped the hand that she laid in his -and drew her down beside him. - -“Did you have a pleasant walk, dear?” he asked. He spoke quietly, but -his voice was strained. - -Anne did not speak and Richard turned toward her. - -“Are you tired, brave little woman? And aren’t you going to tell me all -about it?” - -“Richard, what has happened?” cried Anne. “What can have happened since -I left you so light-hearted, so happy, so boyish? Are you ill? You -aren’t ill?” - -“No, dear, but I grew old,” said Richard. “Tell me about it, Anne; -don’t be afraid to trust me. Do you think I could blame you, sweet, or -want anything but your dearest desire?” - -“Oh, Richard, Richard, who has wounded you, what has happened?” cried -Anne again. “Who has been here?” - -“No one has been here but little Anne,” said Richard. - -“Ah, little Anne!” She caught her breath. “There was nothing for me to -tell you, Richard, dearest, but--what has she told you?” - -“Little Anne’s perception, though limited by lack of full -understanding, is truer than yours, dear. Little Anne had heard it said -that it was not fair to me, so she came to put her knowledge into my -hands, actuated by her extreme conscientiousness and without consulting -her elders. So she acted directly and properly, as children will. It -was true that it was not fair to me, dear Anne! But that little Anne -came to me I might have gone on and made you wretched, you whom of -all the world I most want to make happy! You see, dear girl, this was -not fair to me; little Anne was right. I am not a dragon, devouring -maidens, least of all this dear maid! And now aren’t you ready to tell -me all about it? Tell me as if I were your brother. What did you say to -Kit to-day? Did you promise him to come to me and tell me how dearly -you loved him? He is a fine lad, dear!” - -“Oh, Richard, Richard!” moaned Anne. “Oh, Richard, the lion-hearted!” - -“Come, that’s better than to be a dragon, though the lion’s share is -supposed to be formidable! Anne, dear, you, being you, do not need to -be told that to love means to desire the good of the person beloved. -When is Kit---- Did you promise Kit to tell me what might have been the -sad story, but now is to be a happy one?” asked Richard. - -“I told Kit that I would not see him again till he and I were cured of -this unhappy love. It will be cured, Richard! Trust me; I shall love my -husband and no one else!” Anne cried. - -“Surely. You will not turn from Kit, your husband! Do you imagine that -I think of you as fickle, playing with love, my dear?” said Richard. - -“Not Kit, not Kit my husband; you, you, Richard!” cried Anne, wildly. -“Kit saw it as I did. He couldn’t see it so at first, because he is -undisciplined. It is natural to take what you want if you can snatch -it. But he did see, and he willingly laid down his--no; he had no claim -to lay down--he willingly admitted your claim. And he has said good-bye -to me, Richard, and is gone, wholly, completely gone out of my life. -Don’t say, don’t think I deceived you! How could I tell you? I knew -you would send me away. And I want to stay. I’m going to marry you, -Richard, best and most unselfish of men; you, not Kit Carrington; no -one but you, only you!” - -“Dear Anne,” began Richard with an effort that Anne was sobbing too -hard to see, “you cannot marry me, my beloved, because I will not marry -you! See to what shocking lengths you drive me! I am blind, indeed, -for I did not for an instant suspect that you loved Kit. Thank heaven -little Anne healed that form of blindness! I have often felt that you -did not fully love me, dear, but I set down much of your reserve to -your natural reticence, your innate shrinking from a lover’s arms. I -knew that a great love, such as mine was for you, would rise at flood -and break down such barriers, but, though I saw that you did not love -me like that, I thought that you loved me so much that the tide of it -would rise to its flood in you. I loved to think that I should write -my name on this white page indelibly. I did not dream that you loved -someone else. This justifies me, so forgive me, Anne, for the pain I -stupidly caused you.” - -“Richard, kill me if you must, but not with such words!” cried Anne, -turning to hide her face in her hands on the back of the garden bench. -“Will you not listen to me? I want to marry you. I want to marry you! -And you were right; I shall love you best. Just as now I hold you -higher than any one else, so I shall love you best. I have never for an -instant thought of breaking my word to you. I had no more idea of Kit’s -feeling for me than you had. Nor did I realize that I cared for him. -It was a strange revelation of unsuspected feeling on both sides that -overtook us. I have not listened to him, have not dallied with this -madness. And Kit is honourable. He was tempted to take his own good, -but he is a man. When he considered, he knew that it must be you, not -he. He is gone, gone forever. Time will cure him. He has done right -and I’ve no fear but that he will be happy. So let us try to put it out -of our minds; let us pretend that we had an ugly dream. We are awake -now; the dream is over. Richard, dearest Richard, forgive me! Can’t you -forgive me and let the dream go by?” - -“Anne, child, yes; the dream shall go by! But my dream, which was truly -a dream; not your reality,” said Richard, gently taking her hands and -drawing her head on his shoulder. “Cry here, faithful true Anne, for -I am Richard, your brother. But never Richard, your husband! Nothing -this world could offer me, nothing that you could say, would make me -marry you, dearest of all women! Consider for a moment: you who are so -honourable, so eager to uphold the honour of Kit, whom you love, would -you have me marry one whom I knew loved and wanted someone else? Would -you? It is beyond possibility. It is best for us both that we never -again remotely approach to a suggestion that this might be possible. I -tell you again what I have already told you: I am profoundly grateful -to little Anne Berkley for averting the horrible tragedy, the dreadful -mistake I came near making. Sooner or later I should have found you -out, dear, and I’m not sure that I shouldn’t have died of it! So let us -be thankful that I was one of little Anne’s beetles and that she set me -on my feet to run away in time! Now it is all settled, dear one, and we -are tired. I am going into the house. Don’t come just now, Anne.” - -Richard arose unsteadily, at the end of his endurance, exhausted by his -effort. - -Anne looked up at him with the wet eyes of a chastised child. - -“Mayn’t I work for you? Oh, I can’t! Oh, Richard, let me marry you and -work for you!” she begged. - -“The forbidden subject so soon!” Richard held up a rebuking hand. -“There is no work; I shall not work for a long time. The play is done; -your play that you made. Don’t you think we would better send for -Wilberforce?” - -“Oh, yes; surely he must come! Will you send for him, or shall I?” Anne -cried, eagerly. - -“I’ll telegraph him when I go into the house,” said Richard. “Go now, -and try to rest, dear. It has been a cruel afternoon for you. Why not -go to Joan Paul and get her to take you in? You should not be alone in -a boarding-house. And, Anne, one last word! You spoke of forgiving you -a few moments ago; surely you know that there is not the least thing -to forgive? You have been so true, so fine, so kind that all my life -I shall have you before my eyes, the ideal woman who quite simply, at -any cost, does what is right, not what is pleasantest, easiest. That is -rare, my child, in man or woman, and I’m grateful to have known you. -And remember, Anne, the sooner I hear that you are happy, the sooner I -shall throw off my sense of guilt for having been so dull as to accept -your mercy upon a blind man.” - -Richard bent and took Anne’s hands in his, laying them, palms upward, -in his own hands. He kissed first one then the other cold little palm -and closed the fingers over the kisses, as one plays with a child. - -“That is your freedom, in your own hands, dear, and good-bye,” he said. - -He went unsteadily up the path, stooping, then remembered, and -straightened himself, throwing back his head. Anne watched him go, her -hands upon her knees, her fingers still closed tight over the palms in -which Richard had deposited his tender dismissal and farewell. When he -had gone she sat for a few moments with bowed head and closed eyes. -Then she, too, arose and left the lovely garden by its low side gate. -She went miserably to her room on her return to the boarding-house. -She threw herself on her bed and lay staring out of the window, -disregarding the summons to dinner. There was but one definite thought -in her mind. Now, whatever happened, she must never marry Kit. When he -learned that Richard had refused to let her fulfil her promise to him, -of course Kit would jubilantly come to carry her off. But Anne felt -that for her and Kit to be happy when Richard was lonely and wretched -would be past bearing. She was not capable of reasoning now; her very -muscles seemed to ache with pity for Richard and with groundless -self-reproach. She had no desire to summon Joan; she was one with -little Anne in a desire to do penance. - -Little Anne, like most children of her type, had a retroactive -conscience; it was especially likely to bother her at night. - -This night as bedtime approached she reflected that she had gone to see -Mr. Latham without consulting her mother, and that she had told him -something that her mother had forbidden her to mention to any one. To -be sure the actuating cause of her going was an addition to the events -of that morning when Anne and Kit had met in her home; the conversation -at Joan’s had seemed to her to free her from the obligation of silence, -had imposed an obligation to speak; but now, at night, the more she -considered, the surer she became that it had been wrong to go to Mr. -Latham to set him right without her mother’s consent. It was done past -mending, to be sure, but little Anne was well-trained in the duty of -confessing her faults. Therefore, as the summer dusk deepened, she -crept into her mother’s arms and with heavy sighs told the story of her -afternoon. - -She had not been prepared for her mother’s extreme perturbation over -the tale. Mrs. Berkley became tense with excitement and asked so many -questions as to the effect of it upon Mr. Latham that after little Anne -had described how gay she had found him; how tired and still he seemed -when she had left him; all that he had said, exactly what little Anne -had said to him, the child was too sleepy to feel properly contrite. -Her mother told her that she had done wrong to take upon herself -interference in older people’s affairs, especially to disobey her -mother, but little Anne went to bed forgiven and made peaceful by her -mother’s kiss. She fell asleep instantly, infolded by the sense of a -world in which everything came right. - -When little Anne was tucked away, Mrs. Berkley hastened to the -telephone. - -“Oh, Joan,” her husband heard her say, “do go right around to find Anne -Dallas! Yes. I don’t know, I’m _sure_! No, not ill. Well, I’m -afraid so. Anne has been calling this afternoon. Can’t you guess? I’m -afraid to tell you over the wire. Yes, that’s better; she’ll tell you. -That’s right, dearie. Do hurry. Good-night; kiss the baby for me.” - -Mrs. Berkley hung up and turned her perturbed face upon her laughing -husband. - -“_Dea ex machina_ again?” he asked. “Takes some machine to stand -up under our small daughter’s driving, Barbara! It’s my impression that -the machine of this particular goddess is a high-geared racing car!” - -Mr. Berkley’s tone expressed the father’s pride in a clever child, the -father who leaves the guidance of that cleverness to the mother, and as -to his share of it enjoys it as a comedy. - -Joan hurried to Antony. - -“Come, Tony,” she said. “Mother just called up; we’ve got to go around -to Anne Dallas’s boarding place. Mother didn’t like to tell me what -has happened--you know on this party line the receivers are positively -restless when one talks!--but little Anne has been visiting. I’m sure -it was Mr. Latham! I’d be willing to wager anything that she’s told -him about Anne and Kit--as much as she knows, and no human being -could state how much that was! I haven’t had a moment’s peace--when I -recalled it--since Kit was here and little Anne had baby over in the -corner while we talked. She looked so perfectly unconscious that I’m -sure she was paying strict attention to what we said! Well, come on, -Antony; Anne is in some sort of trouble.” - -“Gracious, what it is to have young friends who are in love and a young -sister who is a busybody!” Antony pretended to grumble, but he went -readily enough. - -Joan left her husband on the boarding-house piazza, where he sat in -awkward silence among observant strangers, with Guard’s head between -his knees, while Joan ran up to Anne’s room. - -“Oh, Joan, how good to see you! Richard told me to call you, but I -couldn’t,” cried Anne, rising on one elbow as Joan dropped down beside -her and took the girl in her arms, instantly overwhelmed with pity as -she saw the misery in Anne’s tear-stained face. - -“That little Anne!” exclaimed Joan. “Tell me what happened. I think I -know: little Anne has told Richard Latham our secret!” - -“And he has been so heavenly good to me; so generous, tender, that -there are no words for it, Joan,” Anne confirmed her. “I saw Kit this -afternoon. We had parted forever, and when I came back from that walk -there was Richard! He will not marry me, Joan! I begged him to marry -me, and truly I could be peacefully content to marry him, but he will -not listen to it. Oh, Joan, he is so lonely and so fine!” - -“He is all of that! I already know it, and some time you will tell me -how he proved it anew this afternoon. He couldn’t marry you, dear! It -would be horrid to accept such a sacrifice, now that he knows. Try -to trust that things will come out better than you fear. Little Anne -is not usually disobedient. Perhaps she has been an instrument of -Providence. Did you have any dinner? Ah, I knew it! You are coming to -make me a visit, so get together what you need for the night. We’ll -come around here in the morning and get what you need for as many weeks -as you’ll stay. Baby will be such a comfort to you! I’ll let her come -into your bed in the morning. She’s the sweetest thing in bed! Antony -is downstairs, waiting for us, with Guard. Come, Anne, hurry! Antony -hates to sit on a piazza, among boarding women! Where’s your kit---- -Oh, Anne, please! I didn’t mean--I mean your bag! And a nightie and -toothbrush, your brush and comb. You’ll be fed at my house.” - -Joan fluttered about gathering up the articles she enumerated. Anne -was swept along, powerless to resist the loving kindness that launched -her out of her swamp of despairing lethargy into a tide of action that -implied hope. - -Antony behaved with the utmost decorum, not betraying that he saw -anything unusual in Anne’s disfigured face nor in her unexpected visit. -Guard thrust his nose into Anne’s hand; Joan held tight to her arm, all -the while talking her friendly, inconsequent talk which had in it more -method than was apparent on the surface. Better than any eloquence it -expressed sympathy; what was more, it carried with it the conviction -that life was not wholly sad, nor its troubles irremediable. - -Joan herself got Anne a dainty meal of the sort that can be eaten after -crying has worn out appetite and digestion. The tea was perfectly drawn -and Anne felt better for it. - -Joan let the girl peep at sleeping Barbara before she took her into -the cool, restful guest chamber, and tucked her into bed. She laughed -the while at herself, saying she was like little Anne, and loved to -play house, but none the less she knew precisely what the lonely, -discouraged girl needed. Then she traced a tiny cross on Anne’s -forehead, kissed her, and said: - -“Good-night. God bless you, dear! That’s what Mother always said and -did to us. I always knew that was why I slept so sweetly and so safe. -Go to sleep at once, Anne, dear,” said Joan as she left her. - -An hour later she was gratified to find, when she peeped in, that Anne -was sleeping sweetly under her good-night blessing. - -Antony was removing his collar when Joan come into their room. He -smiled quizzically at her in the glass. - -“Confess!” he said. “You love to have your friends in trouble so you -can cosset them!” - -“Oh, no. Shame on you, Antony Paul! But I do love to cosset them when -they are in trouble, which is not the same thing in the least!” Joan -defended herself. “This is not a little trouble. Mr. Latham must be -desolate. Dear, splendid Mr. Latham! And how Anne can ever bring -herself to be happy with Kit, knowing it, is beyond me.” - -“I grant you all you like on the Latham side of it. He must be hard hit -and it’s a bad matter, that’s sure. But as to Anne and Kit--poppycock, -Madam Sentimentalia! The idea of an old matron like you talking such -nonsense! What shall we give them, silver or glass? And here’s this to -consider, Joan: As a matter of economy of unhappiness, there are two -happy by this arrangement, one unhappy. I’m no end sorry about Latham, -but that seems to economize pain. Perhaps his unhappiness is durable -and deep enough to throw out my arithmetic. Well, however it works, -we’ve no hand in it, though apparently my sister-in-law had!” Antony -laughed, and added: “I’ve got to go back downstairs; I left my watch on -the table.” - - * * * * * - -When Antony was going back for his forgotten watch Minerva was softly -closing the door of Miss Carrington’s room. - -“Miss Carrington, I have news for you,” she announced. “Mr. Latham’s -engagement to Miss Dallas is broken.” - -“Good heavens! Minerva, what makes you think so?” demanded Miss -Carrington, swinging her feet to the floor and sitting erect on her -couch. - -“I _know_ so,” Minerva corrected her. “I have been to the movies -with Mrs. Lumley. This afternoon the Berkley child was there. Mr. -Latham was hoity-toity when she came. He’s been that way lately, Mrs. -Lumley says; tickled to death his play’s done, and happy over being -engaged. Well, when little Anne left he sat alone on the garden bench -for the longest time, looking about killed; just limp and half dead. -Then in comes Miss Dallas and they talked. You could see from the -house it was serious, Mrs. Lumley says. Then Miss Dallas cried on his -shoulder and he treated her like she had a broken bone, or her last, -final sickness on her. At last he kissed her hands; kind of like a -deathbed scene, Mrs. Lumley said it was. She was in the dining room, -but it has those magnesia blinds you can turn, so she saw it all plain. -Then Mr. Latham came into the house, and after a little Miss Dallas -went away. Mrs. Lumley didn’t see her go, because she went back into -the pantry when Mr. Latham came in, and went on with her mayonnaise. -Not that she needed to; he went right on up to his room. He didn’t come -to dinner, nor would he let Stetson take up a tray; nothing but coffee -later on. So it’s surely broken. Mrs. Lumley says there’s no more doubt -of it than of the laws of the needs of Prussians. I thought you’d -better know.” - -“What can have happened? It sounds like a renunciation as you describe -it,” murmured Miss Carrington. “Kit has been strange lately. He walked -about last night for ages. I tapped on his door and begged him to go -to bed, but he only put on slippers and still prowled; it was really -worse, for the padded sound is more annoying than a louder one. -To-night at dinner he was absolutely silent and colourless. I was -going to ask what was wrong, but reflected that a boy hates to have -ill-health noticed. He can’t endure Mr. Lanbury; he was dining here, -but it was more than that. I do wonder----” Miss Carrington stopped. - -“So did I, and so do I, Miss Carrington,” said Minerva. “It sort of -looks---- Yet why? And you see little Anne Berkley comes into it there. -Mr. Latham was gay till she came and what could she----?” Minerva -talked with elisions. - -“Kit goes to the Berkleys’ a great deal, and that child misses -very little that happens, or is said where she is,” commented Miss -Carrington. “Minerva, I hope and pray that engagement is not broken! If -it is--no matter if Helen is lost to him, Kit shall not marry a nobody, -without family, money, beauty--beyond considerable sweet prettiness! He -shall _not_!” - -“As to that, Miss Carrington, it’s hard to say what will happen in a -world like this where promises mean nothing, and there’s no principle. -Once I, myself, had the promise of a real nice-mannered man, and gave -my own to him, but here I am and have been these twenty years gone! One -thing more Mrs. Lumley told me: She said Mr. Latham had telegraphed Mr. -Wilberforce to come on as quick’s he conveniently could.” - -“Mr. Wilberforce! It was he got that situation for Anne Dallas! It -looks as though she might have seriously displeased Mr. Latham that he -sends for the one responsible for her being there! Well, well, Minerva, -I’m truly afraid that the engagement is broken.” - -Miss Carrington arose with a long sigh to put herself into Minerva’s -hands to be made ready for the night. - -“Oh, there’s no mistake about it, Miss Carrington. Mrs. Lumley is a -good deal of a lump, but when it comes to things like that, when she -looks she sees, whether it’s behind blinds or close by. I thought you’d -find comfort in Mr. Wilberforce’s coming, having the hope that Miss -Dallas had done something she’d better not have done. Otherwise, I’m -free to confess, I think the chance of your holding back Mr. Kit is -pretty slender.” - -Minerva pulled her mistress’s shoulder snaps open viciously as she -spoke. She was troubled by Miss Carrington’s recent failure in health, -but she dearly liked to suggest that Kit might foil her. - - - - -CHAPTER XXI - -_Wilberforce, the Painter_ - - -Bibiana, little Anne’s former nurse, answered the telephone call. - -“This is Mr. Latham. May I speak to Miss Berkley?” said the voice at -the other end of the wire. - -“Do you want Mrs. Paul, that was Miss Joan?” asked Bibiana. - -“I want Miss Berkley, Miss Anne Berkley, please,” Richard insisted, -and Bibiana turned away with a grunt. “Just little Anne! Anne, come -and speak to Mr. Latham. He’s calling you,” she added to the child who -had fallen into the habit of loitering at hand when the telephone bell -rang, in the faint hope of getting a chance to talk over the wire. - -“Mr. Latham wants me to come to see him!” cried little Anne after a -brief and, on her part, chuckling telephone conversation. “Please, -Mother dear, mayn’t I?” - -“Why, yes. He must be lonely,” Mrs. Berkley hesitated. “But -don’t--well, there’s no use in trying to forestall your speeches, Anne! -I suppose you can’t do any more harm--or was it good? Run along, dear, -but first show me your hands and let me brush your hair.” - -Neat and decorous, little Anne presented herself in the Latham Street -house. Richard looked ill, but he smiled at the child, welcoming her -warmly. - -“It’s only a ceremonial call; we aren’t going to play anything, little -Anne,” he said. “Do you mind chatting? I felt the need of you, my -dear.” - -Quick little Anne caught the note in his voice. She always stood in awe -of the poet, rarely was as perfectly at ease with him as with her other -adult friends, but now she ran to him and bestowed herself on the arm -of his chair and put her arm around his neck, her cheek on his head, as -if he were Peter in trouble. - -“I think it’s most fun of anything to talk when people will talk -sensible and int’resting,” she said. - -“I’ll try, Anne,” Richard said, weakly. “Do you think that by any -chance Anne in your case stands for Anomaly?” - -“No, just Anne,” said little Anne. “When I’m confirmed I shall take -some splendid name for my second one. When I was small I used to -think I’d take Ursula, but now sometimes I think Emerentiana; it’s -so--so--nobody has it.” - -“Poor Nobody!” said Richard, falling into his habit of playing with -little Anne. “Pretty hard on her to have that name! Where did you get -hold of it?” - -“She was a little girl stoned to death for being a Christian, in the -catacombs,” explained Anne. “They pegged rocks at her, those pagans! -Don’t you think it must have been awful to have lived in those times? -Either you were a Christian and got killed, boiled in oil, and -everything; or else you weren’t, and were terribly wicked. And if you -weren’t a noble character you might wobble when you had to choose.” - -Unexpectedly to himself, Richard laughed. - -“You might, indeed, little Anne! And I was right to invite you to see -me. I thought you’d elevate me in mind and spirits! If you were older -wouldn’t you come here to help me with my work, read to me, and all -that?” - -“Like--like to!” Little Anne corrected herself with no small adroitness -for a person of her age. “Do you suppose I could now? I’ve tried -Peter-two’s typewriter. It doesn’t go fast with one finger, my way, -and the letters get kind of snarled before each other and behind -each other; not the way they ought to stand in the word, but maybe -if I practised lots! I can read ’most anything that isn’t too queer -subjec’s; reading never bothers me dreadfully. Maybe you’d spell the -worst words?” - -“I’ll wait for you, little Anne!” promised Richard. “I’ll have to have -somebody else here while I’m waiting, but when you’re older I’ll toss -her lightly out of the window and open the door for you, bowing deeply -while you enter to take command of my typewriter, my books, my work, -and me.” - -“Well,” sighed little Anne, “I s’pose you have to wait! But I’ll be -eight in a little while and Mother says the older you grow the faster -the years whisk by. After my birthday Christmas is awf’ly long coming, -and it does seem a good while in winter before Easter, and the last -part of school’s kind of slow, but summer goes pretty fast. Maybe it -won’t seem so very, very long before I can help you?” - -“It won’t!” Richard assured her. “Especially if you come here a great -deal in the meantime. Little Anne, is Miss Dallas with your sister?” - -“Yes, she is,” little Anne admitted, hesitantly. “She’s right there.” - -“Is she well?” asked Richard. - -“Not so very exactly,” little Anne said, reluctantly. “But you can’t be -if you cry too much. It makes you feel as used up as anything to cry a -great deal, _I_ think.” - -“Oh, it does! Is Anne crying a great deal, little Anne? Will you tell -her that I beg her to put me entirely out of her mind, and that I am -going on well?” cried Richard. - -“Well, yes, I will,” little Anne said. “But I don’t think it will stop -her worrying over you. I heard her tell Joan that the poem I found just -hunted her--or something; she meant she kept thinking about it.” - -“The poem you found? I don’t know it, little Anne. Where did you find -it? Why does it haunt her?” asked Richard. - -“Upstairs in your hall, quite long ago; about Fourth of July time. A -poem you’d written yourself. It was sort of hard for Anne to read it. -She thought first she had to copy it; then she didn’t. She made me put -it back just ’xactly where I found it,” little Anne explained. - -Richard gasped and fell back in his chair. - -“That!” he exclaimed. “You found that and showed it to Anne! And it -was not long after that she came to me---- Ah, now I understand, now -I understand! That was how she knew! She tried so hard, dear little -soul, she tried so hard to make me happy! I never quite saw why she -acted as she did till now. Little Anne, little Anne, you have played -an important part in my life. You have endowed me and impoverished me. -I don’t see why it all had to be, but I’ve no doubt that I shall some -day. Now tell me something else: Do you know whether Kit Carrington -knows that Anne is with your sister, and that she will never marry me? -For she never will, little Anne!” - -“Oh, I know that!” cried little Anne. “I don’t know whether Kit does or -not. Want me to tell him?” - -Richard almost smiled; a gleam of amusement went over his unhappy face. - -“Always ready to turn another beetle!” he said. “On the whole, yes, -little Anne. Tell him all that you know. It will be told in a better -way than if it were clearer. Anne will complete the story. And tell Kit -that I asked you to tell him. Tell him that I am anxious to hear that -Anne has stopped crying and is smiling at him. Tell him just that. And -that I send him my blessing--will you, dear?” - -“Yes,” said little Anne. “I’ll tell him to-day. He’s been to our house -’bout twice each day since Anne’s been at Joan’s. Anne won’t let him -come there, nor she won’t send him one word, not even on the telephone -by me. Joan told her she’d shake her, maybe, ’cause what was the use of -being mis’ble every way? I’ll tell Kit, Mr. Latham. And, Mr. Latham, -there’s a quite tall, thin man coming in here. He’s got a bag. Maybe -he’s a Mormon mish’nary; they do come like that. This one doesn’t look -like one, though; he’s much nicer. He’s got a brown moustache, and a -flat, boxy thing, and a bag.” - -“Wilberforce!” cried Richard, starting up so violently that he nearly -upset little Anne. - -That did not halt him. Leaving little Anne to take care of her -equilibrium, he rushed into the hall, seized the newcomer by the lapel -of his coat and cried, joyously: - -“Ted, dear old man, how did you make it so soon?” - -“Message came just in time for me to make the last train that connected -to get me here to-day,” said Ted. “You look like the mischief, Dick! -What has happened that you sent for me in such urgent haste?” - -“I’ll tell you the whole story later. It is Anne and I; that’s enough -for now. We’ve given it all up, Ted, fortunately,” said Richard. - -“Fortunately? Well, you don’t look it! What’s Anne been doing? I know -she never went back on anything in her life. So what have you been -doing? Though that’s as fool a question as the other,” said Edwin -Wilberforce, frowning. - -“Ted, I can’t talk about it now. Anne was only sorry for me, and -I discovered in time the cruel task she had put upon her blessed -little self. That’s all. Have you eaten? Stetson, Stetson, here’s Mr. -Wilberforce already! Order him a lunch, will you?” Richard called out -of the rear door in the hall. Then he brought his friend into his -library, taking his hat and bags, fussing over him with an affection -that eloquently told of the relation between the poet and the painter. - -“Well, of all things! Where did you find the little girl? I never -heard of her,” exclaimed Ted, amazed by the apparition of little Anne -sitting stiffly, her hands clasped in her lap, her feet crossed at the -ankles, on the arm of Richard’s chair. - -“This is Miss Anne Berkley, Mr. Wilberforce,” said Richard with a -gesture of courtly dignity for little Anne’s benefit. “She is an -intimate friend of mine who visits me often, with whom I play happily, -who will some day, she promises, when enough time has passed, come to -be eyes to me and help me to write poems and plays. She is a lady who -has a vocation which she herself discovered, and which proved to be -more significant as a prophecy than she foresaw. Her vocation, she one -day announced to her mother, is setting beetles on their feet when they -lie, helpless, on their backs. I have been one of her beetles, as I’ll -explain by and by. She goes to a convent school, and is in many ways -mediæval. She is one of a delightful family, Catholics of the right -sort. Anne is staying now with this little Anne’s lovable young matron -sister, Mrs. Antony Paul. And that is enough of the History of Queen -Anne the Less, isn’t it, little Anne?” - -“It is quite a lot,” she agreed. “Shall I go home now? I’ll come again.” - -“Would you mind shaking hands, Miss Little-Anne?” asked Edwin -Wilberforce, stooping from his great height to carry out his -suggestion. “I wish you would take me for another friend of yours. I -can play games and the jews’-harp! When you hear me play Wagner on the -jews’-harp you will be proud that you know me.” - -Little Anne looked up at him with dancing eyes. She did not know -Wagner, but she did know the jews’-harp. - -“I can play on blades of grass perfec’ly wonderful,” she said. - -“You’ll do!” shouted Ted Wilberforce. “We’ll have duets. Say, Miss -Little-Anne, I’d like to paint you! Seated in a chair with a high, -carved back, clad in a long, straight green gown falling to your feet, -and having a nice little, tight little white yoke top with a band -around your throat; your hair straight and ribbonless on each side of -your thin little face, and in your hands, resting on your knees, a fine -old tooled “Book of Hours” which I own! I’d call the picture--call -it--The Mystic! That’s it! With that face and those eyes, visions just -beyond, eh, Dick?” - -“You’ve got her,” agreed Richard. “Will you sit, little Anne?” - -“Do you paint people?” inquired little Anne. “I thought you put cows in -your pictures. Mr. Latham has a lovely, still field with a cow in it; -he said you painted it.” - -“_Still_ field! Fair for adjectives, eh, Dick?” cried Ted, -delighted. “I assure you, Miss Little-Anne, that I also paint -portraits. Will you sit to me?” - -“I’d perfec’ly love it!” said little Anne. “But I never was pretty; I -was always dark and thin. I thought sitters were pretty. I have a niece -who is the prettiest child in all the world. She’s so fat and pink she -has to dimple. I never was a fas’nating child like Barbara, but if -you’d like to paint my picture I’d be so pleased I couldn’t say it. And -there’s one thing, I can sit as still!” - -“Then that’s settled! And when you sit to me we shall chat all the -time, and possibly we shall let Mr. Latham come to help us talk. -I’m going to stay awhile; we’ll meet often, I hope. Good-bye, Miss -Little-Anne.” - -Ted Wilberforce shook hands again with little Anne; plainly he had -capitulated to her at once. - -Little Anne put her arms around Richard’s neck and kissed him hard. - -“Good-bye, dear; I shall pray for you lots, for you’re really quite -pale,” she whispered. - -“The dear little saintly old lady!” cried Ted, who had caught the -whisper and was watching little Anne away with amusement that was not -wholly amusement. - -Miss Carrington on this morning had encountered Kit in a mood that -she did not recognize. She had spoken to him of the broken engagement -between Richard Latham and Anne Dallas. She found that Kit was prepared -to announce to her, not the accomplished fact, but his resolution that -his own engagement to Anne Dallas would soon follow this break. - -“Do I know what caused this break between Miss Dallas and Mr. Latham? -Certainly I do, Aunt Anne. Mr. Latham learned that Miss Dallas and I -love each other. We had agreed that she must fulfil her promise to Mr. -Latham, but, naturally, he wouldn’t marry a girl who loved another man! -Like the honourable man that he is he renounced his own happiness for -hers. Anne won’t see me yet; she is miserably unhappy about Latham, but -she will see me, and it won’t be long before I introduce my wife to -you, Aunt Anne,” said Kit. - -“I hope so, but you won’t introduce Anne Dallas to me as your wife,” -Miss Carrington had answered, instantly in a towering rage as she -recognized in Kit a determination that made him at once a man to be -reckoned with. At the same time her own, new physical weakness was more -perceptible as her temper rose. - -“Christopher Carrington, I will not consent to your marriage to that -girl! Nothing against her personally, but she is fortuneless, nameless, -no family, no anything! Never!” - -“Nonsense, Aunt Anne! Please don’t talk foolishly,” said Kit, and left -her almost choking in enraged surprise that Kit had dared to dismiss -her as ridiculous. - -By the afternoon Miss Carrington had regained her self-command, and -with it her usual cunning. It was notorious that love was whetted by -opposition; she must try in some other way to circumvent Kit. She -discussed the situation with Helen Abercrombie, who heartlessly laughed -at her. - -“Try everything you can think of, Miss Carrington! By all means see -Anne Dallas and convey to her the harm she’d do Kit if she married him -against your will; that you can punish him roundly. But it’s my candid -opinion that you would do yourself less harm lying down and reading a -problem novel, and just as much affect Kit’s silly determination. The -conclusion I’ve reached during this visit in regard to Kit is that he -knows his own mind,” Helen said. - -Nevertheless, Miss Carrington summoned Minerva to array her in her -most impressive calling costume, and to order Noble to have the car -around at half-past four that she might solicitously inquire after Anne -Dallas’s welfare, having heard that she was not well. - -“No kind of use in it, Miss Carrington,” Minerva remarked, getting down -to lace her mistress’s shoes. She did not specify what was useless, but -Miss Carrington was depressed by this identity of view on the part of -two such keen women as Helen and Minerva. - -On the way to Antony Paul’s house Miss Carrington met Edwin Wilberforce -walking alone toward the station. She bade Noble stop, and greeted the -artist cordially. - -“Delighted you are here, Mr. Wilberforce! I am anxious about Mr. -Latham. Won’t you get in?” she said. - -“No, thanks. I’m going down to look up some canvases I sent ahead; they -ought to be here. I hope you are well, Miss Carrington?” - -“Not altogether. I am too old to be bothered, and I am bothered.” Miss -Carrington spoke with an effect of involuntary frankness. “My foolish -nephew is troubling me, has fixed his silly will on a poor girl. Mr. -Latham also was attracted by her, and for him she would have been -excellent. He needs just her patient devotion; she is sweet and refined -in manner. But Kit has his name to make; Mr. Latham’s name would cover -his wife’s lack. I believe you recommended this girl to our poet. -She’s a nice little creature, but a penniless, nameless wife would be a -fatal mistake for Kit.” - -Edwin Wilberforce was regarding the old lady with an expression that -she was too engrossed to see. When she paused he laughed and said: - -“Oh, well, I’m prejudiced, but I think Wilberforce is not a bad name.” - -Miss Carrington stared at the irrelevancy of this remark. - -“But surely! Who could doubt it? Not only in itself, but when borne by -a famous artist! However, I really can’t see what that has to do with -Anne Dallas and my troubles.” - -This time Wilberforce stared. Then he laughed, and said: - -“Oh, don’t you? That’s rather good fun, Miss Carrington! But Dallas -is a good name, too, though if your nephew married Miss Dallas the -honourable name of Carrington would engulf it.” - -He raised his hat and walked on, somewhat unceremoniously, leaving the -old lady to puzzle over his queer speech. - -Miss Carrington was met by Joan with Barbara clinging unsteadily to her -skirt. - -“Thank you, Miss Carrington; Miss Dallas is well, rather tired. She is -on the side piazza, in a steamer chair, having a beautiful time reading -and resting. Will you go there? It is cooler to-day than the front -piazza.” - -Anne looked frail and sweet as Joan led Miss Carrington toward her. Her -face and gown were both colourless; her great dark eyes, her masses of -satin-smooth dark hair contrasted sharply with their setting. - -“Oh, Miss Carrington!” Anne exclaimed, springing to her feet; she was -no longer pale. - -“Dear little Miss Dallas, I hope that you are better?” said Miss -Carrington in her cool voice, with its clear-cut, Italian-like -articulation. “I am so extremely sorry about this disaster and for -you, enmeshed in it, that I have come to tell you so. Besides, my dear, -I want to know you better and I truly think it may be well for you to -know me.” - -“I will not dispute the latter clause, Miss Carrington,” said -Anne, pulling forward a chair and motioning Miss Carrington into -her abandoned steamer chair. She smiled as she spoke, and Kit’s -aunt admitted to herself the charm of Anne’s face and manner, -the irresistible attraction of her voice. “You are kind to be so -sympathetic to me. I am unhappy. I am horrified to know that I have -given Mr. Latham pain.” - -“Surely, you would be. It is most unfortunate. Don’t you think that -after a time, perhaps a long time, you will be able to convince him -that there is no obstacle between you?” suggested Miss Carrington. Anne -turned and looked at her intently. - -“Why, no, Miss Carrington,” she said after a brief pause. - -“Dear child, I must be frank with you.” Miss Carrington spoke gently as -if to soften her effect. “You fancy that you are fond of my boy; he is -quite sure that he is fond of you. Doubtless you are both right--for -the time being. But men do not die of love now any more than when -Polonius went to that reversed supper. Kit will get over his fancy, -sweet as you are, and so will you recover from yours, fine as the -boy is. As to that, even my partiality cannot see that Kit surpasses -Richard Latham! Though I sincerely admire you, I will never consent -to your marriage with Kit! He is to make his name in the world, as I -told you when I spoke of him to you several weeks ago. He has allowed -the marriage that I meant him to make to slip through his fingers. You -naughty, pretty child, I wonder what share you had in that? But there -are plenty of opportunities for a personable man like Kit to marry -advantageously. You have no money, no social position. Pardon me, Miss -Dallas, but we must deal with facts. It is my duty to see that Kit -gets one or both of these things in marrying. I applaud your sense in -refusing to see Kit since your engagement to Mr. Latham was broken. -Let me beg you to continue to refuse to see him! I am sure you are too -noble a girl to spoil his life. Whatever nonsense Kit talks about love -as a compensation for more solid, more enduring good, it is perfectly -true that if you married him you would spoil his life. I should alter -my plans for him, and he would have a pittance, whereas, if he pleases, -he will have wealth.” - -Miss Carrington paused for a reply, but Anne, who had made no move to -interrupt her long discourse, still did not speak. She was paler than -she had been when Miss Carrington arrived, and she was at once wishing -that Joan would come to her rescue, and dreading that she might come -and speak her mind to this formidable old lady. - -As Anne remained silent, Miss Carrington spoke again: - -“I met Mr. Latham’s friend, Mr. Wilberforce----” - -“Oh, has he come!” Anne interrupted her with a glad cry. - -“Yes,” Miss Carrington showed surprise. “And knowing that he is Mr. -Latham’s close friend I said to him practically what I’ve said to you. -I think he agreed with my estimate of the value of a family name, for -he--somewhat irrelevantly--said that Wilberforce was a distinguished -name.” - -Unexpectedly Anne laughed, much as Wilberforce had laughed. - -“Did you say all this to him? Yes, the Wilberforces are all reverent to -their family,” she said, her eyes dancing. - -Miss Carrington drew herself up; she did not intend that this young -person should find her amusing. - -“One would infer from that remark your acquaintance with the -Wilberforce family,” she said. - -Again Anne laughed. - -“Yes, I know the Wilberforces rather intimately; my mother was one of -them. She and Edwin Wilberforce’s father were sister and brother,” she -said. - -“What!” cried Miss Carrington, half rising. - -“Dear Miss Carrington, don’t mind! I don’t, and it will only amuse Ted. -He and I have an indecorous sense of humour. Isn’t it funny, really? I -see dear old Ted coming down the street this minute,” cried Anne. - -Miss Carrington rose fully this time and positively ran away. She was -not often placed, and by herself, at a disadvantage; she was not minded -to face two pairs of dark eyes dancing with that “indecorous sense of -humour.” - -Ted Wilberforce ran up the steps as Miss Carrington drove away. - -He gathered Anne into his arms, crying: - -“Dear little white Nancy, what sort of mischief have you been up to? -Poor kid! Hard luck all around to be so sweet a thing that everyone -loves you! Don’t cry, little Coz! I won’t beat you if you have hit my -best friend hard and broken him all up; you couldn’t help it, Anne, -dear!” - - - - -CHAPTER XXII - -_Exits and Entrances_ - - -Miss Carrington’s dignified house was shaken out of its settled -monotony. - -Helen Abercrombie was going home. Her father, the ex-governor, was -coming for her; he was to pass a night under his old friend’s roof, and -them resume his way, taking with him his handsome daughter to entertain -for him guests of political importance. George Lanbury had arranged to -travel with them. He had stayed on at the Cleavedge Arms to receive -formally the ex-governor’s acceptance of him as his future son-in-law. - -Miss Carrington herself was decidedly shaken in health; her nerves were -on edge, her digestion a misnomer, and her heart was acting badly. - -It had been a trial almost beyond bearing that Kit had laughed at her -attempt to control his marriage--had good-humouredly, but decidedly, -flouted her hint of punishment for disobeying her or reward for his -obedience. She had for so long been ensconced behind her pride and -paramount will that it was a disintegrating shock to discover that she -might be regarded merely as one of the many prejudiced elderly women in -the world whose prejudices should be kindly tolerated as long as they -affected nothing in particular, but which were to be put down when they -overflowed this barrier. - -She raged to discover that Kit considered her views silly whims, that -the worst that she could do to him was a featherweight in comparison -with Anne Dallas; most unbearable of all, that her rage accomplished -nothing but to throw her into greater impotence. - -Kit had brought Helen’s father from the station; he went down with -Noble to meet him. - -The ex-governor was a man of soldierly bearing, with keen eyes, a -drooping white moustache, useful in concealing the expression of -his lips, and thick, prematurely white hair. Helen looked like him. -His face was not less that of a citizen of the world than hers, but -something--years or nature--modified in him the hardness that impaired -his daughter’s beauty. - -Kit ushered ex-Governor Abercrombie into the library and went in search -of his aunt. He returned to say: - -“My aunt, as I told you, Mr. Abercrombie, is not well. She begs you to -allow her one more hour of rest before coming down. Helen is driving -with Mr. Lanbury. Shall I take you to your room, or would you rather -sit here? Smoking is not forbidden in my aunt’s house. May I?” Kit -offered Mr. Abercrombie his cigar case. - -“I’ll wait here till Helen comes. I suppose Lanbury will return with -her? I’d like to bless them personally as soon as possible; I have -blessed them by telegraph and mail.” - -The ex-governor took a cigar, cut its tip, and looked at Kit with -humorous eyes as he spoke. - -“I’m told that you didn’t want to marry my girl!” he continued, to -Kit’s chagrin. “Yet she’s a handsome creature and clever. Helen conveys -to me the impression that you understood that she and your aunt -approved of your marrying her, but that you would rather have a certain -pretty little person of whom their estimate is not high. Helen is -emancipated; she would make her opinions clear to you, if I know her! -She surely is a princess, and if you were my son I should have done -everything possible to push your fortunes. What is the reason you were -so obdurate, Master Kit? As it’s settled, you need not answer unless -you wish. I’m simply curious.” - -Kit looked up with a frank laugh and a blush that pleased Helen’s -father. - -“You see I loved Miss Dallas and didn’t love your splendid Helen, Mr. -Abercrombie,” he said. “I suppose it does seem stupid to you, but wait -till you see Miss Dallas! I think a man of your experience would admire -her, and say she’s a girl to love.” - -Mr. Abercrombie smiled down at the tip of his cigar as he knocked off -its ashes with his little finger. - -“I don’t find your attitude blameworthy, Kit,” he said. - -He was silent for a moment, then he looked up with a shadow in his eyes. - -“I had my dream, too, Christopher. I didn’t marry the girl; perhaps -it’s as well, but there’s always a lurking doubt about a lost joy. She -was a mighty sweet, fine girl, with something in her charm I never -saw in any other woman. I suppose that’s common to all first love. I -married well; wisely, don’t you see? It was a comfortable marriage. But -I’m not so sure wise marriages are always wholly wise. I’m not inclined -to condemn you for following your star. In fact, it has delighted me to -find you the man your boyhood promised you’d be. I was greatly pleased -to learn how loyally you stood by your colours. I shall do my best to -talk your aunt over to our side. Helen is the twentieth-century jewel, -fit in every way to hold her own. But if you love your unambitious -girl, go ahead and marry her, and tell the world and the flesh to go to -the devil! I’ll do what I can to help you to business success, so don’t -worry, Kit.” - -Kit had sat listening to this long speech, his extinct cigar forgotten -in his hand, amazement growing at each word. When Mr. Abercrombie ended -Kit cried: - -“Why, Governor Abercrombie, what a trump you are! I’d no idea you’d -be sympathetic! Aunt Anne will listen to you, of course. But I’m going -into business in New York, so I don’t suppose you can help me to get -rich--no end grateful just the same! It’s enough if you can help me -with Aunt Anne.” - -“Political influence reaches out farther than you may think, my boy; -I’ll get at your business in some way, trust me! I’d like to see Miss -Dallas. Think it can be managed?” asked Mr. Abercrombie. - -“She won’t see me,” Kit admitted, cheerfully. “But that’s a temporary -state of things. We shall be married soon, that’s certain. I -wonder--wouldn’t it be a good thing to get Aunt Anne to ask her here? -Her cousin, Edwin Wilberforce, the artist, is staying with his great -friend, Mr. Latham. I wonder if Aunt Anne could be persuaded to ask -Anne and her cousin here together? It’s such a neat way out of a mess -to ignore it with a casual invitation!” - -“Wilberforce, the artist, her cousin?” Mr. Abercrombie looked so -pleased that there could be no question of his sincere desire to smooth -the course of this true love. - -“If your aunt cares about connections there is glory in being Edwin -Wilberforce’s cousin! It seems to me, my boy, that we shall certainly -have Miss Carrington pouring libations to Eros!” - -Mr. Abercrombie found that it was easier to veto a state law than to -alter the unwritten law of a woman’s will. His stay was not long enough -to bring Miss Carrington to the point of striking her colours. She -would not gratify him by admitting the justice of the proposition which -he laid before her. - -Helen’s kindly father left Cleavedge at two o’clock on the following -day. At the informal dinner of the evening of his arrival Mr. -Abercrombie had met and accepted Helen’s future husband. Kit thought -that it was not a wholly agreeable duty; several times he caught Mr. -Abercrombie watching George Lanbury and scrutinizing Helen. - -Helen was at her best beauty and brilliance. Lanbury was entirely -sure of himself, treated her father with easy assurance and Kit with -condescending amusement. Not only Kit, but also Helen’s father, knew -that he believed himself to have stolen the girl from Kit’s longing -arms and that Kit was suffering in consequence, though he succeeded -in not wearing his heart upon the sleeve of either of these defrauded -limbs. - -“Helen will put it all over him, but he will not always be pleasant,” -thought the astute father. “She was right to want this gallant boy.” - -The next day Miss Carrington was nervously anxious to have the hour of -departure arrive; she was ill enough to want everything that was to -happen to be quickly over and done. She did not attempt to go to the -station, but bade Helen good-bye in her library. Helen lightly kissed -Miss Carrington farewell. She was regal in her gray-green costume with -its small hat, a touch of gold its sole ornament, risking comparison -with her hair and losing by the venture. - -“I’ve had a wonderful visit. You’ve been delightful to me, dear Miss -Carrington,” Helen said. “I hope you’ll rest and regain your strength. -Come to visit me when I’m settled down. That will not be for some time, -but come when I am established. I’ll be married at Christmas, if I can -get things made by then. We may go abroad for the honeymoon; we have -not settled our plans. But they will include a visit from you when I’m -in my own house. Good-bye. Are you going to the station with us, nice -Kit? That’s dear of you! Parting _is_ sweet sorrow, and this one -will lead to a lovers’ meeting, I trust. Tell your brown lass that I -congratulate her, though custom reserves congratulations to the man. -Come, Father, I’m ready.” - -“Good-bye, Miss Carrington. Get strong fast,” said Helen’s father, -looking annoyed. “Think over my prescription. I’ll guarantee your -recovery if you follow it up. Good-bye.” - -Kit handed Helen into the car, put the bags in after Mr. Abercrombie, -then got up beside Noble and they drove away. A good deal had happened -since Helen had arrived. Kit realized that he was not the inexperienced -boy who had greeted her. - -No sooner were they gone than Miss Carrington hastened upstairs, -calling as she reached the top: - -“Minerva, Minerva, make haste!” - -“I do not think that you should go, Miss Carrington,” protested -Minerva, ready with Miss Carrington’s hat, coat, and gloves. - -“Don’t you? Did you order a carriage?” asked her mistress. - -It appeared that Minerva had, though under protest, and Miss Carrington -hurried her dressing. She bade the livery carriage driver to take her -to Latham Street, and to wait. - -Miss Carrington appeared unexpectedly in Richard’s quiet room. -She found him in his favourite chair, peacefully taking part in -conversation with Ted Wilberforce and his sitter. - -The sitter was little Anne, costumed as the artist had planned, in a -soft green silken gown that fell to her ankles. It was touched with -dull gold to relieve it, and it had a white yoke, and a narrow white -band around the slender throat. Her dark hair fell straight against -her cheeks, and her hands, lying on her knees, held a rare old tooled -leather “Book of Hours.” A dark carved chair of mediæval Italian design -was her throne, and her little feet rested on a carved footstool. Her -eyes were shining, for, to call into her face the expression that he -wanted to paint, Ted Wilberforce had talked to her of poetry and of -heavenly things. - -“Good heavens!” exclaimed Miss Carrington, stopping short. - -She knew a great deal about pictures, and she saw that the picture -before her was wonderfully beautiful, from both an artistic and a -literary point of view. - -“Don’t let me interrupt, I beg,” she said, delight shining in her -eyes. “When I lived in Paris I knew many of the artists and rejoiced in -seeing pictures grow. But this one! Wilberforce or Carpaccio? And what -do you call it?” - -“‛The Mystic,’ Miss Carrington,” said Wilberforce, resuming the brush -that he had laid down. - -The picture was well on toward completion; the artist worked rapidly, -with swift, sure instinct and obedient strokes. - -“Exactly!” Miss Carrington’s approval of the name was manifest. “Little -Anne, you are a fortunate child, yet I think you help the artist.” - -“Mr. Wilberforce has been telling me stories about Fra Angelico, -and how he prayed and prayed to be fit to paint Our Lord and his -Blessed Mother. And he told me about Fra Bartolomeo and how he went -to the monastery where they attacked Sav-on-a-ro-la.” Little Anne -pronounced the long name carefully. “And it has been most good for me. -‛_Fra_’ means ‛brother,’ Miss Carrington. I’m afraid you don’t -know about monks, but I do. Sisters are the same, only ladies, and I go -to their school. I told Mr. Wilberforce and Mr. Latham lots of stories, -too; all about St. Francis and the animals. He called them ‛Brother -Wolf’ and ‛Sister Bird,’ and he loved them dearly! I don’t know what -he’d ever have done if he’d seen Kitca! Or Cricket! Do you think when -they look down, saints can see animals? Don’t you think they must, -because they see me, and I’m always forever hugging Cricket and Kitca?” - -Little Anne leaned forward eagerly, but instantly remembered and -resumed her pose. Her eyes were filled with the vision that her own -question called up, and Ted worked rapidly on the eyes in his picture. - -“My dear little Anne, it seems to me quite as probable----” Miss -Carrington checked herself. How could she insinuate her cavilling doubt -to this child? - -“I am certain that the saints see and love the creatures,” she said -instead, to her own surprise. Then she turned to Richard with a -gentleness that he had never before felt in her. - -“And you, Mr. Latham? Are you well? Shall you stay with us in Cleavedge -next winter?” she asked. - -“I am perfectly well, thank you, Miss Carrington,” Richard said. “No, -not Cleavedge next winter. Ted Wilberforce and I are to foregather -in New York; he has a studio there. He will paint; I shall write. We -expect to have a sort of curtailed Parnassus; two of the Nine dwelling -with us. Ted and I get on together, so the good old boy will take me -in. We may go to Rome, but in the spring we’ll be back here.” - -“I am truly delighted!” cried Miss Carrington, and she looked so. “That -is perfect! Mr. Wilberforce, I want to beg your pardon. I did not know -when I met you the other day that you were related to Miss Dallas. Will -you do me a great favour and prove that I am forgiven? Will you bring -your cousin to see me--to-day?” - -Before Ted Wilberforce could answer, Richard interposed. - -“Miss Carrington,” he said, “permit me. You will admit my right to say -this. I am thankful that you are making this overture. Will you go all -the way and welcome Miss Dallas as your daughter? In all the world -there is no other who would be to you what she would be. I shall be -grateful if you can break down her scruples, make her give Kit his due, -and you, with them, be happy ever after! It’s such a pity to waste a -day of happiness in an uncertain world! Will you ease my mind by giving -me this promise, Miss Carrington?” - -“Yes,” said Miss Carrington, gruffly. “I had already decided that I was -a fool.” - -“Good news!” cried Richard, springing up and seizing her hands. “Ted, -will you carry out your share of this programme, bring Anne to Miss -Carrington--when, Miss Carrington?” - -“Now. I have a carriage waiting. Shall we go to fetch her? Little -Anne may come. No one will see her costume in the carriage,” said Miss -Carrington. Ted Wilberforce hesitated. He loved Anne, was impatient for -her happiness, to see her trouble go, her joy come, but--Richard? He -could not bear to leave him alone while they went on this errand. - -“Why not go alone, Miss Carrington? I’ll stay with Latham. You go to -fetch Anne yourself. Take little Anne, but I stay here. It’s you and I -together now, Dick, so I stay with you to-day,” he said. - -Richard went toward him and the two men met as Ted came forward from -his easel. They put their hands on each other’s shoulders, and Miss -Carrington felt her eyes grow moist. This was a love that passed the -love of women, and it made itself felt as these two friends stood -silent for an instant, giving and taking devotion. - -“All right, old Ted, stay with me,” was all that Richard said. - -“I’ll tell Anne Dallas he is not desolate, though she must know through -her cousin,” thought Miss Carrington, profoundly thankful that Richard -had this friend. - -Little Anne had looked on this scene and listened to what had been said -with intense though puzzled interest. It was clear to her that she was -to go with Miss Carrington in a carriage, to see Anne, but nothing else -was clear to her. - -“Do I stop sitting, Mr. Wilberforce?” she asked. - -“For to-day. There needs but few more sittings, little Anne. The -picture will be done in four or five more, I’m sure. Then it will -be exhibited in New York, and people will wonder who is Edwin -Wilberforce’s dark little Mystic! And only a few of us will be let -into the secret that it is the smallest Anne!” Ted offered his hand to -little Anne to help her down from the chair. - -She seized it and kissed it. - -“Doesn’t God send me the dearest people!” she sighed. - -Miss Carrington bore the child off with her, Ted seeing them to the -carriage. He returned to Richard and to the putting away of his easel, -brushes, and colours, and stood the wet canvas carefully against the -wall on one of the bookcases. - -Neither man was inclined to talk. This was definitely the end of -Richard’s short dream of joy. But he was not alone; and both men were -gratefully aware of the value of their friendship now. - -Joan looked up in surprise when she saw little Anne in costume; she was -more surprised when Miss Carrington followed her from the carriage. - -“I can’t touch your glove, Miss Carrington; I’ve been washing bluing -from every inch of the baby’s surface--she had got the bottle! But -please come in! I’ll repeat the operation on myself. Anne is upstairs. -Do you want her?” Joan asked. - -“Yes, Mrs. Paul; I want her,” said Miss Carrington. - -Joan caught the emphasis. - -“Anne, Anne,” she said in a stage whisper, as she hurried into Anne’s -room. “Come, quick! Our aunt has capitulated; the stage is set for your -entrance! She gave me the clue! Miss Carrington is downstairs!” - -Anne went down trembling. Miss Carrington stood awaiting her, and came -to meet her. - -“Please forgive me, my dear, forgive my old attitude toward you. I -think you will, later. Come home with me. I have just left your cousin. -He was coming here with me, but at the last moment decided to stay -with Mr. Latham. Come home with me, dear Anne, and forgive me for not -yielding sooner to what I thought a mistake of Kit’s. Now I want you to -make him happy,” she said. - -“Oh, how can I? Home with you? But--that would be--does Kit know?” -stammered Anne. - -“It would be coming to us for good and all? Surely! I hope so! How can -you? How can you not? Hasn’t there been enough time wasted, enough -sighs sighed and tears shed, not to delay longer? Kit does not know; it -is to surprise him. Don’t hesitate, Anne! You’ve played a noble rôle, -nobly. Be big enough now to throw aside pride and accept your part. -Come to Kit, my child, and forgive me.” - -Miss Carrington spoke eagerly; she swayed slightly, and her weakness -moved Anne’s pity. After all she was, as the girl had long known, a -sad, impoverished old woman, whose cleverness had led nowhere, whose -aims had been insignificant. - -Before she could gather herself together to meet this demand upon her -Anne felt little Anne’s arms clinging around her waist, and looked down -into the shining eyes of the child, lifted to hers above her quaint -gown. - -“I don’t quite know what it is, Anne, dearest,” little Anne whispered, -“only Miss Carrington says forgive her, and we have to, or it would -be a dreadful sin! You’ve got to forgive people, sorry ones, because -you’re so often a sorry one yourself--I mean all of us!” - -The elder and the younger Anne smiled at each other over the head of -the youngest Anne; the smile seemed to clear up the difficulty, to -simplify and make natural the next step. - -“You see you have the authority of the saints for it, Anne Dallas!” -said Miss Carrington. - -“I’ll go with you, Miss Carrington,” said Anne. - -Kit had come in before them and had gone to his room. - -Minerva followed her mistress and Anne up to Miss Carrington’s sitting -room; she helped Miss Carrington off with her outdoor garments, -meantime scanning Anne surreptitiously and reaching a favourable -verdict upon her. - -“Handsomer and grander Helen Abercrombie may be, but this sweet, good -kind for me! I’m glad Master Kit has the sense!” thought Minerva. - -“Better ask Mr. Christopher to come down, Minerva,” said Miss -Carrington when Minerva’s task was done, and Miss Carrington had taken -the teaspoonful of aromatic ammonia in water made necessary by the -exhausting nature of her afternoon’s mission. - -“Go behind that curtain, my dear, if you please. We may as well set our -little drama to the best of our ability, and get out of it every iota -of its flavour! I want to surprise the boy.” - -“Oh, no; oh, no; I can’t!” cried Anne. - -Nevertheless, she obediently hid behind the heavy portière that hung -ready to shut off draughts from the door. - -Kit came in whistling softly through his teeth. - -“Want me, Aunt Anne?” he asked, checking his sibilant tune. - -“Yes, my dear. I wanted--wanted--to show you a--a statuette I have. -It’s behind the portière. Please go over and get it,” said Miss -Carrington, struggling to speak naturally. - -Unsuspecting Kit went. He pulled the portière, but it was held. He went -at it again more vigorously, and, suddenly, it swung loose, as fingers -clasping it relaxed. - -There, shrinking back against the wall, her face flushed, with colour -that came and went, her eyes shining with joy, yet afraid, her lips -tremulous and infinitely sweet, stood Anne. - -“Good heavens! Anne!” cried Kit, stunned for a moment. - -But only for a moment. Then he had her in his arms, lifted her off her -feet, and kissed her all over the flushed, frightened, happy face. - -“You little goose! Why were you so long?” he cried. - -Then, as he realized what must have happened to bring her there, he -turned to his aunt. - -“Aunt Anne! Well, Aunt Anne! You’re the greatest Anne of the three!” he -cried. - -Anne swiftly ran past Kit and dropped on her knees before the oldest -Anne’s chair, her head on Miss Carrington’s lap. - -“Oh, I will be good! I will repay you! Please love me!” she cried. - -“Nonsense. I do!” declared the oldest Anne. - - - - -CHAPTER XXIII - -_The Fall of the Curtain_ - - -There are many tests of youthfulness, the mirror the least accurate. - -“A man is as young as he feels,” we are told, but this is misleading. A -bad cold, a bill, an ill-cooked dinner, a few hours over-work, and the -youthful man of the morning may feel decrepit by night. Thoreau hits it -more nearly when he makes the thrill with which spring is hailed the -test of age; we are not old, he tells us, if the blood in our veins -runs swifter with the mounting sap; if we echo the joyousness of the -bluebird’s annunciatory warble. - -Akin to this under urban conditions is the expectant thrill with which -we await the curtain’s rise upon the drama. Both are anticipatory; both -mean youth’s impatience for the play. Each summer is heralded by vague -anticipation of delight; each play which we wait to see for the first -time hints of unknown pleasures. No one is jaded, no one really old, -who is eager for a new joy. - -By this test there was a youthful audience gathered in the Stratford -Theatre on a night of late November. Great things were said to be in -store for that audience. This was the first night of the first play by -Richard Latham, the poet. - -Those who had ways of knowing something of the play said that it was -“great!” Those who had no clue to what they were to see said that -Richard Latham never allowed anything to go forth over his name that -was unworthy of his growing fame. Obviously, when it was not a matter -of a poem in a magazine, but a play on the boards, he would be no less -exacting with himself. Consequently, there was a literary and dramatic -treat awaiting these first nighters. - -The orchestra was playing a Schumann overture to which it was -competent; the Stratford, under a renowned management, was deficient -in no department. In the stage box on the right sat ex-Governor -Abercrombie; with him his magnificently handsome daughter in a golden -gown and brilliant jewels; her husband-elect, his battered good looks -still striking, and a dark young woman in white who made an excellent -foil for the golden Helen, and who might have been George Lanbury’s -sister. - -Miss Carrington was in the next box, decidedly the elegant old-type -gentlewoman in shining silvery silk, point lace, and a few fine -diamonds. With her was her nephew, Christopher Carrington, tall and -straight, his face youthfully clear, radiating happiness. - -A girl as sweet as a flower in pale, rose-coloured crêpe, shrank -somewhat into the shadow of Miss Carrington’s shoulder. It was hard for -Anne to feel that Richard would not see her and lose something from -his hour of triumph. But though Richard knew precisely where Anne sat, -and had made Ted Wilberforce describe to him what she wore and how she -looked, it did not disturb him. He always wanted Anne, never forgot -that he was denied her; this was the established condition of his days; -to-night the play must be the thing. - -In the box next to the author’s were Mr. and Mrs. Berkley, Joan and -Antony, with Peter back of them, ready to stand if his view were -impeded, striving to act as though he had spent years going to first -nights in theatre boxes, devoutly hoping that his unaccustomedness -to plays was not perceptible to the eyes of the audience, which he -imagined were upon him. Joan alone had a divided mind. She had been -persuaded to leave her baby with Bibiana. Bibiana had been a devoted -nurse to little Anne, but when it came to a baby like Barbara, provided -you ever could come to a baby like Barbara, the risk of leaving her was -too great to get it out of mind. Joan eagerly waited for the curtain to -go up, but at the same time she was wondering if the nursery window was -down. - -The author’s box was the stage box on the left. The audience swayed -in an effort to see Latham better, but Richard sat in the shadow of -the drapery, additionally screened by a tall man whom those versed in -the affairs of the town recognized as Edwin Wilberforce, the painter, -Richard Latham’s devoted friend. - -In the front of the author’s box, leaning absorbed over its edge, -utterly unconscious that people noticed her and speculated on whom she -was, why she was chosen to be with Latham on this first presentation of -his play, sat a little girl. She was dark, thin, not precisely pretty, -but there was a ceaseless play of expression upon her eager little -face that placed her beyond mere childish prettiness. She was dressed -in filmy white material that threatened to be destroyed by her rapid -motions. There were many in the audience who had seen the exhibition -of American painters in the last week of October and the first week of -November, who recognized this child as the original of “The Mystic,” -Wilberforce’s picture, the finest picture of the exhibition, the one -most discussed, oftenest printed in sepia-tinted Sunday supplements. - -Little Anne turned at last from her absorbed yet horrified -contemplation of shoulder blades and spines in the parquette below, -the elevation of the box giving her ample opportunity for her study of -anatomy and ethics. She looked up at Ted Wilberforce with shocked eyes -and spoke to him with bated breath; Mr. Latham was lucky to be blind, -after all, she felt. - -“Do you s’pose, do you really, truly s’pose, they _all_ thought -there wouldn’t be anybody here but just themselves?” little Anne asked. - -“Poor little Anne!” exclaimed Ted Wilberforce. - -He pitied the child’s pang at her first dash with the world in which at -least one of the inimical triumvirate runs at large. “It’s the custom -just now, dear; they don’t see it as we do--in a two-fold sense!” - -“I’m going to say a prayer for ’em. It’s awful!” groaned little Anne -with a shudder. - -Then she proved that everywhere she behaved as the same little Anne, by -closing her eyes, clasping her hands, and moving her lips fast, seated -in the front of the stage box. - -Having thrown the responsibility of rescuing these unfortunates, who -were perfectly self-satisfied, upon their Maker, little Anne turned -with zest to the stage. - -The curtain was slowly rising upon a peaceful river, flowing between -its banks under a marvellous effect of sunrise. The scene struck little -Anne as familiar. - -“It looks just like Cleavedge river, only I’m never out at sunrise,” -she said. - -“Mr. Wilberforce made the sketch; it is our river, Anne,” said Richard. - -He forgot his misfortune and leaned forward as if he might see the -heroine’s entrance. She emerged from the rosy mists that enveloped her, -a beautiful, effective entrance for the character that was to embody -youth, purity, and self-forgetful love. - -The audience applauded, but was quickly silent, for the girl was -speaking the lovely opening lines which embodied the aim of the play. -From this moment there was complete quiet over the house, the absence -of those fidgeting movements which reveal a lack of interest; the -silence was far higher praise than applause could be. Yet applause -followed on the first curtain fall, calling it up again and yet again, -and cries of “Author!” began to arise here and there, though the time -for them had not come. - -Visiting set in when the plaudits ceased. People streamed out into the -lobby, men came and hung over the orchestra chairs in which sat the -ladies who had so afflicted little Anne. - -Richard Latham’s box was besieged by acquaintances and newspaper men -in search of first-hand information as to how he had come to write -“The Guerdon,” what his idea was in producing a play so unlike the -usual thing, what he should write next, and all the other big-little -facts demanded by the public, which rightly sees biography as supremely -important. - -Ted Wilberforce had carried little Anne out to walk in the lobby, -lifting her over the crowd. - -“I’m afraid,” she said, seriously, as he set her down, “that people -will not know that I was eight last month. It makes you look even -less’n seven to be carried. But I thank you just the same, Mr. -Wilberforce, and it’s nice to walk the kinks out, and a box is quite -warm, though, of course, it sounds so.” - -The curtain rose on the second act with everyone back in his seat. That -alone proved how the play was taking. - -This act closed on a peculiarly silent house. There were handkerchiefs -fluttering against eyes which were not accustomed to moisten over -sentiment so simple, so denuded of all but a direct appeal to the -finest human ideals. “The Guerdon” voiced this appeal without much -supplementary stage craft. The acting was perfect. This time with calls -for the author came calls for the three principal actors. - -“Oh, if I could see them! They speak the lines as if they were -inspired!” sighed Richard, permitting himself to bemoan his blindness. -But he did not respond to the calls for a speech from him. - -“The third act is the test; I’ll try to say something after it, if it -pleases them,” Richard told the delighted manager who made his impeded -way into the poet’s box. - -When the curtain fell on the third act, after a moment’s hush the -applause was tempestuous, and this time there was no resisting the -enthusiastic shouts of “Author! Speech! Author!” - -Richard had not intended to resist his audience if it wanted him to -talk after this act. He arose and patted little Anne’s shoulder in -farewell. - -“Where are you going?” she asked. - -“I’m going on the stage, little Anne, and it might be as well to pray -for me to say the right thing as to pray for the ladies of the shoulder -blades,” said Richard, smiling. - -Little Anne at once closed her eyes, and obeyed him literally. - -Richard came forth from the side of the curtain, the same calm, gentle -Richard that little Anne knew at home, and she heard Ted Wilberforce -draw in his breath sharply. - -Richard stood bowing from left to right for a few minutes while the -audience frantically welcomed him. The pathos of his blindness had -never been more poignant. - -Then silence fell, the impressive silence of a concourse of people. - -“My friends,” Richard’s quiet, thrilling voice broke the silence, “it -is not custom that makes me call you my friends. It seems to me that in -your reception of my play there is a quality that means friendship for -the man that wrote it. Or is it that I like to think so? I am deeply -grateful to you. Having said that, I might stop talking, for what can -I add? Truly, indeed, I thank you! The first night of his first play -means a great deal to an author. It means pretty much what it must have -meant to Wendy, John, and little Michael to be taken by Peter Pan into -the Never Never Land. It means one’s dreams come true. - -“For three years I carried ‛The Guerdon’ around with me in vague, -mist-encircled thoughts of it, a waking dream. Gradually the -characters in it emerged farther and farther out of the mist, taking -shape as the events of that period of their lives with which the play -deals evolved and developed them. I knew what happened to these people -because I knew the people, and, again, I knew the people because of -what happened to them. - -“Perhaps we do not realize how much of us the events of our lives -reveal. There are certain things that cannot befall people of a certain -type, and the reverse is equally true: there are events almost sure to -befall a certain type of people. The law of attraction, it seems to me, -holds in all combinations, in all orders of creation. Circumstances -develop from within outward. Though we are acted upon extraneously it -is because we call forth and yield ourselves to the action. - -“Thus I came to know the people in this play through what happened to -them, and I understood what they must be to receive the particular -guerdon that you are seeing come to them. Nor has it seemed to me -that I caused these events of the play, nor created the people. It -is an unending marvel to us who write how wilful our puppets become, -how we stand aside and watch them make or mar their lives in spite -of us, precisely as do our other friends who are clothed in flesh. I -have had help in writing this play for which I shall be grateful all -my life. It grew in a quiet room in Cleavedge, and its writing was a -never-to-be-forgotten joy; a present joy that abides is mine, though -the play is done. Whatever comes to me later, I can never write another -first play, nor lose the happiness this one brought to me, crowned -to-night by your great kindness to it. - -“You have shown me that I have not quite failed to share the dream with -you. You approve ‛The Guerdon.’ With all my heart I thank you. That is -my guerdon. I am a happy man to-night. I am grateful to the men and -women who have embodied the people in the play as I knew them, but as -you could not know them but for this acting, since outside my brain -and that quiet room in Cleavedge these play-people had never ventured. -Out of a grateful heart I thank you all.” - -Anne shrank farther back as she listened to Richard talking here as -simply, as quietly as he had talked to her in that quiet room. His -allusion to it brought it before her so vividly that the theatre, the -audience were blotted out. She was back in that room, the bees humming -in the beautiful garden, their hum and the scent of the flowers they -were rifling coming in through the windows, open to the light breeze. -She knew that Richard was speaking to _her_, telling _her_ -not to grieve, to remember that he was sincerely glad to carry with -him the memory of the days that had left him only memory. Kit, seeing -Anne’s face, came forward to take her chair and give her his place, a -little back of his aunt. - -“Don’t look like that, honey!” he whispered. “People will notice, and -hang and quarter me! There’s always someone about who knows too much! -I don’t care if Latham did write ‛The Guerdon!’ ‛But notta Carlotta! I -gotta Carlotta!’ However you pity him, you can’t marry us both, dear! -Latham is happy! That’s true. Look at him!” - -Richard was acknowledging the applause of his modest speech; his smile -was bright, his face shining. Ted Wilberforce was clapping with all his -might over little Anne’s head, and little Anne was waving both arms -over the rail of the box, leaning out of it dangerously, and shouting -shrilly: - -“You dear, you dear, you dear!” to the delight of everyone within range -of her clear, childish voice. - -Miss Carrington fell back in her chair after her emphatic applause of -Richard. She looked at Kit proudly, amusement and satisfaction in her -eyes. - -“Fancy being the power behind the throne, the victorious rival in a -scene like this, Master Kit! I’ve always thought you a nice lad, -Christopher, but I never expected to see you before the public, which -does not suspect your glory, the scorner of such a creature as yonder -splendid Helen; the victor over the winner of the laurels which muses -and men bestow! Is it possible that I ever bought you copper-toed -boots, and ordered mutton tallow on your properly scornful nose!” she -said. - -The fourth act followed, a worthy climax to the play, and when the -final curtain was rung down on “The Guerdon” Richard’s triumph was -complete. His box was full of flowers, masses of roses and orchids -bearing bits of cardboard, each with a well-known name engraved on it. - -“Too bad this isn’t a church!” observed little Anne, to whom flowers -and altars were synonymous. - -“I’ll send them all to the nearest church in your name, little Anne!” -declared Richard. “Now you and Ted come with me to the manager’s room. -I’m going to bid you good-bye there. Kit and Miss Dallas are coming. -They will not come to my supper of celebration, and you’re too small to -sup with me. So we’ll part, to meet again in Cleavedge in the spring.” - -“Oh, me!” sighed little Anne. “Nothing keeps right on. Heaven is best. -I don’t want you to go!” - -Richard and Ted Wilberforce, with little Anne, went to the manager’s -room. - -Anne and Kit were waiting there. - -Richard took Kit’s outstretched hand in both of his and held it. They -talked earnestly for a few minutes, while Ted talked to his cousin. -Anne was nervously fighting back her tears and Ted was evidently -reassuring her. - -Richard turned from Kit and crossed over to her. - -“We are the only ones who know how much of ‛The Guerdon’ is yours, -patient little collaborator!” he said. “I shall not see you till -spring. Ted and I have decided upon Rome in February. Then Cleavedge -for us both! Will you make a room for me in the new home which you’re -to begin at Easter? Kit says ‛Yes!’ Will Kit’s wife also welcome me?” - -“Oh, dear Richard, who so beloved or so welcome?” Anne cried. - -“Good-bye, then, for a time. I am content. What a night! And how much -of it due to you! I’m a lucky poet! Good-bye, dearest of women.” -Richard took Anne’s hand, held it for a moment, then relinquished it, -laying it down amid the folds of her skirt with a tiny smile. But his -lips had grown white, and the movement was like laying down a dead, not -a living hand. The three adults watching him knew that he then bade -farewell forever to Anne Dallas, whom he should always love. - -Then he turned to little Anne. - -“And good-bye to you, little Anne, darling, but only for a half year!” -he said. - -He stooped to kiss her, but little Anne threw her arms around him with -such a tempestuous embrace that he raised her, clinging to his neck, to -his breast. - -“If only nothing ever changed!” she sobbed. - -“What shall I bring you from Rome, dear child? I’ll be back when May -comes to Cleavedge.” - -Little Anne traced a tiny cross on his forehead with her thumbnail. - -“Only you. Take care of yourself and bring me you,” she said. “I shall -study hard’s I can to be ready to help you when you come home. I’m -going to learn to write on a typewriter and make squiggles so you can -tell me your works like Anne! But if you have time I’d just love to -have you pray for me in the catacombs!” - -“How I wish I could take you with me! It would be worth anything to -show you St. Peter’s, little Anne!” said Richard. - -“Oh, yes!” little Anne breathlessly agreed. - -Then she added, with one of her exalted moods suddenly sweeping her -beyond the grief of parting and the desire for Rome: - -“But every place is the same, if you’ve got God!” - -“What a valedictory to a theatrical triumph!” exclaimed Richard. - -Anne and Kit took little Anne’s cold hands and went away. Ted -Wilberforce followed them down the corridor to say good-bye to the -child and a last word to his cousin. - -“Good-bye, little Anne! Remember to love me with Richard. And go to -sleep in a trice, for this is dissipation, you know!” said Ted. - -Little Anne warmly returned his farewell kiss. - -“I’ve had a wonderful time, and I don’t truly think I could go to -sleep,” she said. “I’d just as lief as not sit up hours and hours to -talk about it to Mother and Father and Joan and Peter and everyone! -It’s rather wasteful to go to bed when you feel wide awake, ’way -through, don’t you think so? But good-bye, dear Mr. Wilberforce. I do -love you, too!” - -Ted returned to Richard to go with him to the supper that he was giving -to celebrate “The Guerdon.” Anne and Kit took little Anne with them -to the hotel where they all were to spend the night, and return to -Cleavedge in the morning. - -“It’s all over!” said Anne. - -“It’s all beginning, little wife!” Kit corrected her. - -“Isn’t something always like that, all over and just beginning?” asked -wise little Anne. - - -THE END - - - - -[Illustration] - - THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS - GARDEN CITY, N. Y. - - - - -Transcriber’s Note: - -Punctuation has been standardised. Spelling and hyphenation have been -retained as printed in the original publication except as follows: - - Page 27 - dropped back into his chiar _changed to_ - dropped back into his chair - - Page 67 - lighty kissing Miss Carrington’s _changed to_ - lightly kissing Miss Carrington’s - - Page 76 - Sister something-or-Other _changed to_ - Sister Something-or-Other - - Page 84 - went so far as to to try _changed to_ - went so far as to try - - Page 149 - the pity whth which _changed to_ - the pity with which - - Page 158 - I’m sure I don’t knew _changed to_ - I’m sure I don’t know - - Page 173 - interpretating Kit’s unconsidered _changed to_ - interpreting Kit’s unconsidered - - Page 240 - tight little white yoke-top _changed to_ - tight little white yoke top - - - - -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ANNES *** - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the -United States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part -of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm -concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark, -and may not be used if you charge for an eBook, except by following -the terms of the trademark license, including paying royalties for use -of the Project Gutenberg trademark. If you do not charge anything for -copies of this eBook, complying with the trademark license is very -easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose such as creation -of derivative works, reports, performances and research. Project -Gutenberg eBooks may be modified and printed and given away--you may -do practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks not protected -by U.S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject to the trademark -license, especially commercial redistribution. - -START: FULL LICENSE - -THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE -PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK - -To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free -distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work -(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project -Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full -Project Gutenberg-tm License available with this file or online at -www.gutenberg.org/license. - -Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic works - -1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm -electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to -and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property -(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all -the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or -destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your -possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a -Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound -by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the -person or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph -1.E.8. - -1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be -used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who -agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few -things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works -even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See -paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this -agreement and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm -electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below. - -1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the -Foundation" or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection -of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual -works in the collection are in the public domain in the United -States. If an individual work is unprotected by copyright law in the -United States and you are located in the United States, we do not -claim a right to prevent you from copying, distributing, performing, -displaying or creating derivative works based on the work as long as -all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Of course, we hope -that you will support the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting -free access to electronic works by freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm -works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for keeping the -Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with the work. You can easily -comply with the terms of this agreement by keeping this work in the -same format with its attached full Project Gutenberg-tm License when -you share it without charge with others. - -1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern -what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are -in a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, -check the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this -agreement before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, -distributing or creating derivative works based on this work or any -other Project Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no -representations concerning the copyright status of any work in any -country other than the United States. - -1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: - -1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other -immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear -prominently whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work -on which the phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the -phrase "Project Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, -performed, viewed, copied or distributed: - - This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and - most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no - restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it - under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this - eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the - United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where - you are located before using this eBook. - -1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is -derived from texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (does not -contain a notice indicating that it is posted with permission of the -copyright holder), the work can be copied and distributed to anyone in -the United States without paying any fees or charges. If you are -redistributing or providing access to a work with the phrase "Project -Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the work, you must comply -either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 or -obtain permission for the use of the work and the Project Gutenberg-tm -trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. - -1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted -with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution -must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any -additional terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms -will be linked to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works -posted with the permission of the copyright holder found at the -beginning of this work. - -1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm -License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this -work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. - -1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this -electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without -prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with -active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project -Gutenberg-tm License. - -1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, -compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including -any word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access -to or distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format -other than "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official -version posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm website -(www.gutenberg.org), you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense -to the user, provide a copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means -of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original "Plain -Vanilla ASCII" or other form. Any alternate format must include the -full Project Gutenberg-tm License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. - -1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, -performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works -unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. - -1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing -access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works -provided that: - -* You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from - the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method - you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed - to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he has - agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the Project - Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments must be paid - within 60 days following each date on which you prepare (or are - legally required to prepare) your periodic tax returns. Royalty - payments should be clearly marked as such and sent to the Project - Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the address specified in - Section 4, "Information about donations to the Project Gutenberg - Literary Archive Foundation." - -* You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies - you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he - does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm - License. You must require such a user to return or destroy all - copies of the works possessed in a physical medium and discontinue - all use of and all access to other copies of Project Gutenberg-tm - works. - -* You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of - any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the - electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of - receipt of the work. - -* You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free - distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. - -1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic work or group of works on different terms than -are set forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing -from the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the manager of -the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the Foundation as set -forth in Section 3 below. - -1.F. - -1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable -effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread -works not protected by U.S. copyright law in creating the Project -Gutenberg-tm collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm -electronic works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may -contain "Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate -or corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other -intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or -other medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that damage or -cannot be read by your equipment. - -1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right -of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project -Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project -Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all -liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal -fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT -LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE -PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE -TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE -LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR -INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH -DAMAGE. - -1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a -defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can -receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a -written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you -received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium -with your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you -with the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in -lieu of a refund. If you received the work electronically, the person -or entity providing it to you may choose to give you a second -opportunity to receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If -the second copy is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing -without further opportunities to fix the problem. - -1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth -in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO -OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT -LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. - -1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied -warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of -damages. If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement -violates the law of the state applicable to this agreement, the -agreement shall be interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or -limitation permitted by the applicable state law. The invalidity or -unenforceability of any provision of this agreement shall not void the -remaining provisions. - -1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the -trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone -providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in -accordance with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the -production, promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm -electronic works, harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, -including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of -the following which you do or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this -or any Project Gutenberg-tm work, (b) alteration, modification, or -additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any -Defect you cause. - -Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm - -Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of -electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of -computers including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It -exists because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations -from people in all walks of life. - -Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the -assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's -goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will -remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project -Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure -and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future -generations. To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation and how your efforts and donations can help, see -Sections 3 and 4 and the Foundation information page at -www.gutenberg.org - -Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation - -The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non-profit -501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the -state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal -Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification -number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent permitted by -U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. - -The Foundation's business office is located at 809 North 1500 West, -Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email contact links and up -to date contact information can be found at the Foundation's website -and official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact - -Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg -Literary Archive Foundation - -Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without -widespread public support and donations to carry out its mission of -increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be -freely distributed in machine-readable form accessible by the widest -array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations -($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt -status with the IRS. - -The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating -charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United -States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a -considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up -with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations -where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To SEND -DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any particular -state visit www.gutenberg.org/donate - -While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we -have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition -against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who -approach us with offers to donate. - -International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make -any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from -outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. - -Please check the Project Gutenberg web pages for current donation -methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other -ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. To -donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate - -Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works - -Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project -Gutenberg-tm concept of a library of electronic works that could be -freely shared with anyone. For forty years, he produced and -distributed Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of -volunteer support. - -Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed -editions, all of which are confirmed as not protected by copyright in -the U.S. unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not -necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper -edition. - -Most people start at our website which has the main PG search -facility: www.gutenberg.org - -This website includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, -including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to -subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/old/65784-0.zip b/old/65784-0.zip Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index f029e5a..0000000 --- a/old/65784-0.zip +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/65784-h.zip b/old/65784-h.zip Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index 82b29bc..0000000 --- a/old/65784-h.zip +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/65784-h/65784-h.htm b/old/65784-h/65784-h.htm deleted file mode 100644 index a2df353..0000000 --- a/old/65784-h/65784-h.htm +++ /dev/null @@ -1,10744 +0,0 @@ -<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" - "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> -<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> - <head> - <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=utf-8" /> - <meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> - <title> - The Annes, by Marion Ames Taggart—A Project Gutenberg eBook - </title> - <link rel="coverpage" href="images/cover.jpg" /> - <style type="text/css"> - body {margin: 0 10%;} - div.chapter, div.section {page-break-before: always;} - h1, h2 {text-align: center; clear: both; page-break-before: avoid;} - h2 {line-height: 2em; font-size: 1.4em;} - h2 span {font-style: italic;} - p {margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1em;} - em, cite {font-style: italic;} - - /* General */ - .p180 {font-size: 1.8em;} - .p140 {font-size: 1.4em;} - .p120 {font-size: 1.2em;} - .noi {text-indent: 0;} - .center {text-align: center; text-indent: 0;} - .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} - .mt3 {margin-top: 3em;} - .lh {line-height: 1.5em;} - - /* Notes */ - ins {text-decoration: none;} - .tn {width: 60%; margin: 2em 18%; background: #f3e4c7; padding: 1em;} - li {margin-bottom: .5em;} - ul {list-style: square;} - - /* Horizontal rules */ - hr.divider {width: 65%; margin: 4em 17.5%; border-color: #f3e4c7;} - hr.divider2 {width: 40%; margin: 4em 30%; border-color: #f3e4c7;} - hr.tb {width: 50%; margin: 2em 25%; border-color: #f3e4c7;} - - /* Page numbers */ - .pagenum {position: absolute; right: 2%; text-indent: 0em; - text-align: right; font-size: x-small; - font-weight: normal; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; - letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; - color: #999; border-top: 1px solid; border-bottom: 1px solid; - background-color: inherit; padding: .01em .4em;} - - /* Images */ - .figcenter {margin: 2em auto; text-align: center; page-break-inside: avoid; max-width: 100%;} - img {max-width: 100%; width: 100%; height: auto;} - .width500 {max-width: 500px;} - .width180 {max-width: 180px;} - .width120 {max-width: 120px;} - .caption {text-indent: 0em; margin: 1em auto; text-align: left; max-width: 30em;} - - /* Table */ - table {margin: auto; border-collapse: collapse; max-width: 30em;} - th {font-size: .8em;} - .tdl {text-align: left; margin-left: 0; padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -1em; padding-right: 1em;} - .tdr, .tdr2 {text-align: right;} - .tdr2 {vertical-align: top;} - - /* Booklist */ - .nobullet {list-style: none;} - .list-center {margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; max-width: 30em;} - .hang {padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em;} - - /* Drop caps */ - .dropcap, .dropcap2 {float: left; font-weight: normal;} - .dropcap {font-size: 4em; padding: .02em .02em 0 0; line-height: .75em; height: 0.75em;} - .dropcap2 {font-size: .3em; padding: 0; line-height: .75em; height: .75em;} - - /* Poetry */ - .poetry-container {text-align: center; margin: 0;} - .poetry {display: inline-block; text-align: left;} - .poetry .verse {margin: 1em 0em;} - .poetry .line {text-indent: -3em; padding-left: 3em;} - .poetry .indent2 {margin-left: 2em;} - .poetry .indent4 {margin-left: 4em;} - .poetry .indent6 {margin-left: 6em;} - .poetry .outdent {margin-left: -.2em;} - - @media print { - hr.divider, hr.divider2 {border-width: 0; margin: 0;} - a:link, a:visited, a:hover, a:active {text-decoration: none; color: inherit;} - } - - /* ebookmaker */ - body.x-ebookmaker {margin: .5em; padding: 0; width: 98%;} - .x-ebookmaker p {margin-top: .1em; margin-bottom: .1em;} - .x-ebookmaker table {width: 98%;} - .x-ebookmaker img {max-width: 80%;} - .x-ebookmaker .tn {width: 60%; margin: 2em 18%; background: #f3e4c7; padding: 1em;} - .x-ebookmaker .clear {clear: both;} - .x-ebookmaker .book-container {width: 98%;} - .x-ebookmaker .width500 {width: 32em;} - .x-ebookmaker .width180 {width: 12em;} - .x-ebookmaker .width120 {width: 8em;} - /*.x-ebookmaker .poetry {display: block;}*/ - .x-ebookmaker-drop {} - .x-ebookmaker .dropcap, .x-ebookmaker .dropcap2 {float: none; font-weight: normal;} - .x-ebookmaker .dropcap {font-size: 2em; padding: 0 0 0 0; line-height: .75em; height: 0.75em;} - .x-ebookmaker .dropcap2 {font-size: .8em; padding: 0 0 0 0; line-height: .75em; height: 0.75em;} - </style> - </head> -<body> -<p style='text-align:center; font-size:1.2em; font-weight:bold'>The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Annes, by Marion Ames Taggart</p> -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online -at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you -are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the -country where you are located before using this eBook. -</div> - -<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: The Annes</p> - <p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Marion Ames Taggart</p> - <p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Illustrator: W. C. Nims</p> -<p style='display:block; text-indent:0; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: July 12, 2021 [eBook #65784]</p> -<p style='display:block; text-indent:0; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</p> - <p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em; text-align:left'>Produced by: Beth Baran, Sue Clark and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from images made available by the HathiTrust Digital Library.)</p> -<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ANNES ***</div> - -<hr class="divider" /> -<h1>THE ANNES</h1> -<hr class="divider2" /> - -<div class="x-ebookmaker-drop figcenter width500" id="cover2"> - <img src="images/cover2.jpg" width="500" height="719" alt="Cover" /> -</div> - -<div class="section"> -<hr class="x-ebookmaker-drop divider" /> -<p class="center p120" id="Books"><i>Books by Marion Ames Taggart</i></p> -</div> - -<ul class="nobullet list-center hang"> -<li><span class="smcap">At Aunt Anna’s</span></li> -<li><span class="smcap">Beth of Old Chilton</span></li> -<li><span class="smcap">Beth’s Old Home</span></li> -<li><span class="smcap">Beth’s Wonder-winter</span></li> -<li><span class="smcap">Betty Gaston the -Seventh Girl</span></li> -<li><span class="smcap">Blissylvania Post-office</span></li> -<li><span class="smcap">By Branscome River</span></li> -<li><span class="smcap">Captain Sylvia</span></li> -<li><span class="smcap">Daddy’s Daughters</span></li> -<li><span class="smcap">Daughters of the -Little Grey House</span></li> -<li><span class="smcap">Doctor’s Little Girl</span></li> -<li><span class="smcap">Elder Miss Ainsborough</span></li> -<li><span class="smcap">Friendly Little House -and Other Stories</span></li> -<li><span class="smcap">Her Daughter Jean</span></li> -<li><span class="smcap">Hollyhock House</span></li> -<li><span class="smcap">In the Days of King -Hal</span></li> -<li><span class="smcap">Jack Hildreth Among -the Indians</span></li> -<li><span class="smcap">Jack Hildreth on the -Nile</span></li> -<li><span class="smcap">Little Aunt</span></li> -<li><span class="smcap">Little Grey House</span></li> -<li><span class="smcap">Little Women Club</span></li> -<li><span class="smcap">Loyal Blue and Royal -Scarlet</span></li> -<li><span class="smcap">Miss Lochinvar</span></li> -<li><span class="smcap">Miss Lochinvar’s Return</span></li> -<li><span class="smcap">Nancy and the Coggs -Twins</span></li> -<li><span class="smcap">Nancy Porter’s Opportunity</span></li> -<li><span class="smcap">Nancy, the Doctor’s -Little Partner</span></li> -<li><span class="smcap">Nut-brown Joan</span></li> -<li><span class="smcap">One Afternoon and -Other Stories</span></li> -<li><span class="smcap">Pilgrim Maid, A Story -of Plymouth Colony -in 1620</span></li> -<li><span class="smcap">Pussy-cat Town</span></li> -<li><span class="smcap">Six Girls and Betty</span></li> -<li><span class="smcap">Six Girls and Bob</span></li> -<li><span class="smcap">Six Girls and the -Seventh One</span></li> -<li><span class="smcap">Six Girls and the Tea -Room</span></li> -<li><span class="smcap">Six Girls Growing -Older</span></li> -<li><span class="smcap">Six Girls Grown Up</span></li> -<li><span class="smcap">Sweet Nancy</span></li> -<li><span class="smcap">The Annes</span></li> -<li><span class="smcap">Three Girls and Especially -One</span></li> -<li><span class="smcap">Treasure of Nugget -Mountain</span></li> -<li><span class="smcap">Unraveling of a -Tangle</span></li> -<li><span class="smcap">Winnetou</span></li> -<li><span class="smcap">Wyndham Girls</span></li> -</ul> - - -<div class="section"> -<hr class="x-ebookmaker-drop divider" /> -<div class="figcenter width500" id="i004"> - <img src="images/i004.jpg" width="500" height="664" alt="Frontispiece" /> - <div class="caption">“<i>Before she could gather herself together ... Anne - felt little Anne’s arms clinging around her waist, - and looked down into the shining eyes of the child.</i>” - </div> -</div> -</div> - - -<div class="section"> -<hr class="divider x-ebookmaker-drop" /> -<p class="center p180"><cite>The</cite> ANNES</p> - -<p class="center p120 mt3 lh">BY<br /> -MARION AMES TAGGART</p> - -<div class="figcenter width120" id="colophon"> - <img src="images/colophon.png" width="120" height="124" alt="Colophon: Fructus Quam Folia" /> -</div> - - -<p class="center mt3 lh">FRONTISPIECE<br /> -BY<br /> -W. C. NIMS</p> - -<p class="center lh">GARDEN CITY, N. Y., AND TORONTO<br /> -<span class="p140">DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY</span><br /> -1921</p> -</div> - - -<div class="section"> -<hr class="divider2 x-ebookmaker-drop" /> -<p class="center lh">COPYRIGHT, 1921, BY<br /> -DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY<br /> -ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OF TRANSLATION<br /> -INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES, INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN</p> -</div> - - -<div class="section"> -<hr class="divider2 x-ebookmaker-drop" /> -<p class="center lh"><small>TO</small><br /> -ELIZABETH</p> -</div> - - -<div class="section"> -<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_vii"></a>vii</span> -<hr class="divider x-ebookmaker-drop" /> -</div> - -<h2 id="CONTENTS">CONTENTS</h2> - -<table summary="Contents"> -<tr> -<th class="tdr">CHAPTER</th> -<th class="tdr2" colspan="2">PAGE</th> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="tdr">I.</td> -<td class="tdl smcap">Little Anne’s Calling</td> -<td class="tdr2"><a href="#i">1</a></td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="tdr">II.</td> -<td class="tdl smcap">The Oldest Anne</td> -<td class="tdr2"><a href="#ii">13</a></td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="tdr">III.</td> -<td class="tdl smcap">The Quiet Room</td> -<td class="tdr2"><a href="#iii">23</a></td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="tdr">IV.</td> -<td class="tdl smcap">Anne and Anne</td> -<td class="tdr2"><a href="#iv">33</a></td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="tdr">V.</td> -<td class="tdl smcap">Small Furthering Breezes</td> -<td class="tdr2"><a href="#v">45</a></td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="tdr">VI.</td> -<td class="tdl smcap">“The Face That Lit the Fires,” etc.</td> -<td class="tdr2"><a href="#vi">56</a></td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="tdr">VII.</td> -<td class="tdl smcap">The Poet’s Corner</td> -<td class="tdr2"><a href="#vii">68</a></td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="tdr">VIII.</td> -<td class="tdl smcap">Candour</td> -<td class="tdr2"><a href="#viii">81</a></td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="tdr">IX.</td> -<td class="tdl smcap">Soundings</td> -<td class="tdr2"><a href="#ix">93</a></td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="tdr">X.</td> -<td class="tdl smcap">The Stray Page</td> -<td class="tdr2"><a href="#x">104</a></td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="tdr">XI.</td> -<td class="tdl smcap">Penitential</td> -<td class="tdr2"><a href="#xi">115</a></td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="tdr">XII.</td> -<td class="tdl smcap">Making Alive</td> -<td class="tdr2"><a href="#xii">127</a></td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="tdr">XIII.</td> -<td class="tdl smcap">The Ill Wind</td> -<td class="tdr2"><a href="#xiii">139</a></td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="tdr">XIV.</td> -<td class="tdl smcap">Adjustment</td> -<td class="tdr2"><a href="#xiv">150</a></td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="tdr">XV.</td> -<td class="tdl smcap">Opportunity</td> -<td class="tdr2"><a href="#xv">162</a></td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="tdr">XVI.</td> -<td class="tdl smcap">Revelation</td> -<td class="tdr2"><a href="#xvi">174</a></td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="tdr">XVII.</td> -<td class="tdl smcap">Honour</td> -<td class="tdr2"><a href="#xvii">187</a></td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="tdr"><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_viii"></a>viii</span> -XVIII.</td> -<td class="tdl smcap">Made in Heaven</td> -<td class="tdr2"><a href="#xviii">199</a></td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="tdr">XIX.</td> -<td class="tdl smcap">The End of the Play</td> -<td class="tdr2"><a href="#xix">210</a></td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="tdr">XX.</td> -<td class="tdl smcap">Richard</td> -<td class="tdr2"><a href="#xx">222</a></td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="tdr">XXI.</td> -<td class="tdl smcap">Wilberforce, the Painter</td> -<td class="tdr2"><a href="#xxi">235</a></td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="tdr">XXII.</td> -<td class="tdl smcap">Exits and Entrances</td> -<td class="tdr2"><a href="#xxii">248</a></td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="tdr">XXIII.</td> -<td class="tdl smcap">The Fall of the Curtain</td> -<td class="tdr2"><a href="#xxiii">261</a></td> -</tr> -</table> - - - - -<div class="chapter"> -<hr class="divider x-ebookmaker-drop" /> -<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_1"></a>1</span> -</div> -<p class="center p180">THE ANNES</p> - -<h2 id="i">CHAPTER I<br /> -<span>Little Anne’s Calling</span></h2> - - -<p class="noi"><span class="dropcap">T</span>HE thin child on the floor was completely engrossed in her occupation, -but she never gave fractional attention to anything. She rested on one -elbow, her weight on her hip, one long, slender leg crooked under her, -the other extended at length over the green carpet, the foot that ended -it dropping in and out of its flat-soled pump as it see-sawed from heel -to toe.</p> - -<p>Suddenly the child sat up, raised her elfin face, pushed back her -cropped dark hair from her dark, bright eyes with the back of a slender -hand somewhat grimy on its knuckles.</p> - -<p>“Mother, I know my vocation!” she announced.</p> - -<p>Her pretty mother, as fair and placid as little Anne was dark and -dynamic, bore this announcement calmly.</p> - -<p>“You must have your hair bobbed again, Anne,” she said. “What made you -think of vocations, dear? At seven there is time enough for that; few -vocations are decided quite so early.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, but I think it is nice to get it off your mind,” Anne said. “I’ve -been thinking about it for years, ever since Joan used to talk about -it, when she used to think maybe she ought to be a sister. And then -Antony came along, and she married him as<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_2"></a>2</span> quick! I’d hate to wiggle -around like that! So I’ve wondered a whole lot what my vocation was, -and now I know.”</p> - -<p>Anne paused for the question which her mother dutifully put to her:</p> - -<p>“Do you, dear? What is it?”</p> - -<p>“Putting things on their legs. This beetle needs it. He gets on his -back and kicks and kicks! It would melt a heart of stone. I turn him -over and he feels ever so much cheerfuller! He doesn’t stay right side -up; he tips over again, but I think maybe it’s partly the carpet. -Anyway, I’m right here to set him going again. Prob’ly if he was a bird -he’d sing to me, but poor black beetles haven’t any voice. Crickets -chirp, though; do you s’pose black beetles chirp when they are enjoying -themselves together?”</p> - -<p>Anne had dropped down again on her elbow, but she sat up again as a -hope for black beetles awakened in her.</p> - -<p>“I think not, Anne; I think they cannot voice their joy,” said Mrs. -Berkley, gravely.</p> - -<p>Anne sighed and lay out at full length on the floor.</p> - -<p>“I s’pose not. But maybe they go singing in their hearts—— Why, -Mother, that’s a hymn, isn’t it, mother? Is that a sin? I didn’t mean -it; honest to goodness, I never meant that hymn! Is it a sin, Mother?”</p> - -<p>Once more Anne was excitedly erect.</p> - -<p>“You have been told many times, Anne, that you cannot do wrong unless -you mean to, sin is choosing to do wrong when you know what is right,” -said this conscientious mother. “How did your beetle happen to be in -this room, Anne?”</p> - -<p>“I brought him in, Mother,” answered the child. “I turned him over out -of doors, but I wanted to sit down and watch him flop. I s’pose I do -upset him a little weeny bit sometimes! It’s a great temptation, but -then I’m right here to set him going again, and that’s my vocation.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_3"></a>3</span> -“It’s really a beautiful vocation, Anne,” said her mother. “To put -someone on his feet and help him to walk, only I wouldn’t confine it -altogether to black beetles.”</p> - -<p>“People?” asked Anne. “Figuravely? Don’t you mean that to be—— What -are those stories? You know! All-all glory, or something?”</p> - -<p>“Allegories. And figuratively, Anne. Yes, dear. It would be a beautiful -vocation to help people to walk, wouldn’t it? And it’s sure to be yours -if you’re a good woman, as I pray you will be. One way or another all -good women put people on their feet.”</p> - -<p>Mrs. Berkley hastily got her needle where it could do no harm, for she -saw what was coming.</p> - -<p>Anne scrambled to her feet, leaving her beetle on his back, vainly -imploring the ceiling with his many active legs. Big girl that she was -she threw herself upon her mother’s lap, and hugged her hard.</p> - -<p>“Like you, just for all the world, ’xactly like you, you most precious, -beautiful motherkins, Barbara Berkley!” Anne choked herself in choking -her mother. “You help everybody in this family on their feet, and -you just lead ’em right along! I wonder where’d I’d be if ’twasn’t -for you showing me lovely things? Just like black beetle allegories -this minute! My father, Peter Berkley, wouldn’t be hardly anything if -’twasn’t for you! You know yourself he’d never in this world remember -rubbers! And prob’ly he’d die of it. And Joan—well, what in the -world do you s’pose she’d do with the baby if she didn’t ask you? -And as to Peter-two——!” Words for once failed Anne. Her opinion of -her obstreperous fourteen-year-old brother was luckily deprived of -expression. He was surer of his own vocation than Anne was of hers; it -was clear to him that his calling in life was to suppress Anne.</p> - -<p>“Dear me, Anne-baby!” gasped Mrs. Berkley. “You have hugged me -breathless and my hair is coming down! Not that<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_4"></a>4</span> I am not glad that you -are satisfied with me as a mother, little Anne!”</p> - -<p>“Satisfied? Doesn’t that mean sort of getting-along-with-it?” asked -Anne, the student of words.</p> - -<p>“Oh, no. It means that a thing exactly suits you in every way,” -explained Mrs. Berkley.</p> - -<p>“Your hair isn’t coming down; it’s only rather loose. It’s prettiest -down, anyway; I’ll fix it,” said Anne. “Satisfied doesn’t sound like -that when people say it; they say it in a getting-along tone. When -Joan got that centrepiece from Antony’s Aunt Lil last Christmas she -said: ‛Oh, well, of course I’m <em>satisfied</em> with it!’ Like that! -’Cause she per-fect-ly <em>detests</em> Renaissance lace. And don’t you -remember Peter-two made that awful bad joke about it? He said it was -re-nuisance. <em>Nuisance</em>, you know, mother! Don’t you see? Because -Joan put it away to give someone else; that’s what made the <em>re</em> -part of the joke: an over-again nuisance, Mother! Joan said it was a -perfec’ly stupid joke; she said it was a pun. What makes me remember -bad jokes, Mother? I keep remembering Peter’s worst ones. Joan said -she was satisfied, but she means to give that centrepiece to someone -else; Joan <em>said</em> to Mr. Richard Latham, because he was blind, but -Joan didn’t mean it; Joan never means anything not kind, like that! -Now your hair isn’t loose, lovely motherkins! I see Joan coming in the -back way. She hasn’t brought Barbara—— Mercy me! I forgot my beetle -and Joan’ll step on him, kersmash! Joan would never see a beetle; she -goes along thinking of Antony Paul and Toots! I don’t blame her; that’s -the loveliest baby I ever in all my lifetime saw! And I always did -say Antony was ’most too good for Joan, if she is my sister. I never -expected in all my lifetime to have a brother-in-law who was half as -nice as Antony Paul—so there!”</p> - -<p>“Oh, Anne!” sighed Mrs. Berkley, her conscientious motherhood<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_5"></a>5</span> weighing -upon her. “My hair may not be loose, but what about your little red -tongue, my dear? I am afraid that Peter is right, and that we spoil -you, child!”</p> - -<p>“Oh, no, no, indeed, Mother!” Anne earnestly reassured her. “You bring -me up just right. You let me do about everything that isn’t wicked, -only just a weeny bit kind of not like every little girl, but if I -wanted a crime you wouldn’t let me have it, and you teach me noble -things—catechism and everything!”</p> - -<p>Mrs. Berkley laughed her soft inward, chuckling laugh, as she often did -at Anne’s speeches.</p> - -<p>“Such high-coloured words, little Anne! Fancy craving a crime!</p> - -<p>“Joan, dear, the baby must have let you sleep last night. You look -blooming, my daughter!”</p> - -<p>Mrs. Berkley arose to take into her arms a pretty young creature, all -soft tints like her mother—sweet, normal, and contented, not in any -way suggesting sisterhood to little Anne.</p> - -<p>“Oh, Mother, dearest,” Joan remonstrated in a voice that declared in -its first note that it was made to sing lullabies, “as though Barbara -were not always good now! For five months, since she passed her third -month, she has let me sleep from eleven till two, and Antony and I love -to have her waken before four because she is sweetest before dawn. -Antony says the truly poetical time to see a baby is at dawn—provided -you can get your eyes open to look! Antony is romantic; then he is -ashamed of it and pokes fun at himself! Anne, you monkey, why don’t you -come over to kiss me? And what <em>have</em> you in your hand?”</p> - -<p>“It’s my beetle, Joan,” said Anne, complying with her sister’s -request. “I am looking for a safe place for him, where he can get -on his legs himself when I am gone. It ought to be something with -kind of sticky walls. I don’t mean sticky-that-holds-you, but -sticky-that-can-be-stuck-to; that kind. If you don’t mind,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_6"></a>6</span> mother, -dear, I’ll stand your prayer book, and the Imitation, and these other -two little pious books around him, because they’re all bound in that -soft leather, like gloves, that makes you crawl, and I want him to -crawl. It won’t be sacredligious to use them, because it’s for charity, -and bowls are dreadfully slippery.”</p> - -<p>“Good gracious!” exclaimed Joan, staring, though she should have been -accustomed to Anne.</p> - -<p>“The beetle will be far happier out of doors, Anne,” said her mother. -“He will not enjoy walls, even of soft leather. Better let him go and -find another when you want to help a beetle on his legs. Anne has -discovered her vocation, Joan: it is helping beetles to their legs when -they are on their backs and can’t get up. I think that may quite easily -prove to be a prophecy of her career!”</p> - -<p>Joan laughed. “Heaven help the human beetle that wants to lie on his -back if Anne gets after him later on! She would make him walk, possibly -fly.”</p> - -<p>Anne had obediently carried the beetle out of doors and put him down -in the grass. He showed as lively pleasure in being released from her -ministrations as many another object of philanthropy would show if a -chance to get away were offered it. Anne watched it scuttle off and -returned to her family somewhat cast down.</p> - -<p>“He kept right side up all right, and went off just as fast!” she -announced. “I don’t think he acted one bit attached to me. Maybe -beetles aren’t. Maybe if you have a shell you don’t have a heart. That -wasn’t slang, Mother! I didn’t say it! Peter-two told me he’d fine me -if I said ‛have a heart,’ but I didn’t! Honest that wasn’t the same!”</p> - -<p>“No, dear, it wasn’t. That was science, not slang,” Joan comforted her.</p> - -<p>Anne went over and seated herself, cross-legged, in the deep<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_7"></a>7</span> window -seat. She fell into one of her meditative moods in which she was lost -to all around her. Active or contemplative, Anne was always at the -<em>nth</em> degree of her temporary condition.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Berkley and her older daughter dropped into the intimate talk -of a mother and daughter who are also close friends, sharing their -experiences of matronhood.</p> - -<p>At first Anne listened, wistful, feeling a little pushed aside. Joan -had been married less than two years. Anne could remember when she had -been to her pretty sister an enviable combination of her discarded -doll, her little sister, and the forerunner of the baby, though this -Joan herself, still less Anne, had not understood.</p> - -<p>This had been almost three years ago, before Antony Paul had come and -decided Joan against a convent, while she was still discussing her -vocation in terms which had imprinted themselves upon Anne’s memory. -Anne had not been her sister’s chief interest since she was four, so it -was not that which she missed as she sat in the window seat; it was her -mother’s divided interest that the little girl grudged.</p> - -<p>Anne’s dog, Cricket, an apprehensive, black-and-tan, bow-legged beagle, -came to sit close to his little mistress, snuggling his head backward -to beg for her hand. Anne pulled his soft ears and lost herself in -ill-assorted thoughts. At last she aroused; Joan was saying:</p> - -<p>“Mother, you don’t know men! Of course, there is Father; I must confess -you know him perfectly. It takes perfect knowledge to manage a man as -you manage him—and he never suspects it! Why, he even prefers to go -your way after a step or two in the other direction! But you do that -by being you, so sweet and gentle, and—and—well, always right, I -suppose! But men are not like father; he is so reasonable! Now Antony -is the dearest of dears, but I can’t say he is always reasonable. -Sometimes I simply cannot make him see things as I do. Then<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_8"></a>8</span> I give -in; it’s my duty. But I’m afraid there’s another side to it. I ought -to make him see. Especially now that I have Barbara to train. Antony -is so sweet I could get him to do anything if I cried, but that’s a -mean trick! A woman to play on a man’s chivalry! I’ve got to study, -strengthen my mind, you know! Men are much, much more childish than we -are, mother, yet they are fearful to argue with; they’re so horribly -logical. And of all things you can’t trust to bring you out in an -argument where you expected to land, logic is the worst!”</p> - -<p>Mrs. Berkley laughed her little amused laugh.</p> - -<p>“It even leads you astray in the construction of a sentence -apparently,” she said. “I never knew a young matron who did not think -that her study of her husband had revealed depths no other woman had -ever fathomed. But I assure you, Joan, men are far more alike than -women are. I have no doubt that by and by Antony will be led by you, -just as you think your father is led by me. But rest assured, my dear, -I don’t lead your father by logic!”</p> - -<p>Anne unwound herself and stretched her long, thin legs with a sigh.</p> - -<p>“I shall never get married,” she said. “I shall <em>not</em>! And it -cramps dreadfully to sit with your legs under you on such a hard seat. -I see Miss Anne Dallas. She is going to the post office, I s’pose; -she has a lot of letters and stuff. She’s going to mail them for Mr. -Latham, most likely. She looks as nice! I think queer blue dresses are -perfec’ly lovely. Kit Carrington has stopped her. He took off his hat -most graceful. It’s the way they do in stories, old stories, when it -was long ago, when they doff their hats. So did Kit Carrington. I never -knew how it was till now, but that’s what he did: doffed it. Look, -Mother. Like this.”</p> - -<p>Anne stood up and swept an imaginary hat to her side with a splendid -gesture, then let her head droop deferentially and<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_9"></a>9</span> struck a listening -pose. Then she straightened her lithe body and turned upon her mother -and sister an excited, glowing little face.</p> - -<p>“Well, I never knew Kit was in love with Anne Dallas till now!” she -cried.</p> - -<p>“Anne!” her mother remonstrated. “I really will not allow you to be so -impertinent. What a remark from a little girl like you! And <em>Kit</em>? -You mean Mr. Carrington, I suppose? Mr. Christopher Carrington? And -Miss Dallas? Do you?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, Mother,” said Anne, meekly. “I forgot. They all say Kit -Carrington; he’s so nice. That’s the reason, I s’pose, and young of his -age.”</p> - -<p>“He must be as much as twenty-three or four,” observed Joan.</p> - -<p>Then, inconsistently after her mother’s rebuke, after the manner of -older people with a precocious child like Anne, she asked:</p> - -<p>“What possessed you to say that Kit Carrington was in love with Anne -Dallas, child?”</p> - -<p>“I can see he is,” said little Anne, rejoicing in this opportunity to -continue the subject. “He got all red and he’s looking at her about -like Antony when you come in, Joan; this way.”</p> - -<p>Anne thrust forward her head, wreathed her mobile lips into a chastened -smile, and rolled her flashing dark eyes in what was meant for an -adoring expression. She instinctively heightened her effect by clasping -her hands, though Christopher Carrington had indulged in no gestures.</p> - -<p>“Anne, really, I dislike this exceedingly,” began her mother, but her -rebuke was spoiled by Joan’s flight to the window where she ensconced -herself behind the curtains to verify Anne’s report.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Berkley had a sense of humour that asserted itself at unsuitable -times. She chuckled now.</p> - -<p>“Sister Anne, Sister Anne, hast thou really espied Romance<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_10"></a>10</span> from -thy window?” she murmured. “Sister Anne, is thy report true of what -approaches? But, alas for <em>your</em> little sister Anne’s training, -Joan! I can’t join you; they would see me! What do you make out, Joan?”</p> - -<p>Joan waved her hand behind her back, signalling to her mother to let -her have Sister Anne’s watch tower undisturbed for a few moments.</p> - -<p>At last she turned away and came over to her mother, Anne with her; -Anne had been frankly watching the conversation in the street, -untrammelled by the handicap of adult years.</p> - -<p>“Well, of course, Mother, one can’t be sure of such a thing from across -the street, looking on at one chance meeting, but it does seem as -though our Anne’s keen eyes were not far wrong,” Joan announced. “Kit -has an air of profound admiration. I couldn’t say as to Anne Dallas; -you can’t tell much about a girl. I wonder! They’ve gone on now, in -opposite directions. What a handsome boy Kit is! So manly, carries -himself so well! He has the nicest smile I ever saw—except Antony’s! I -wonder, I do wonder!”</p> - -<p>“Anne is a dear girl,” said Mrs. Berkley. “If it were so—poor Richard -Latham!”</p> - -<p>“Oh, Mother, you don’t think——” began Joan.</p> - -<p>“Anne is a dear girl,” repeated her mother. “Do you suppose it is -likely that a lonely, hungry-hearted man like Richard Latham, sitting -in darkness all his days, could have such a girl as Anne beside him -constantly, writing his poems at his dictation, reading to him in her -soft, lovely voice, serving him in countless ways, and not learn to -love her? I’ve been hoping it would be so. For why should not Anne -Dallas love him? Blindness is rather attractive than forbidding to a -girl as sweetly compassionate as Anne. And to take at his dictation -his beautiful words, his exquisite fancies, to hear them first of all -the world, to come to feel, to know, that you inspired most of them, -to write them for<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_11"></a>11</span> him and be the medium through which the world knows -them—can you imagine better food for love?”</p> - -<p>“Well, now you say it,” admitted Joan, slowly. “But if this attractive -Kit, full of charm, young, does come wooing—I wonder! Poor Mr. Latham, -indeed!”</p> - -<p>“Perhaps we should say poor Miss Anne Carrington?” suggested Mrs. -Berkley. “Kit’s aunt would surely take the advent of Anne Dallas -hard. She is inordinately proud of Kit, ambitious for him. She has -intended him to marry Helen Abercrombie who is intemperately rich in -her own right, and is the only child of ex-Governor Abercrombie. Miss -Carrington had her here last summer, don’t you remember?”</p> - -<p>“With her car and other paraphernalia; of course!” agreed Joan. “Since -we are distributing pity, Motherums, we’d better shed some on Kit and -Anne, if they are interested in each other, for Miss Carrington would -certainly make the course of their true love run uncommonly rough! I -must go home to my daughter. Isn’t it thrilling to think that we may -have seen the curtain rise on an old-fashioned love drama, with a -rival, a stern parent—an aunt comes to the same thing when she holds -the hero’s inheritance—the princess whom the young lover should marry, -everything properly cast! Anne, you witch-child, you are an uncanny -elf! Good-bye, dear.”</p> - -<p>Joan kissed her mother and her sister and was gone.</p> - -<p>Anne stood scowling at the table cover, motionless for several minutes, -unseeing, lost in thought.</p> - -<p>“Anne, dear, what is it?” her mother aroused her.</p> - -<p>“I was thinking this was the most Annest town I ever saw: Miss Anne -Carrington, Anne Dallas, little Anne Berkley; prob’ly lots more,” -she said. “When I’m confirmed I’m going to take Ursula for my new -name, ’cause there isn’t one of them. Then you can call me that, so -everybody’ll know me apart.”</p> - -<p>“I can tell you apart, childie, this minute! Come here, little<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_12"></a>12</span> Anne, -and let me rock you, though your legs are uncomfortably long for this -low chair.” Mrs. Berkley held out her arms invitingly and Anne ran into -them.</p> - -<p>“Another thing I was thinking when you and Joan were talking about Mr. -Latham and Ki—Mr. Carrington—all wanting to marry her. I think we’re -not half sorry enough for all the trouble everybody makes God, all -wanting the same thing and praying about it! It must be awful to have -to say no to such lots of ’em! And He can’t say yes to more’n half when -there’s two, just even, you see. It makes me feel sorry for Him. Is -that a sin, Mother?” Anne lifted her head out of her mother’s shoulder -and gazed at her with profoundly sad eyes.</p> - -<p>Her mother kissed the lids down over those great dark eyes. Sometimes -her heart ached with fear of this strange child’s future. Then again -Anne was so reassuringly human that the pang of anxiety over her -unearthliness was swallowed up in anxiety of the opposite sort.</p> - -<p>So now Mrs. Berkley kissed down the lids over the meditative eyes and -murmured comfortingly:</p> - -<p>“Little Anne must remember that God knows best.”</p> - -<p>Anne sprang to her feet with a whoop that made her mother gasp.</p> - -<p>“Oh, yes, ’course!” she cried, swiftly disposing of theology for the -moment. “I hear Peter-two coming in. He promised to bring me elder -whistles for Cricket that’ll just about make him come, no matter where -he is, and if Peter-two hasn’t done it—— Well, he’ll catch it!”</p> - -<p>With which Anne rushed from the room. An instant later her mother’s -fear as to her son’s safety—if she felt any—was set at rest by a -whistle so shrill that it sent Cricket cowering under the sofa.</p> - - - - -<div class="chapter"> -<hr class="divider x-ebookmaker-drop" /> -<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_13"></a>13</span> -</div> - - -<h2 id="ii">CHAPTER II<br /> -<span>The Oldest Anne</span></h2> - -<p class="noi"><span class="dropcap">C</span>HRISTOPHER CARRINGTON threw the last third of his cigar into the -fireplace and watched it as it tumbled over the back log. The back log -made him think of his Aunt Anne, always there, always ready to be fired -by smaller sticks. He had been restlessly touring the room for fifteen -minutes, examining its ornaments, familiar to him from childhood, -hardly conscious that he was handling bits of frail loveliness that his -aunt never allowed other hands than her own to dust.</p> - -<p>Miss Anne Carrington had watched Kit’s adventures without comment, in -spite of the strain upon her nerves, eying him with keen suspicion, now -and then, giving him furtive glances that saw everything as she turned -the pages of her book.</p> - -<p>She was a tall woman, and thin, her hair was white, but her light -blue eyes were undimmed; her nose was long and decidedly arched; her -lips were settled into something that looked like a mocking smile. -She looked uncompromising, but not so much so as she was; she looked -intelligent and clever, but not as clever as she was.</p> - -<p>She sat in a straight chair, a dignified old model, with her feet -resting on a small stool. At her side stood the table that held her -reading lamp; it was laden with books in French and English. Many of -them lay open, face down, for Miss Carrington kept her books to serve -her, and did not weigh their welfare against her convenience.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_14"></a>14</span> -Her nephew, Christopher, was not only her nearest of kin, but her -only kin near enough to consider as such. He was so dear to her, and -in him her ambition had so concentrated, that existence under her -domain had not been easy to him since he had passed the years when she -could gratify all his desires by buying him the best sport trappings, -outfits, horses, and boats that a spoiled lad could own. This Miss -Carrington had done, and yet Kit was so little spoiled by these -luxuries that his will was in danger of running counter to his aunt’s -ambition for him.</p> - -<p>At last Miss Carrington laid her book across her knee and watched Kit’s -movements, frankly inviting confidence. Becoming conscious of this, he -brought himself up with his elbow on the mantel and, turning toward -her, said in that big, cheery voice of his that the old lady never -could hear without thrilling to it:</p> - -<p>“I beg your pardon, Aunt Anne! Do I give you the willies doing the -zoo-tiger act like this?”</p> - -<p>“I don’t know their Christian name—though why jungle ways should have -a Christian name I don’t see—but if irritated nerves are willies, -then, yes, you give them to me,” said his aunt.</p> - -<p>She spoke in a light, slightly acrid voice, her syllables articulated -like Italian.</p> - -<p>Kit laughed.</p> - -<p>“Nice Aunt Anne!” he approved her, impersonally. “You always sit on a -chap in a delightful way. I’ll be seated, thanks.”</p> - -<p>He dropped into the deep chair on the right of the fireplace, -stretching out to his great length. But Miss Carrington saw that he at -once possessed himself of the tongs and began to open and shut them in -a way as tiresome as his roaming had been.</p> - -<p>Kit nervous? This hearty, athletic lad fidgeting? Miss Carrington -wondered what was on his mind. Being clever she set out to discover -indirectly. She had heard a suggestion that she loathed; it had come -from Minerva, her maid, and Minerva, true to her name, was, as a rule, -right.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_15"></a>15</span> -Miss Carrington closed her book, first noting the page number, for -she scorned bookmarks, laid it on the table, and picked up the latest -number of a newspaper supplement devoted to book news.</p> - -<p>“Here’s a discussion of Richard Latham’s verse and essays, Kit,” -she said. “Quite well done, discriminating, yet laudatory. The -reviewer—it’s not signed—considers him an artist who sends out -nothing unworthy, who greatly rejoices those of fine perception, -consequently the few, yet these to an extent that should compensate him -for the smallness of his audience. Really it is praise worth having! -I don’t know Richard Latham as I should. I sent Minerva off after I’d -read this to buy everything he has published. Cleavedge had only one -volume, the one I already owned! So I sent her again to telephone New -York, to tell Brentano’s to send me Latham complete. That is the honour -of a prophet in his own country!”</p> - -<p>Kit smiled. His aunt would not have a telephone in her house, but she -was constantly sending Minerva to telephone a message from the near-by -drug store.</p> - -<p>“And what of it?” Miss Carrington would defend herself. “Is sending -Minerva seven times seventy trips a day equal to one’s being on the -ragged edge, dreading to be called at any hour?”</p> - -<p>Now Kit smiled at his aunt, as she awaited his reply, and said:</p> - -<p>“I’m not up in Mr. Latham’s work myself, Aunt Anne. But then I’m far -down in lots of poets.”</p> - -<p>“We’ll hope you will come to them,” returned his aunt. “From this -review it appears that we should be immensely proud of Latham; by and -by, apparently, pilgrims will come to Cleavedge to pick leaves from -the ivy on his wall. Has he a wall? And ivy? Someone, it seems, wrote -Richard Latham lately to ask for the genesis of one of his poems, also -‛what he meant by’ a certain stanza. That is true greatness, Kit; to -get<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_16"></a>16</span> inquiries as to the meaning of a poem! There is a letter published -here, setting the anxious correspondent at rest. It speaks with -authority for Mr. Latham, but is not written by him. It is not badly -expressed, rather a nice letter. Signed A. D. I wonder what that stands -for—when it isn’t Anno Domini?”</p> - -<p>All this long talk about Richard Latham to lead up casually to this -question! And so casually reached that Kit never suspected!</p> - -<p>He blushed slightly, as Miss Carrington noted, but he answered with his -jolly laugh:</p> - -<p>“It stands for something that sounds a good deal the same, but is -different enough, Aunt Anne. It stands for Anne Dallas, I suppose; -she’s Richard Latham’s secretary.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, does it? To be sure, he would have a secretary. Pity he is blind! -And the secretary would be able to write a good letter. It’s not -remarkable; clear, intelligent, a good letter. His secretary must need -patience—and no other interests. I suppose he might be more likely -to get that in a woman, but I should want a man. However, he can get -a woman sufficiently trained for his requirements at a lower salary -than a man’s. Anne Dallas, you said? Not a Cleavedge name. Where did -he find her? I hope she doesn’t annoy him, but if she is ugly he can’t -see it! It would be horrible to a poet to have an ugly woman under his -beauty-loving eyes all day, week in, week out. I wonder—but of course -you don’t know, you don’t visit Mr. Latham. She can’t be a Cleavedge -woman, I should think?”</p> - -<p>Miss Carrington talked on lightly, not overdoing her carelessness, but -with a voice silvery and indifferent. She watched Kit as she talked and -saw him redden, trying boyishly to appear at ease.</p> - -<p>“She isn’t a Cleavedge girl; she came from Connecticut, Aunt Anne,” Kit -said.</p> - -<p>“That’s a state I like!” Miss Carrington approved, heartily.<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_17"></a>17</span> “It’s -odd—kindly, too—the present fashion of calling unattached women -girls. The letter sounded mature. I suppose it is because she is -earning her living that you speak of her as a girl. Is she a widow? -Didn’t—no; you didn’t call her Miss Dallas.”</p> - -<p>“Good gracious, no; she isn’t a widow!” cried Kit, and instantly -regretted his vehemence, for his aunt raised her eyebrows. “Miss Dallas -is young; she is a girl, a girl with a lot of girlhood in her; the kind -they used to call ‛maidenly,’ you know,” Kit continued.</p> - -<p>“I suppose you are forced to speak of maidenly as an obsolete term, -Kit, my dear, because what it stood for is out of fashion,” observed -Miss Carrington. She had found out all that she wanted to know for this -time and was too wise to pursue the subject.</p> - -<p>“Of course I don’t for an instant mean that girls are at heart -less maidenly. That is a quality necessary to every generation, if -civilization is to continue. But the outward and visible sign of that -special inward grace is not worn as it was. I confess to regretting -it. I claim to be modern, but it really was in beautiful good -taste. I suppose a few exceedingly well-bred girls will retain that -efflorescence to the end of the chapter, but the present fashion gives -such horrible scope to bad taste! I found Helen Abercrombie refreshing -last summer when she visited us. There’s a well-bred girl!”</p> - -<p>“But hardly maidenly,” Kit could not refrain from saying, though he -knew that it was indiscreet. “Miss Abercrombie is a finished product, -of course, but she’s too—too—— Oh, well, you know, Aunt Anne! -You’re an analyst of the first water! Too finished a product and -up-to-the-minute, too architectural to be maidenly.”</p> - -<p>“Christopher,” said his aunt, “there is no use whatever in ostrich-talk -between us when it comes to Helen Abercrombie! You know as well as I do -what is my hope for you in regard to<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_18"></a>18</span> her. To beat about the bush is to -talk as an ostrich is supposed to behave: you’d see my transparently -covered outlines. In so many words, then, I want you to marry Helen. -I’m glad that is said.” Miss Carrington threw herself against her chair -back and looked steadily at Kit.</p> - -<p>“Aunt!” Kit drew in his breath sharply, protesting.</p> - -<p>“And guardian,” his aunt reminded him.</p> - -<p>Kit flushed angrily; it was true that his prospects in life depended -upon his aunt’s favour.</p> - -<p>“It doesn’t seem decent to discuss it,” Kit said. “As if I’d nothing to -do but decide to beckon Helen.”</p> - -<p>“Between ourselves, Kit, I think Helen has already made the first -signals,” said Miss Carrington. “The woman usually does; Thackeray and -George Bernard Shaw are right. I should be sorry to see you giving -yourself the airs of a conqueror, but as an honest working basis -between us we may as well admit the truth that Helen is of the same -mind as Barkis.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, Lord!” groaned Kit, helplessly. “I’m not in the least in love with -her, Aunt Anne. I never could be.”</p> - -<p>“No,” admitted Miss Carrington, judicially, “you are not. I think quite -likely you never would be. I don’t recall asking you to be, my dear -boy.”</p> - -<p>Kit looked at her, his honest, rebellious young soul in his eyes.</p> - -<p>“Christopher Carrington, listen to me with your intelligence, not -merely with your ears,” began Miss Carrington, bracing herself to -her task. “I rather like your feeling, which your silence announces -more eloquently than words, as novelists say. Youth is the time for -dreams. It is for its elders to see to it that the dreams do not become -nightmares. I want, I urge you to marry Helen Abercrombie because she -is preëminently suitable. She is of our class; she is handsome, highly -accomplished, wealthy. She is a woman to help on a man’s career. Not -only that, but she has it in her power to launch a man on his career. -Her<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_19"></a>19</span> father was the best governor this state ever had. He will be -nominated and reëlected this coming year. He is certain to have an -important portfolio in a not-far-distant cabinet; it is more than -likely that he will be his party’s presidential candidate next time. -And that party is going in next time; heaven knows the country has had -enough of the muddle of the past years at the other party’s hands! -As Governor Abercrombie’s son-in-law you would be secure of a good -diplomatic appointment. And there is nothing like such an experience to -make a man, Kit! It would give you what nothing else could of dignity, -of <i xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">savoir faire</i>. I will not allow you to turn aside from such -opportunity. Then, if the not unlikely sequence follows, as President -Abercrombie’s son-in-law——”</p> - -<p>Miss Carrington shrugged her shoulders with an outward gesture of her -open palms that ended her sentence for her eloquently, a trick that she -had learned in her own long years abroad. A bright red spot burned in -each cheek and her guarded eyes gleamed with the fire of ambition. Kit -stared at her; she rarely revealed herself to this extent. He cried: -“Aunt Anne, that’s all very fine, but would you have me marry a woman -whom I did not love for ignoble, selfish motives?”</p> - -<p>“Ignoble!” cried his aunt, sharply. “Do you call ambitions such as any -manly man would leap toward, ignoble? Why, what else is there in life -but its prizes? The bigger the better, but prizes at least. Selfish, -yes! Who isn’t selfish? Children are frightened by words, not men. Of -course you’re selfish. But if you enjoy beclouding your conscience -tell yourself you’ll use your attainment unselfishly. You won’t, but -many better, cleverer men than you, my little Christopher, befuddle -themselves with pretty terms. In the meantime win, win, win your ends! -Let me tell you, Kit, that there’s more sensible unselfishness in -marrying for prudence than for romance: the result of that endures!”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_20"></a>20</span> -Kit looked at his aunt with genuine pity. He knew that her ambition for -him represented all that was in her of ideals, of love. A remembrance -of Major Pendennis and young Arthur flitted across his mind; he pitied -his aunt, but he feared lest one day he might pity himself.</p> - -<p>“You don’t know, Aunt Anne,” he said, gently. “It must be frightful to -be married to someone whom you can’t love. In the marriage you urge -upon me there would be neither love nor respect; I should not love my -wife, nor respect myself. You can’t realize it, Aunt Anne.”</p> - -<p>“Bless the child!” cried Miss Carrington with a laugh. “Does he imagine -himself at twenty-four wiser than a worldly old woman of sixty-eight? -You mean that I can’t realize your bugaboo situation because I didn’t -marry. But I was to marry once! Another woman stole my husband. There -was excuse for her according to you, for I was going to marry him for -ambition, and she loved him madly. I remained their friend, and I saw -my vengeance. They were wretchedly unhappy, while I, with my ambition -answering to his, would have crowned him.”</p> - -<p>Miss Carrington arose and drew herself up to her full height, which was -equal to Kit’s. Her narrow slipper of black silk, simply bound, without -an ornament, dropped off as she arose. Kit sprang to put it on for her. -She leaned on his shoulder and watched him fit the slipper on her foot. -She was inordinately proud of her long, narrow feet, and never adorned -their apparel.</p> - -<p>“You see, my boy, I practise what I preach; I have ample space to -stand in. Learn from the parable of the loose slipper and do not cramp -your foundations.” She leaned forward to smile into Kit’s face, almost -coquettishly.</p> - -<p>“My fine lad,” she resumed, “gratify your aunt, who is almost your -mother, and make your life what marriage with Helen Abercrombie will -let you make it. Trust me, Kit, as a wise woman who knows her world. -It will never do to face it wearing<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_21"></a>21</span> rose-coloured glasses. ‛Render to -Caesar the things that are Caesar’s,’ and it is my experience that you -need not bother about the other part of your rendering. God is sure to -take the things that are God’s Himself; you need not render them. They -are vital things, too, my dear; your strength, your health, your youth, -at last your life. Make sure of all that you can get; it is not too -much.”</p> - -<p>Kit stood with hanging head, her arm over his shoulders. He was -distressed. Never had his aunt betrayed herself to him as now, and -the vision of her destitution shocked his manhood, his ideals, his -conscience. To have lived almost to her three score and ten, to be -so clever, so strong, yet to have garnered no wheat, but only bright -pebbles!</p> - -<p>“Well, Kit,” Miss Carrington said, altering her tone and withdrawing -her arm as she turned to leave him, “I’ll not ask for your answer now; -in fact, I don’t want you to answer yet. But I beg you to remember -that I implore you to marry Helen Abercrombie, and to marry soon. You -are precisely the sort of boy who falls in love and makes a hopeless -mess of his life from the loftiest plane of boundless idiocy. You -were always quixotically lovable. I’m ready to admit that it is most -charming in a boy, my dear, but it is fatal to a man. So listen to your -doting aunt, and on your life do not disobey her! What are you going to -do while I take my siesta?”</p> - -<p>Kit felt, as his aunt meant him to feel it, the veiled threat in her -warning, but he answered her question:</p> - -<p>“I told young Peter Berkley that I’d give him my collection of postage -stamps if he’d come around. I’m looking for him any minute.”</p> - -<p>“That is nice little Mrs. Peter Berkley’s boy? The brother of my -extraordinary namesake, little Anne? She is Methuselette on one side -and an innocent baby on the other. I could greatly enjoy cultivating -little Anne Berkley’s acquaintance,”<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_22"></a>22</span> said Miss Carrington. “I -complained of difficulty in threading a needle the other day—it was -the sewing afternoon at the hospital, an occasion which I grace, but -hardly serve—and Mrs. Berkley had brought Anne to thread needles for -us. That small elf changeling urged me to make a pilgrimage to Beaupré -to get my sight restored, because, forsooth, my name being ‛Anne’ the -good Saint Anne would be likely to help me! The mother is a remarkably -nice, genuine person; pity she’s so <em>devote</em>!”</p> - -<p>“Oh, I don’t know,” murmured Kit. “It seems to suit the Berkleys.”</p> - -<p>“That’s true. And of course if one is going in for that sort of thing -the only possible logic lies in the Old Way. I can see consistency in -being <em>Other</em> Worldly, but to be unworldly, my boy, is, as I’ve -been eloquently telling you, utter nonsense,” said Miss Carrington, -graciously. “I’ll go up now and get Minerva to read me into a nap. Tell -young Peter to come another time and bring that clever, queer little -sister of his, will you? Anne Berkley and Anne Carrington are far -enough apart in years and views to become cronies.”</p> - -<p>Miss Carrington stepped back and gathered up an embroidered shawl -of Chinese silk which had slipped into a tiny roll at the back of -her chair. She hung it over her arm; its long fringe and heavily -embroidered flowers brushed Kit’s hand as he held the door open for -her to pass through it. He returned to the fireplace and leaned upon -the mantel, waiting for young Peter with a heaviness of heart unlike -himself.</p> - -<p>“A pilgrimage to gain her sight!” thought Kit. “Little Anne’s advice -was not half bad. She would not agree to all this; she is as untainted -by the world as a blossom in an old-time garden!”</p> - -<p>The smile that made his rugged young face so gentle showed that the -“she” of this encomium was not little Anne Berkley.</p> - - - - -<div class="chapter"> -<hr class="divider x-ebookmaker-drop" /> -<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_23"></a>23</span> -</div> - - -<h2 id="iii">CHAPTER III<br /> -<span>The Quiet Room</span></h2> - -<p class="noi"><span class="dropcap">C</span>LEAVEDGE had received its name from the steep sides of the river which -cleft its rocky bank formation. It may have been a misapprehension of -a word—strangers spelt it “Cleavage” till they learned better—or the -settlers who christened it may have meant to embody in the word the -picturesque cleft edges of the cliffs. Cleavedge, with its misspelling, -it remained through the growth of the village into a prosperous little -city.</p> - -<p>Richard Latham lived in a shady street not much disturbed by traffic. -Several other streets ran in the same direction, leading more directly -to wherever any one would be likely to go, so Latham Street was not -greatly disturbed by footfalls, either. The street had been lately -rechristened; Cleavedge was beginning to be aware of its celebrity.</p> - -<p>In the beautifully proportioned living room of a house that entertained -too few guests to require a drawing room the poet passed his days. It -was a room built around with bookshelves uncrowded by furniture; its -warm-tinted, drabbish walls hung with fine pictures and lighted by -lovely gleams of colour in the pottery that occasionally broke the long -stretches of the dull oiled wood of the bookcase tops. It was a man’s -room, without curtains, or anything meaningless; a room of perfect -beauty, inexpressibly soothing. It possessed a sort of visible silence, -the silence of the woods; it was a place in which to think and to feel, -rather than to act. At one end stood the piano which alone<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_24"></a>24</span> suggested -sound, but to one who had heard Richard Latham play it emphasized the -harmony.</p> - -<p>At the desk, alone in the room, sat a young girl—Anne Dallas. Here she -prepared her notes and carried them away to write them out where the -clatter of a typewriter could not penetrate this room.</p> - -<p>All soft browns was this Anne, hair, eyes, even the tint of her -beautiful skin, warmly pale, clear, but of a shade that suggested a page -that had lain under the sun’s rays.</p> - -<p>Her hair covered her shapely head across the back from crown to neck, -from ear to ear; she wore it parted and coiled in the only way its -masses allowed her to treat it. There was no attempt at coquetry in the -simplicity of her dress, yet no carefully thought out costume could -have more perfectly adorned her, nor made her more harmonious to the -room, for girl and room were each a foil to the other.</p> - -<p>She wrote rapidly, happily humming to herself a slight air that did not -get in the way of her thoughts; she smiled as she followed the balanced -phrases in which Richard Latham had developed an idea that demanded -the best of the language. It was said that Latham used English as no -American now used it, that he was the master of a style that could not -be taught.</p> - -<p>He came into the room as Anne Dallas began another page of her copy.</p> - -<p>She rose to greet him, but did not move toward him. She had learned -that he liked to go about without anything to remind him of his -misfortune. He knew every inch of this room perfectly, literally by -heart, for he had himself designed it before he had been stricken. He -often went straight to the right shelf and laid his hand upon the book -that he wanted.</p> - -<p>“Good morning, Miss Dallas,” he said. “‛Richard and Robin were two lazy -men!’ I’ll warrant that’s what you were thinking,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_25"></a>25</span> and that Richard had -not cured himself of ‛lying in bed till the clock struck ten.’”</p> - -<p>“More likely you were tramping before the clock struck five!” cried -Anne.</p> - -<p>“That’s nearer the mark than your rash judgment and condemnation of me -by a text from Mother Goose!” said Richard Latham, throwing himself -appreciatively into his comfortable chair. “I was out at six and I’m -nicely tired, just enough tired to want to cut work. Besides, you -extracted from me yesterday everything I have to say on every known -subject! I shall have to wait to fill up from whatever the sources are -that supply ideas. You’re a frightful person for getting a poor fellow -going and keeping him at it till you’ve got all his brains down in -funny little cabalistic signs. Then the next day you write out pages -and swear the utterances that fill me with awe were hidden under those -inky wriggles! I don’t believe it! You insist the inky-wriggles wisdom -is mine. Stuff and nonsense! Why, I don’t know a fraction of what -you say I dictate to you! It’s uncanny. The only thing that I don’t -understand, and which gives a tint of colour to your statement, is that -I’ve no brains left after one of those frightful days when you wind me -up—like yesterday! It’s all curious. Still more so that by to-morrow -you’ll wind me up again, and so on, <i xml:lang="it" lang="it">da capo</i>. But not to-day, -Miss Thaumaturga! Not a bit of work shall you get out of me to-day, not -the least preposition for you to set down in a dash or a dot!”</p> - -<p>“Very well, Mr. Latham,” laughed Anne, resuming her seat and taking -up her pen. “I have quite enough to do to write out what you gave me -yesterday. It was a particularly productive day. You are right. Perhaps -I shall ask you to listen to what I have when it is written. That will -not be till well after lunch; shall you be ready then for me, do you -think?”</p> - -<p>“No,” said Richard Latham, promptly. “I shall not be.<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_26"></a>26</span> Please put down -that pen, which I’m sure you’ve taken up, and put down with it all -thought of work. Unless reading aloud is work? Is it hard for you to -read to me? You always assure me that you don’t mind it, but I’m afraid -you may. I don’t want to be troublesome. To-day I’d like to cut work -and be read to. It is quite true that I’ve brain fag, and that you did -wind me up to a frightful speed yesterday. I’m conscious that it is -you who do it; I wonder how? It’s precisely as if you at once put into -me and took out again what would never be in my brain if you didn’t do -this. Are you the poet and not I, after all?”</p> - -<p>“Hardly,” said Anne, smiling, with the woman’s instinct to mask the -trouble that vaguely stirred in her, although this man could not see -her face. “I am industrious, but not gifted. If I’ve any part in it, I -suppose it is because you feel my delight in what you are creating, and -that unconsciously urges you on. I suspect it’s no more than the simple -thing we call genius, and that it takes it out of you to ride Pegasus.”</p> - -<p>Richard Latham kept his blind eyes turned steadily toward her as if he -could see her and would fathom the mystery. He shook his head. “That -isn’t it,” he said, slowly. “There is something about you that makes me -do my best, and more than my own best. I had other people before you -came to help me, and it was a regular grind. No grind with you to start -me off and hold me to it, you quiet wonder-worker! But you didn’t tell -me; do you mind reading to me to-day? I don’t want to be troublesome.”</p> - -<p>He repeated the words with a wistful note in his voice that made Anne -spring to her feet and cross to a chair near him. She clasped her hands -in her lap, her face sweet with pity. She could not endure it that this -man, whose genius she followed breathlessly, should fear to burden -others. It stabbed her to know that he never could escape this fear.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_27"></a>27</span> -“Ah, Mr. Latham,” she said, and she did not know how her voice caressed -him, nor how he at once leaped to meet the caress and shrank from that -pitiful thing, pity, which may be akin to love, but which is to a lover -but a bastard kin that usurps love’s throne, “don’t you know that the -hours in which I read to you are delightful to me? Try to imagine what -I get from them, with you to supplement what I read! I never tire -reading, but——” Anne got no farther. Richard Latham started up with -an exclamation, then dropped back into his -<ins id="chair" title="Original has 'chiar'">chair</ins>.</p> - -<p>“But you would read whether you like it or not, you started to say, -then remembered that I might not want to hear it! You would serve me in -any way that you could, out of your great, womanly compassion? I know -it, oh, I know it, Anne Dallas! I am grateful; don’t think I’m not. -It’s a big thing to have lavished upon me. I’m glad that at least you -don’t think of your help to me as secretarial duty.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, Mr. Latham, if you don’t want to be hurt, then don’t hurt me!” -cried Anne, shrinking.</p> - -<p>“Forgive me,” said Latham, humbly.</p> - -<p>He bent forward and took her hand, not fumbling for it, knowing -precisely where it lay, Anne noticed, wondering.</p> - -<p>“That was a cowardly, contemptible speech! I believe I wanted to hurt -you! There is a confession, and it amazes me as much as it can you -that it is true. I told you that I was tired to-day; it’s nerves. Set -it down to nerves, won’t you? That sounds like a sneaking plea for -mercy, but I don’t mean it that way. You’d rather it were my nerves -than myself that were unkind? It would be such a beastly thing to want -to hurt you of all people! Confession deserves absolution when it is -sincere and contrite, doesn’t it?”</p> - -<p>“No. It makes it unnecessary,” said Anne, softly. She was glad that he -could not see the tears in her eyes. Never before had this brave and -gentle soul betrayed to her the effort that<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_28"></a>28</span> it cost him to be and to -do without complaint all that he was and did.</p> - -<p>“Kind little Shriver!” said Richard Latham, pressing the hand that held -his tighter than Anne knew.</p> - -<p>Then he laid it back beside its mate in her lap and arose, laughing.</p> - -<p>“It will never do for me to be neurasthenic as well as blind,” he said, -cheerfully. “I suspect I’m staying indoors too much; a man should go -hay-making—when the sun shines! I’ll fetch the book I have in mind for -to-day’s reading—unless you have something you’d prefer?”</p> - -<p>He stepped quickly across the room, went to the poetry shelves, -stooped, and took from the middle shelf a volume which he slapped on -his left hand, brushed it across the top, and brought it to Anne.</p> - -<p>“Suit you? Are you in the mood for it?” he asked.</p> - -<p>It was Dante in the prose translation. Anne looked at it and smiled up -at him.</p> - -<p>“Just in the mood for it,” she said. “But I’d like to read the -‛Paradise’—or would you rather ‛begin at the beginning,’ as children -say?”</p> - -<p>“No, indeed, I’d rather hear ‛Paradise’ myself,” Richard Latham said, -and resumed his chair, pulling his smoking table up to it.</p> - -<p>“It’s your one secretarial fault, Miss Dallas: you are not a linguist. -I’ve a fine old tooled copy of Dante, Italian. I’d like to teach you -Italian. I lived over there a good while. Perhaps we may take up——”</p> - -<p>He broke off sharply. “I beg your pardon, Miss Dallas; I’m delaying -you.”</p> - -<p>Anne opened the volume, once more hurt and puzzled. Richard Latham was -always so equable, so friendly toward her that she could not understand -this new mood. The tone of his<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_29"></a>29</span> last words relegated her to the -unbridgable distance of his hired secretary.</p> - -<p>Anne began to read at the third book, the “Paradise.” Her voice was -troubled at first, but Richard smoked rapidly, apparently unconscious -of it, he whose ear was ordinarily quick to hear a note of fatigue in -her voice.</p> - -<p>Anne loved beauty, and in a few moments she had forgotten herself in -Dante’s vision; a little longer and she forgot her listener, which was -far more. She read on and on until at last Richard put out his hand to -check her.</p> - -<p>“You are thirsty,” he said in the old gentle way to which Anne was -accustomed. “And it is one o’clock. The sun is around on the other -side; that means past noon. We shall not lunch till two to-day; I told -Stetson to have a carriage here at three. We are going to have a real -holiday, you and I. Stetson is of the party in case I feel like walking -in unfamiliar places and need his arm. So put up your book and rest -till luncheon.”</p> - -<p>“How delightful, Mr. Latham!” cried Anne. “I rarely drive.”</p> - -<p>“You are a little girl still, my helpful secretary! How old did you -tell me you were?” Richard asked, well-pleased by her pleasure.</p> - -<p>Anne arose and dropped a curtsy. Richard felt the motion of her swaying -body and laughed at her.</p> - -<p>“I am twenty-two, please, sir!” she said in a thin treble. “But I hope -to be more.”</p> - -<p>“Since you can’t be less?” Richard suggested. “Perhaps you can’t be -more, either, in another sense? At least you are a good child, and -I’m grateful to you. What nice times we have in this rather nice room -which I made once upon a time and still enjoy almost as if I saw it! -I’m glad that we have long days to ourselves and don’t suffer many -interruptions. Yes, Stetson, want<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_30"></a>30</span> me?” he added as his man put his -head into the doorway, knocking on the casement as he did so.</p> - -<p>“Little Miss Berkley is here, sir, little Anne Berkley. And young Mr. -Carrington—though for that matter the only Mr. Carrington—to see you, -Mr. Latham,” he said.</p> - -<p>“Bring them in here, Stetson,” said Richard Latham, rising and passing -his hand over the back of his head which he had been indulging in a -pleasant friction against the back of his chair.</p> - -<p>“Please, Miss Dallas, am I too badly rumpled? Miss Anne Berkley is a -critical though dear friend of mine.”</p> - -<p>“No, not badly rumpled,” returned Anne. Her cheeks were red and her -eyes had brightened at the announcement of these visitors.</p> - -<p>Stetson returned with them. Little Anne was freshly, beautifully -groomed. She precipitated herself upon Richard Latham with a cry of -joy, as if she had not been sure of finding him unchanged.</p> - -<p>“I’ve not seen you in ages, and I certainly am glad I came!” she cried.</p> - -<p>“Thank you, my dear; I echo your sentiments, with the added interest of -five times your years,” said Richard, shaking her hand, earnestly.</p> - -<p>“No, you don’t love people better because you’re the oldest, do you?” -Little Anne corrected him. Then she remembered her duty.</p> - -<p>“I brought my friend Kit—Mr. Christopher Carrington, to see you.” She -turned, but Kit was talking to Anne Dallas and for an instant little -Anne stared, recalling what she had forgotten.</p> - -<p>“Well, to think I never remembered!” she gasped. “This is him,” she -added, her customary English deserting her under the stress of emotion.</p> - -<p>“This is Kit, Mr. Latham. He thought he’d like to know you on account -of your works, only I guess——”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_31"></a>31</span> -She checked herself; Anne was a discreet child, and sympathetic.</p> - -<p>“Glad to see you, Mr. Carrington,” said Richard Latham, heartily, using -a verb that did not seem inappropriate to him. “I know your aunt, Miss -Carrington. She is a clever woman, most interesting.”</p> - -<p>“She is a wonder, is Aunt Anne,” agreed Kit. “She would have brought me -here, but I met little Anne and availed myself of her friendly offices.”</p> - -<p>“Even your aunt is not a better social sponsor than Miss Berkley,” said -Richard Latham, bowing to little Anne. “The important thing is that -you have come. I’ve an idea! We are going for a long, and, I hope, -delightful drive into the country after lunch, which will be at two; -Miss Dallas and I were going to take my man Stetson, because a blind -man may easily need the help of a strong arm in exploring. I’m sure -I can persuade little Anne to go. She’s fond of her namesake, Miss -Dallas. What about it, Anne? Will you go if I telephone to your mother -and get her consent?”</p> - -<p>Little Anne clasped her hands upon her thin little chest.</p> - -<p>“I think it would be so deliciously wonderful-joyful that I’d never, -never forget it if Mother would say yes!” she cried, passionately.</p> - -<p>“Bad as that, superlative little Anne?” laughed Richard.</p> - -<p>“Mr. Carrington, if you will lunch with me and go on the drive, and -would be so kind as to give me a hand over a stile, or whatever lay in -my path, I’ll gladly drop Stetson out of the party. Will you do this?”</p> - -<p>“You are awfully kind, Mr. Latham,” said Kit, gratefully. He glanced at -Anne Dallas, but she did not meet his eyes. She was looking intently at -Richard Latham, and it seemed to Kit that her expression was unhappy.</p> - -<p>“I’m only too glad to go, thank you,” Kit went on. “I<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_32"></a>32</span> wonder if I may -use your telephone? Aunt Anne will be expecting me to lunch. She won’t -have a telephone in the house, but I can call the druggist and get him -to send his boy around with a message. Aunt Anne has ways all her own!”</p> - -<p>“I can imagine it. My telephone is in the hall; Miss Dallas will show -you where. And will you call Mrs. Berkley, Miss Dallas, and get her -consent to kidnapping her child?” Mr. Latham smiled at little Anne. -Little Anne clasped her hands in her own dramatic gesture.</p> - -<p>“Oh, dear, dear, dearest Miss Dallas, please let me call Mother myself! -I don’t get many chances to telephone, and I love, just <em>love</em> -to do it! And I want to tell mother my own self what a great, great -thing has happened to me. You said a carriage, didn’t you, Mr. Latham? -It’s pretty nearly always a car. I’m not quite, perfec’ly certain I -ever’ve rode—roden—I mean ridden in a carriage. I’ve rode—ridden—in -the grocer’s wagon, but I can’t remember a carriage. I’d love to tell -mother. And with a real poet! Would you mind, Miss Anne Dallas, if I -did it myself?”</p> - -<p>“Bless your funny little heart, Anne, of course I shouldn’t mind!” -cried Anne Dallas. “Come, both guests!”</p> - -<p>Richard Latham, left behind, stood quietly waiting, unconsciously -listening to the telephone jingle, to Kit’s strong voice, to little -Anne’s excited piping.</p> - -<p>Suddenly and unreasonably he felt old and alone. He was not old, but he -was alone, and around him in the beautiful room that he had made, with -its spacious calm, its books, its pictures, was complete darkness.</p> - - - - -<div class="chapter"> -<hr class="divider x-ebookmaker-drop" /> -<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_33"></a>33</span> -</div> - - -<h2 id="iv">CHAPTER IV<br /> -<span>Anne and Anne</span></h2> - -<p class="noi"><span class="dropcap">M</span>INERVA came cat-footed up the stairs and knocked at Miss Carrington’s -sitting-room door.</p> - -<p>Miss Carrington lowered her book, frowning impatiently.</p> - -<p>“It’s maddening never to hear you coming, Minerva,” she said. “Luckily -my nerves are equable. Now what do you want?”</p> - -<p>“Merton sent his boy around with a message from Master Kit—Mr. -Carrington. You are not to wait lunch for him; he is lunching out,” -said Minerva.</p> - -<p>“I wonder where?” murmured Miss Carrington, but she resumed her book as -if the wonder were not keen.</p> - -<p>“With Mr. Richard Latham, the poet.” Minerva had waited for the -question and her eyes snapped with enjoyment at her answer.</p> - -<p>“What!” cried Miss Carrington, erect in an instant. “Kit doesn’t know -him.”</p> - -<p>“It would seem that he must, now,” suggested Minerva. “He’s lunching -there. There’s no mistake in the message, because Tommy didn’t merely -say ‛Mr. Latham,’ nor ‛the poet,’ but ‛<em>Mr. Richard Latham, the -poet</em>.’ That’s too much to get wrong.”</p> - -<p>“It’s too much, whatever Merton’s boy said. How in the world did it -happen?” Miss Carrington speculated. “I suppose the secretary asked him -there for some reason——”</p> - -<p>“The reason wouldn’t be hard to guess, Miss Carrington,”<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_34"></a>34</span> said -Minerva, who knew how to ingratiate when she wished to. “Mr. Latham’s -housekeeper, as you well know, is a friend of mine. She goes to -Allen’s, the grocer’s, at this hour every day. To be sure he’s not our -grocer, but the same brand of cocoa is the same brand wherever you buy -it, provided the tin isn’t unsealed, and we haven’t enough cocoa for -more’n two makings.”</p> - -<p>“Well, Minerva, I don’t want to run short of cocoa,” said Miss -Carrington, gravely. “You’ll find my change purse in the small -right-hand drawer of my bureau. Don’t charge anything at Allen’s; I -don’t like the place. I hope you won’t be long.”</p> - -<p>“No longer than is necessary, Miss Carrington. Mrs. Lumley has to be -given her head in talking around Robin Hood’s barn—provided I meet -her. You can’t talk to her till she’s talked off to you whatever’s on -her mind,” Minerva answered.</p> - -<p>The sage Minerva had found Miss Carrington’s small worn tray purse, -and now she took herself soundlessly away, with complete understanding -between herself and her mistress as to what was expected of her.</p> - -<p>Miss Carrington admitted her maid to intimacy though not to friendship; -a lone woman must of necessity do so. No one else in her life had ever -been so deeply within it as Minerva had grown to be during twenty years -of service as Miss Carrington’s personal attendant, day and night, in -sickness and in health.</p> - -<p>Minerva held Miss Carrington at an estimate unlike her friends’ -estimate of her; in some ways it was less, in some ways more, accurate.</p> - -<p>She realized that Miss Carrington was clever, but she could not gauge -her learning as her friends did. She had no way of knowing how witty, -how accomplished her mistress was. On the other hand, no one else -appreciated so fully her acumen, her efficiency.</p> - -<p>With this appreciation, Minerva held her mistress stupid not to have -achieved more. What was a maiden lady at nearly<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_35"></a>35</span> seventy, after -all? Minerva’s dull sister had done better for herself; she had a -husband, the rank of matron. Minerva discounted Miss Carrington’s -fierce pride in being Miss Anne Carrington, of the original Cleavedge -Carringtons—perhaps because it was too fierce?</p> - -<p>Minerva knew her mistress’s faults even better than her friends did, -but not the same faults. To her friends Miss Carrington was generous, -unselfish, nobly, though faultily, scornful of these virtues in -herself, too detached to practise them as virtues, just as she was too -much engrossed in her pursuits to be lonely.</p> - -<p>Minerva knew that she was not generous, though she lavished money; that -she was bound on all sides by herself, for which self and through which -self she saw all things, beyond which she never aspired. Minerva knew -that she was so far from detachment that all her thoughts were chained -to Anne Carrington, except when they reached out to Kit, who was but -another form of her self-seeking.</p> - -<p>Minerva knew that Miss Carrington’s temper was difficult, not less -so that the restrictions which she put upon its vent made it fairly -good-mannered. And, finally, Minerva knew that her mistress was -neither indifferent to her reputation nor so happy in the use of her -clever brain that she was not lonely. She knew that Miss Carrington -was cruelly lonely; that her loneliness was growing inward, feeding, -battening upon her; that her daily fight was against her fear of the -dark, the dark that was within.</p> - -<p>Minerva loved her mistress and detested her. Nothing could have induced -her to leave her, nor to forego her daily anathemas of her. Miss -Carrington depended upon Minerva and detested her; leaned upon the -keenness of the judgments of her class; called her by word and act a -fool; berated her sarcastically; walked on tip-toe for fear of her; -told herself that she would not keep Minerva beyond the season then -passing; would have deprived herself of all else to retain her.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_36"></a>36</span> -It was a curious relation, a strange attitude, equally contradictory on -both sides, but it was one common between two women who are rivetted -together, whether as mistress and maid, friends or sisters, or even, -not infrequently, mother and daughter.</p> - -<p>Miss Carrington had ordered lunch hurried, and had finished it when -Minerva returned. It had seemed to her an unreasonably long time that -she was kept waiting; she greeted Minerva with the remark that she had -been forever when she came in.</p> - -<p>“It took as long as it took,” remarked Minerva, laying upon the table -a small packet tied around its middle with a cotton string. “Cocoa is -two cents more at Allen’s than it is at Boothby’s, but that’s only a -postage stamp, and often and often there’s little news in a letter -though it overweighs.” Minerva dearly loved sybilline utterances.</p> - -<p>“Did you meet Mrs. Lumley and was she satisfactory?” Miss Carrington -asked.</p> - -<p>“As to satisfactory, she is a lump!” declared Minerva with scornful -emphasis. “But she did speak of Mr. Kit’s being there, and I know -all about it. It seems that little Anne Berkley brought him there -with her. As though you didn’t know Mr. Latham! That little witch -is a prime favourite of Mr. Latham’s and visits him a great deal; -she’s everybody’s favourite, and she would amuse a blind man. And the -child is very fond of Miss Dallas, the secretary. So Master Kit gets -little Anne to take him there. And he is asked to lunch. And after -lunch the party is going driving, with horses, mind you, like their -own grandfathers.” Minerva was intensely scornful of this reversion. -“Master Kit, the secretary, and the child, Mr. Latham, of course. And -Stetson, who was going in case of being needed, is left, and Mr. Kit -will be beside Mr. Latham, who likes to drive, but has to be watched -and told which way, and all that. And they had a pleasant lunch party, -laughing and talking.<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_37"></a>37</span> Mrs. Lumley heard little Anne’s voice a good -deal, and they were laughing at her. So that’s as far as any one could -tell you who wasn’t one of them. And I’m going to have my luncheon now, -Miss Carrington, for chilled cream sauce, which I saw passing through, -with cold potatoes, is not desirable. But cold they are, and often will -be for me, I suppose, while I do for you.”</p> - -<p>“After all, it tells me nothing, except that apparently Kit went there -on his own initiative,” said Miss Carrington, rubbing her nose with -manifest annoyance. “If the girl had invited him he would not have -needed little Anne Berkley’s good offices. If I knew which way they had -gone—it’s a good day for a drive.”</p> - -<p>“Ah, to be sure; I asked that,” said the thorough Minerva, turning -back. “I forgot to tell you. Mrs. Lumley said that little Anne went -out to see her after lunch. She is very partial to the child, and Anne -never forgets to visit her. She asked Anne where they were driving, -and Anne laughed and said: ‛Out to the willow-ware china park.’ Now I -ask you if that isn’t exactly like little Anne Berkley? She’s just so -nonsensical. Mrs. Lumley says she’s no mortal idea where it can be, -but that Mr. Latham and little Anne have all sorts of names for things -and people, which they make great secrets. You could easily overtake -them in the car, and they poking with horses, if you knew where a -‛willow-ware china park’ might be.”</p> - -<p>Miss Carrington smiled.</p> - -<p>“No wonder that little Anne and Mr. Latham enjoy each other if they -make life as interesting as that!” she mused. “Let me think where it -can be. Willow ware—a small bridge—why, of course, Minerva! It’s the -park on the west side where they’ve bridged that tiny stream and put -up a summer pagoda! Tell Noble to have the car around in ten minutes. -I’ll not change my dress. You’ve been out and know what the weather is; -get out the coat I need, and bring up that new veil; I left it in the -library. Help me dress; first call Noble.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_38"></a>38</span> -Miss Carrington hastened upstairs and Minerva went out of the swinging -door at the rear, outraged, but muttering:</p> - -<p>“It’s as cold now as it can be; I suppose another half-hour won’t -matter.”</p> - -<p>Within fifteen minutes Miss Carrington was sitting back against the -cushions of her car, seeing neither the lovely spring day nor Daniel -Noble’s respectable mulberry-coloured back, so occupied was she with -her plan.</p> - -<p>There were several ways to reach the new park, and on the way -thither Miss Carrington did not overtake the carriage for which she -was watching. But as her car slowly wound around the pretty though -unconvincing mazes of the carefully planned little park, she saw the -carriage standing empty, except of a youth, evidently garnered on the -spot, who was holding the horses. Three adult figures and a child were -standing on the small bridge over the toy stream. It was so ludicrously -like the old willow-ware pattern that Miss Carrington smiled at the -resemblance, though she was sharply intent upon getting a first -impression of the young woman of the group. She saw that the girl was -not above medium height, that she was graceful, well-dressed, refined -in bearing and gesture. As she raised her bent head and looked straight -at the car, Miss Carrington saw a face so sweet, so full of charm that -her heart sank.</p> - -<p>“Mercy upon us, she’s one of those creatures whose really great -prettiness is not equal to their intense femininity; her eyes are -beautiful. She’s a permeating creature, and looks as affectionate as -good—but not one bit stupid! Oh, poor Kit. That’s a rare type, hard to -supplant. I’ve got to see to it that she doesn’t get as far as that,” -thought this wise woman.</p> - -<p>In the meantime, Miss Carrington was saluting Kit, who recognized her -with anything but delight on his tell-tale face, she bade Noble drive -on, but slowly. She kept in sight of the movements of the group on the -bridge, and timed her return<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_39"></a>39</span> to it by another spur of the road just as -the Latham party left it.</p> - -<p>“My dear Mr. Latham!” Miss Carrington said, leaning over the side of -her car to take the poet’s hand. “I am truly glad to meet you here. -I’ve been wishing that I might ask you to come to me, but one fears -to be intrusive. I know that the world is pursuing you, as you are -retreating from it. I have a find in the book way that I should like to -show you.”</p> - -<p>“Thank you, Miss Carrington,” said Richard. “You are kind. And you are -not to be reckoned one of the world which you imagine is hunting me -down; you are my neighbour. I shall be grateful to be allowed to come -to see the book, and you.”</p> - -<p>He spoke with lovable deference, pitying her as a lonely old woman. -Miss Carrington could not hide from his blind eyes and keen intuition -that this was what she was.</p> - -<p>“Kit, my dear, I am glad to find that you have met Mr. Latham; it -was but the other day we were saying that you should know him, if he -wouldn’t mind too much being bothered with a lad like you. Little -namesake Anne, how do you do, my dear?” Miss Carrington graciously -extended her greetings.</p> - -<p>“I am quite well, thank you, Miss Carrington. You have two namesakes -here now,” said little Anne.</p> - -<p>“I beg your pardon, Miss Carrington! May I present to you Miss Dallas? -As little Anne says, she is another namesake of yours, an Anne,” said -Richard Latham.</p> - -<p>“Delighted to meet you, my dear,” said Miss Carrington, graciously, so -graciously that Kit’s experience gave him forebodings. “You must be the -happy girl of whom I’ve heard, who helps Mr. Latham to enrich us all? -And I read your clever explanation of his poem, ‛The Mole.’”</p> - -<p>“I am glad that you see me as a happy girl, Miss Carrington. I am -completely happy to be doing what I’m doing here,” said Anne Dallas.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_40"></a>40</span> -“What a lovely voice!” Miss Carrington groaned inwardly. “There is no -more dangerous gift!”</p> - -<p>“Would it be rank selfishness, Mr. Latham, if I begged this modest -girl, who ignores her usefulness to you, and so to us all, to take pity -on my friendlessness to-day and go back in the car with me? I am alone. -Would you be angry? And will you humour me, Miss Dallas? I drive alone -so much that one would expect me to get used to it, but I never do.”</p> - -<p>“I’d like to go with you, Miss Carrington,” said Anne Dallas, -truthfully. “Solitude in a car is more solitary than a carriage with -only one in it. I suppose because the horses are friendly. Mr. Latham -doesn’t want me, do you?”</p> - -<p>“I don’t need you, Miss Dallas,” Richard Latham smilingly corrected -her. “Here is little Anne who will play Casabianca, won’t you, Anne?”</p> - -<p>“Do you mean stick? That’s the boy ‛when all but him had fled,’ isn’t -it?” asked little Anne. “’Course I will! That’s how I started, and I’d -rather stick, if you please.”</p> - -<p>“Come, then, Miss Dallas,” said Miss Carrington, and Kit sprang to open -the car door, his silence unbroken. “You are also ‛little Anne,’ in -comparison with me.”</p> - -<p>Anne Dallas jumped into the car and curled down beside Kit’s aunt, -surprised, but happy in the friendliness which she was too simple to -mistrust. It was with a gloomy face that Kit watched them away, knowing -how inadequate to gauge his aunt’s mind Anne Dallas’s honesty was, and -fearing mischief from the old lady’s cordiality. He knew perfectly well -that in some way his aunt had learned his whereabouts and had come to -investigate.</p> - -<p>“Now, my dear, tell me how you happen to be in Cleavedge,” said Miss -Carrington, turning toward the supple young figure luxuriously nestling -beside her. “You are not the sort of girl we are accustomed to here.”</p> - -<p>“Don’t condemn me unheard!” laughed Anne, refusing to<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_41"></a>41</span> hear the -delicate emphasis that implied a compliment in Miss Carrington’s words; -Miss Carrington was sorry to find her able to fence.</p> - -<p>“I wanted to do something, and Mr. Latham was kind enough to let me -work for him. My home is near New York.”</p> - -<p>“Are you alone in the world, such a pretty child as you?” Miss -Carrington’s tone expressed sympathy.</p> - -<p>“I have a few cousins; no one else,” said Anne. She looked up -confidingly into the keen eyes above her. “The war was hard on me. No, -not a personal grief; I lost no one, there was no one in it that I -dearly loved,” she anticipated Miss Carrington’s question. “But it made -me feel that everything I knew wasn’t so, and the bleakness——” She -checked herself with a shudder. “But after that I saw that everything -that I had known was a thousand times truer than I had thought it was. -I suppose everyone went through that experience, but to each of us it -was like being born, wasn’t it?”</p> - -<p>“Ah!” murmured Miss Carrington, emphatically but discreetly. She had -not known this melding with impersonal agony.</p> - -<p>“Oh, yes, of course it was what we all felt,” Anne hastily disclaimed -difference between herself and the rest of the world. “Then I wanted to -do something in this burdened world, even though peace, of a sort, had -come.”</p> - -<p>“So you help a blind poet? How wonderfully beautiful,” said Miss -Carrington, gently. “You are not half known; we all took you for his -paid secretary.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, so I am, I am!” cried Anne, distressed. “Did I convey anything -else? Mr. Latham is not an object of charity. I am in his employ. -But—well—I want to do my best for his work, and”—she laughed shyly, -but with pretty mischief, that did not hide her pity for Richard—“I am -only his eyeglasses, but I don’t want the glasses to pinch, you see?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_42"></a>42</span> -“I see,” assented Miss Carrington. “You mean, since someone must serve -him in lieu of his lost eyes, you want to see to it that it is someone -devoted to him. I still think it is wonderful. How did you hear of him, -or he of you?”</p> - -<p>“There was an artist here last summer who is Mr. Latham’s closest -friend. He is a very good artist——”</p> - -<p>“Edwin Wilberforce?” interrupted Miss Carrington. “Decidedly he is. -I would not speak so temperately of him; he is a famous and great -painter. Did he find you for his friend?”</p> - -<p>“He—— Yes,” said Anne. Apparently she was going to say more, but -thought better of it. “He told Mr. Latham of me, after he had written -me about Mr. Latham, so it was arranged through him that I was to come, -and here I am.”</p> - -<p>“A most fortunate arrangement,” said Miss Carrington. “I never saw -Richard Latham look so alive, so happy, so—— My dear, he is a -charming man! I am a selfish woman; people who reach my age through -years of solitude are likely to be, but to be so young, with your mind, -your heart to devote to a life so highly endowed, yet so denied, is a -lot that guardian angels might envy! Richard Latham can never again be -pitied, having you.”</p> - -<p>Anne straightened herself, her eyes widened with a startled look. She -opened her lips to speak, but closed them mutely. Miss Carrington -implied everything that she longed to deny, yet left her no opening for -denial.</p> - -<p>“You are far too kind, Miss Carrington,” Anne said after a moment. “Mr. -Latham should not be pitied; he is indeed highly endowed. But as to my -help, it is only eyes and hands at his service and these are common -possessions.”</p> - -<p>“Not stupid, makes no mistakes,” thought Miss Carrington, appraisingly, -as she glanced at Anne. “Decidedly I must get Kit away.” Aloud she -said: “I was surprised and pleased to find my boy with Mr. Latham. -I offered to take Kit to see our<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_43"></a>43</span> poet only the other day. It was -satisfactory to find him already with him, even on friendly terms. He -is a nice boy; it is not my partiality that says it.”</p> - -<p>“He is an uncommonly nice boy,” assented Anne so readily that her -frankness left Miss Carrington uncertain whether it were indifference, -or the most effectual disguise. “He did not introduce himself to Mr. -Latham; little Anne Berkley brought him. Isn’t she a marvellous sprite? -I never knew a child like her.”</p> - -<p>“She is the other Cleavedge celebrity,” smiled Miss Carrington. “I hope -we shall not spoil her. Kit is not a brilliant boy, but he has a good -mind, and a still better heart.”</p> - -<p>“Which is a better thing to have,” said Anne. “I don’t know him well -enough to pronounce, but I should think they were equal in him. -Mr. Carrington seems to me one of the rare people who are sane, -normal, clever, and kind. He was really beautiful toward Mr. Latham -to-day—showed him exactly the right deference combined with frank -friendliness. He is just what Mr. Latham likes and needs.”</p> - -<p>“Enthusiastic praise, my dear, but Kit deserves it, if you can trust -the judgment of one who is to all intents and purposes his mother. I -not only dote on him, but I mean to make him a man who will be felt in -the world. I expect him to marry a brilliant girl whom he has known for -years, who will push his fortunes. I think one of these fine days we -shall all be proud of Christopher Carrington.”</p> - -<p>Anne looked at her steadily, surprise in her brown eyes. She wondered -why this should be told her. She had not known Kit long, but when she -saw him the air around her was charged with a feeling that she had -avoided analyzing, not admitting to herself that it was there. But now -the sense of something that surrounded Kit arose in her memory and -insisted on its association with Miss Carrington’s confidence.</p> - -<p>“Proud of him by and by?” Anne said. Her colour had<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_44"></a>44</span> deepened, but her -eyes were as frank as girls’ eyes can be while they think what must be -hidden. “Aren’t you proud of your nephew now, Miss Carrington? I’m sure -you are, and that you should be.”</p> - -<p>Miss Carrington set Anne Dallas down at Richard Latham’s door. The -others had not returned yet. “And Kit will be asked in for tea! Why -didn’t I arrange for them to come to me for tea, where I could both -watch and ward?” she thought.</p> - -<p>She bade Anne an affectionate good-night, begging her to pity an old -woman, and come to cheer her loneliness with her pretty ways and face. -But when she got home she told Minerva as she removed her coat, that -“decidedly she should send at once for Helen Abercrombie to visit her.”</p> - -<p>“Well, if you ask me,” said Minerva with asperity, “I would say that -when you’ve exposed a film time and again, and not got any impression -on it, you may as well put in a fresh roll.”</p> - - - - -<div class="chapter"> -<hr class="divider x-ebookmaker-drop" /> -<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_45"></a>45</span> -</div> - - -<h2 id="v">CHAPTER V<br /> -<span>Small Furthering Breezes</span></h2> - -<p class="noi"><span class="dropcap">M</span>ISS CARRINGTON was much struck by Minerva’s figure of speech. She -pondered it in her room, feeling that it embodied wisdom.</p> - -<p>She was so much struck with it that—to carry it further—she turned -over in her mind other films, but none of them fitted her camera, or -promised her the picture which she wished to take. She knew many pretty -girls, several wealthy ones, a few intellectual and well-bred ones, but -she knew no other one who united all these qualities, plus her father’s -increasing influence to get for Kit a successful career, as did Helen -Abercrombie.</p> - -<p>She dismissed each candidate as she reviewed her, and sat down to urge -upon Miss Abercrombie a speedy repetition of her visit to Cleavedge, -with such eloquence that on the fourth day after the note was -dispatched Miss Carrington was able to announce to Kit that Helen would -be with them within ten days.</p> - -<p>Kit received the news with dismay. He knew that all his ingenuity, and -he had his full share of skill in getting out of things, would not -enable him to escape the curtailment of his freedom entailed by the -presence of Helen Abercrombie as a guest in his home.</p> - -<p>“The shackles of civilization” is not an empty phrase. Kit foresaw the -difficulty with which he should escape the entanglements of courtesy to -his aunt and her guest. He knew that he should have all sorts of cobweb -footfalls set for him, binding him fast when he would go to catch a -glimpse of Anne Dallas. He<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_46"></a>46</span> recognized in himself a desire to see the -girl that made it to all intents and purposes a necessity.</p> - -<p>“It will be pleasant, Kit, my dear, to have Helen here in the spring,” -remarked his aunt. “You will feel that inspiration of the season which -Tennyson has embodied for us in lines no less true for being hackneyed. -Remember, my boy, that I’ve made my plans for you clear, and that I -expect them to be carried out. Helen is a magnificent specimen of the -best type of woman that our race has produced; even were she less -fortunate in material ways, she would still be a wife upon whom to -build a family. There is no reason why you should not be enchanted with -the hope of looking at her all your days, and that’s no trifle! It’s a -great thing, let me tell you, to know that the person you marry will -always be an agreeable object before you at breakfast, as well as at -high, hot noon. It is inconceivable that Helen could ever be a careless -creature whose hair straggled or whose collars sagged. A boy doesn’t -consider these matters which later set a man’s nerves on edge; they -do more toward making marriage a failure than the affinity of which -novelists talk—though I’m ready to concede that the affinity is likely -to attend upon these subtle causes of estrangement. It is as easy to -love the right woman as the wrong one, once you set your mind to it, -Kit. So set your mind to loving Helen; she is preëminently the right -woman for you.”</p> - -<p>Kit did not reply. He took his hat and went out of the house in a -melancholy mood. He distinctly did not want to marry Helen, and the -more his aunt urged the marriage upon him, with the disenchanting hint -of her power to punish him for thwarting her, the less he wanted to -marry Helen.</p> - -<p>“I’m going down to the Berkleys’,” he thought. “They are the happiest, -least worldly people I know.”</p> - -<p>He found Joan at her mother’s spending the day there with her baby, -little Barbara, named for her young grandmother and<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_47"></a>47</span> promising to have -Mrs. Berkley’s sunny temperament and unobtrusive philosophy which made -her take most things as a point in the game. Mrs. Berkley played her -game straight, a generous winner, a good loser.</p> - -<p>Kit was so cast down that he was glad to hear Joan’s laugh and her -baby’s shout of glee as he entered; they were intensely happy and -complete. It was not precisely with regret that he found Anne Dallas -with Joan, holding the incense jar while the young mother swung the -censer before the leaping, crowing object of their worship. Such -wholesome, natural happiness permeated the room that as Kit came into -it his spirits rose with a swift reaction from their depression. He -said to himself: “I’ll be damned if I will!” with such force that for -an instant he feared that he had spoken aloud.</p> - -<p>Anne Dallas greeted him pleasantly, without any sign of especial -interest in his coming. Joan was more cordial; she liked Kit a -great deal, and was so happy that when the baby was on her knee she -absent-mindedly caressed all the world, identifying it with Barbara, -who was so large a part of it.</p> - -<p>Little Anne fell on Kit with vehement welcome. She gave him her hand -with such desire in her eyes to give him more that Kit took it, kissing -her cheek.</p> - -<p>“I’m just as glad as I can be that you came!” declared little Anne. -“I’d like to have you come just purp’sly to see me. You didn’t, did -you?”</p> - -<p>“I came because I was rather down at the heels, in my mind, little -Anne, and this is headquarters for getting reshod,” said Kit, smiling -on the child, but glancing toward Anne Dallas, “and you’re no small -part of the Berkley cheer. I counted on you to brace me up. Some day, -if you’ll let me, I’ll come to see you, just <em>you</em>, ask for -<em>you</em>, and get shown in to see <em>you</em>. How’s that?”</p> - -<p>“Beautiful!” sighed little Anne. “No one ever came to see me like -that—not yet.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_48"></a>48</span> -“Why should you be cast down, Kit?” asked Joan with her motherly young -smile. “I always think of you as the Fortunate Youth, like Harry -Warrington.”</p> - -<p>“Say, Joan, that’s a better hit than you aimed to make!” cried Kit. -“Harry Warrington wasn’t all around fortunate, and when he’d ceased to -be a youth he must have been conscious of what he’d missed.”</p> - -<p>Joan had a glimmer of a suspicion of the true cause of Kit’s -depression; she glanced at Anne Dallas with the light of her suspicion -in her eyes, but Anne said unconsciously:</p> - -<p>“What nice old fogies you are to be so familiar with your Thackeray! I -shouldn’t catch your allusion but that I read ‛The Virginians’ to Mr. -Latham quite lately. And I found Thackeray greater, even in that book, -than any one else.”</p> - -<p>“You’ll be all right, Kit; you need not worry. As long as you see -straight it will be all right with you. Harry Warrington was a stupid -youth,” said Joan, hedging for safety, being uncertain of her ground.</p> - -<p>“I suspect all youths are stupid,” said Kit. “My aunt considers me so. -I’ve just had a lecture on The Whole Duty of Man, and it depressed me. -The great A stands for autocrat, as well as Anne.”</p> - -<p>Little Anne clapped her hands and jumped up and down, crying:</p> - -<p>“Great A—your aunt! Little A—me! Bouncing B—that’s Babs; look how -she jounces herself up and down! There’s no cat in the cupboard who -can’t see, though!”</p> - -<p>“There’s a Kit in the cupboard, shut up with the mice!” Kit shouted the -words on his explosive laugh. “And the great A certainly thinks he’s -blind! Say, little Anne, Mother Goose with Anne sauce isn’t half bad!”</p> - -<p>“It’s fine!” little Anne approved him. “Though I don’t exactly -understand the joke. We’ve so many Annes in Cleavedge<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_49"></a>49</span> that it’s—do -you know what? An Anthology. That’s what Peter-two said. Cleavedge is -an Anthology. Peter made that joke; it’s a pun; Peter-two likes puns.”</p> - -<p>“You don’t know what that means,” said Kit.</p> - -<p>“I do! I do, too!” little Anne flatly contradicted him, taking a -running leap that landed her sharp little knees on Kit’s legs and made -him wince. “An Anthology’s a book with lots of things collected into -it, like poetry, or fairy stories, or—oh, things that you can put -together in one book. I do know!”</p> - -<p>“You certainly do!” Kit admitted, handsomely. “Anne, sometimes I’m -afraid you’re too learned; it’s fearful to be erudite.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t know what that is,” said little Anne. “Anthology’s not such -a dreadfully long word—multiplication is one count longer and all -children say it’s easy! Mother says it’s all what you hear and learn. -She says it’s the same about thinking; it’s just’s easy to think about -big things as little ones, and good things as bad ones; that’s what she -says. She says it’s all what you’re used to. And my mother tells me -about big things quite often.”</p> - -<p>“She does, I know; you frequently allude to them,” said Kit, -abstractedly.</p> - -<p>He was looking at the lovely group across the room: the leaping, -gurgling baby; the two fair, flushed young women with the same look on -their faces, a look that Kit found natural in Joan, but awesome and -mysterious in Anne Dallas, a prophecy that quickened his breath.</p> - -<p>“I’ve an Anthology,” said little Anne, taking Kit’s face between her -palms with no intention of allowing his thoughts to wander from her. -“It’s the one Joyce Kilmer made. There’s a poem in it about Michael the -Archangel. You can hear it rush, and it shines. We say a prayer after -Mass. It begins: ‛St. Michael, the archangel, defend us in battle.’ I -love it. When<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_50"></a>50</span> we say it I can just see him on account of that poem. -A lady wrote it. Her name is Katharine Tynan, but she’s called Mrs. -Hinkson now because she married him. Now listen! I’m going to say two -verses for you, the two which make me breathe so hard, and you see if -you don’t love, <em>love</em> ’em!</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="verse"> - <div class="line outdent">‛<i>His wings he hath put away in steel,</i></div> - <div class="line"><i>He goes mail-clad from head to heel;</i></div> - <div class="line"><i>Never moon-silver hath outshone</i></div> - <div class="line"><i>His breastplate and his morion.</i></div> - </div> - <div class="verse"> - <div class="line"><i>His brows are like a battlement,</i></div> - <div class="line"><i>Beautiful, brave, and innocent;</i></div> - <div class="line"><i>His eyes with fires of battle burn—</i></div> - <div class="line"><i>On his strong mouth the smile is stern.</i>’</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<p>“Isn’t that great, <em>great</em>!” Little Anne caught her breath in a -sob. “Isn’t he beautiful, and awful? I’m not afraid of him; I’d like to -go with him, anywhere.”</p> - -<p>“You wouldn’t be afraid of any one who fought for the right, little -Anne,” said Kit, somewhat embarrassed by this child’s demands upon him. -“And that poem is in Joyce Kilmer’s Anthology? Well, he himself fought -for the right.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, yes!” Little Anne clasped and unclasped her hands. “He went -scouting to find where the dang’rous enemy was hiding, and they found -him lying, just as if he was looking over the edge. He was looking for -Germans. They were devilish, weren’t they?”</p> - -<p>“We thought so, little Anne,” said Kit.</p> - -<p>“Well, what do you suppose it felt like?” Anne went on. “I’ve wondered -and wondered. It makes me shake. He was looking for Germans, and they -shot, and there was God Almighty!”</p> - -<p>“Anne!” gasped Kit, honestly shocked.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_51"></a>51</span> -Little Anne misinterpreted his exclamation. She raised to him her dark -eyes burning in her white face; deep hollows were suddenly graven below -them.</p> - -<p>“Isn’t it?” she whispered. “Just like that! He was looking for devils -and there was God! And I think He just said, ‛You nice, brave boy!’ And -Joyce Kilmer got right up and ran over to Him. But he left his body -looking down over the edge, because they found it there. It makes me -cold!”</p> - -<p>Anne’s hands were icy as she caught Kit around the neck and hid her -face on his shoulder; her body was shaking.</p> - -<p>“There, there, little Anne, don’t! I wouldn’t think such things; they -aren’t good for you. It’s all over,” Kit said.</p> - -<p>He looked appealingly across to Joan and Anne Dallas, who did not heed -him; the baby at that moment had captured her mother’s scissors.</p> - -<p>Little Anne straightened herself and stared at Kit in amazement.</p> - -<p>“Why, of course it’s good for me! It’s <em>very</em> good for my soul -to think of it, and I love to feel so cold, and to shake the way that -makes me shake! It’s noble shaking; not common scared. If ever I’m a -nun I’ll meditate and meditate! You get up in the middle of the night -to when you’re a Carmelite, and I think I’ll be Carmelites, they’re the -strictest——”</p> - -<p>“Anne! Anne Berkley!” Peter’s indignant voice interrupted Anne from -upstairs, calling over the banisters.</p> - -<p>“Yes, Peter-two,” said little Anne, getting down from Kit’s lap and -going serenely toward the door.</p> - -<p>“Who let out all the hens? I’ll bet I know!” growled Peter.</p> - -<p>“Oh, yes; so do I,” said little Anne. “It was me, Petey, but they -didn’t go away. They stayed around; I watched ’em—a while.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, a while!” Peter scorned her. “How long? Didn’t father say I had -no business to keep hens in town, and I’d have<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_52"></a>52</span> to give ’em up if they -annoyed the neighbours? They’re annoying them all right, all right! -Over at Davis’s next door scratching up the last lettuce leaf this -minute, and all their peas done for! Now dad’ll make me sell ’em, after -I’ve bought feed at the price it was all winter, and now it’s spring -and the hens were going to pay back some of it! And I was going to set -’em!”</p> - -<p>“And have dear little fluffy chicks? I know, Peter dear; you told me,” -cried Anne with feeling. “Oh, you don’t think father’ll be so cruel as -to stop us?”</p> - -<p>“<em>Us!</em> Well, I like your nerve!” Peter’s contempt was beyond -his power of expression. “Sure he’ll make me sell ’em. What in the -dev—what made you let ’em out? Of all the contemptible tricks! And of -all troublesome, meddlesome children! They spoil you, Anne Berkley. -You’re a spoiled kid, and I hate to think what’ll become of you.”</p> - -<p>“You shouldn’t swear, Peter,” said Anne with the calm dignity of an -archbishop. “Of course I’m not spoiled. Do you think my father and -mother could? They wouldn’t be seen spoiling me! And the reason I -let those hens out, if you want to know, is because one got her head -through the wire, and we thought she’d choke to death. Monica was with -me. Her eyes just goggled out and her neck got as long! It was fearful! -It made us sick to shove her back, but we did. Then we knew if one got -choked they all might, so we let ’em out, and I meant to tell you, but -I forgot. We watched ’em for goodness knows how long, and they just -kept around as harmless! Don’t you worry about father, Peter-two! I’ll -tell him how it happened, and he’ll understand. He’ll buy the Davises -some more lettuce and peas and things. I’ll get him to let you keep the -hens, Peter-two; don’t you worry!”</p> - -<p>“And you’re not spoiled! Oh, no. Not a-tall!” growled Peter, returning -to his room to prepare for the merry sport of driving his hens out of -a neighbour’s garden.<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_53"></a>53</span> The worst of it to Peter’s mind was that he -knew that Anne would be able to do precisely as she promised, that her -explanation would mollify, if not amuse, his father, and that Peter -would keep his hens through her intercession. The thought infuriated -him. He turned back to the stairway and called down:</p> - -<p>“You get a move on you and come help me head those hens, or they’ll go -down to the city hall and dig out the statue of old Carrington on the -mall!”</p> - -<p>“Oh, Peter-two, take care! That’s Kit’s great-grandfather, or somebody, -and he’s here!” remonstrated Anne in a shocked voice, as one always -right.</p> - -<p>Anne Dallas and Joan managed to have their faces hidden in the baby’s -preparations for departure when little Anne came back, but Kit was -caught in throes of laughter. He was waiting to walk home with Anne -Dallas.</p> - -<p>“I hope you don’t mind, Kit?” little Anne said, anxiously. “Peter-two -wasn’t hitting at your great-grandfather’s statue, or whoever he is; he -meant me and the hens. I’m sorry mother wasn’t home, but I did enjoy -your call, Mr. Carrington.” She gave Kit her hand with the air of a -fine lady.</p> - -<p>Anne Dallas and Kit turned down the street in the May sunshine, with -constraint between them that both found difficult to break up.</p> - -<p>They discussed little Anne till there was no more to say, even on this -fruitful subject, and they talked of Mr. Latham, a theme to which Anne -rose with animation.</p> - -<p>“My aunt was telling me something that you said to her which I could -not understand,” said Kit. “You told her the war had hit you hard, and -you seemed to connect that with your work for Latham. I was curious -as to where the connection could be. Do you mind my asking? Is it a -secret?”</p> - -<p>“No, it’s harder to explain than secrets are,” smiled Anne.<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_54"></a>54</span> “It’s not -connected, except as I make it so. You see, Mr. Carrington, I have a -wee income, but I could make it suffice for my living—that is if I -lived so that it would suffice! I doubt you’d think I could. I suppose -I’d have gone on living on it, for I’m not an ambitious person; I’m -naturally inclined to ignoble content with little ways and little days! -But when the war came I—well, as you put it, I was hard hit! It wasn’t -as if I were grief-stricken. I had no one in it. But it was as if I had -everyone out of it! I mean it took the heart of the things which were -most important. I was too young to keep my balance. I got it back, or -a new one that I hope, I know, will stand a strain when it comes. When -my confusion of mind was set straight, then I knew that I must not sit -down in sloth all my life, calling it pretty, misleading names, like -‛contentment,’ ‛humility,’ anything lulling. I made up my mind to use -any slight ability that I had and try to——” She hesitated.</p> - -<p>“Help,” Kit said, softly.</p> - -<p>“Well, at least not grow inward,” Anne admitted. “That’s all. I -couldn’t explain all this to Miss Carrington. It does sound silly, but -that’s only because I’m not able to do important work. It wouldn’t -sound foolish if I were going to—what was it that little Anne was -saying to you? Be a Carmelite? Something like that, you know.”</p> - -<p>She looked up at Kit with her brown eyes shy and abashed, but he did -not seem to consider her silly.</p> - -<p>“To be eyes to the blind, to help a poet write what Mr. Latham -writes—or I hear that he does; I don’t honestly know much about it -yet—seems to me pretty fine,” he said. “Aunt Anne told me that the -painter, Wilberforce, got you to undertake Latham.”</p> - -<p>“Yes,” Anne assented. “Now, Mr. Carrington, why were you so blue when -you came this afternoon? Do you want to ‛trade,’ as children say? I -told you my secret.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_55"></a>55</span> -“Oh, how can I?” Kit blushed to his hair. “All that I could tell you -would sound like a spoiled, selfish kid! Aunt Anne has a guest coming, -a young lady, and I’ve got to see it through, and I hate it! That’s -about all.” Kit checked the violence with which he had brought out the -word “hate,” and ended with a modification of the truth.</p> - -<p>“Ah?” Anne raised her eyebrows. She thought that she saw more than Kit -said, remembering what Miss Carrington had hinted of Kit’s prospects -for marriage.</p> - -<p>“But that ought not to be tragic!” Anne continued with a laugh. “It -does sound like a boy who had had too much his own way! The only thing -for you to do is to make the guest’s way your way. When you are both -young that surely is easy to do! Is she pretty?”</p> - -<p>“No, she isn’t! She’s a beauty,” grumbled Kit with such an effect of -this being the unpardonable sin that Anne laughed outright. “And her -way can’t be my way. That’s what Aunt Anne wants me to do: make our way -parallel. I won’t! Don’t you give me the same advice!”</p> - -<p>“I should not dream of giving you advice, Mr. Carrington,” said Anne -with a funny, mischievous little look that further infuriated Kit. “Why -should I? Nor shall I let you imply complaint of that doting old lady -who is plainly wrapped up in her one affection—you! I’ve no doubt that -she knows what’s good for you. Good-bye. And pray don’t gloom at your -guest as you’re frowning on me now, for she won’t be out of doors where -she can run if she gets too frightened. Fancy being shut up in the -house with such an ogre as you look this minute!”</p> - -<p>Anne put out her hand with a friendly smile, and Kit abandoned his -intention to resent her making game of him.</p> - -<p>He smiled at her instead, and joined in her laughter.</p> - -<p>“Good-bye,” he said. “I’m coming around to talk to Mr. Latham. I need -literature.”</p> - - - - -<div class="chapter"> -<hr class="divider x-ebookmaker-drop" /> -<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_56"></a>56</span> -</div> - - -<h2 id="vi">CHAPTER VI<br /> -<span>“The Face That Lit the Fires,” etc.</span></h2> - -<p class="noi"><span class="dropcap"><span class="dropcap2">“</span>W</span>HAT table decorations would you suggest, Kit? The drawing room is -more important but I thought we might carry out the same flower scheme -throughout, even to the bedroom. What do you advise?” Miss Carrington -waited for Kit’s reply with evidences of extreme solicitude; she knew -the value of personal responsibility, that it aroused interest in a pie -to feel one had a finger in it.</p> - -<p>Kit looked honestly puzzled.</p> - -<p>“What are the decorations for, Aunt Anne? What’s on?” he asked.</p> - -<p>“My dear boy! As though you didn’t know that Helen was coming! That’s -the sort of event one doesn’t forget.” Miss Carrington was arch.</p> - -<p>“Oh, Jemima! I thought she came on—— Great Scott, so this is -Thursday! I had it in my head it was Wednesday.” Kit’s dismay was -comical. “I don’t know what sort of flowers she likes. They’re all -right, any of ’em.”</p> - -<p>“Don’t you think yellow blossoms? Helen is such a golden-tinted girl. -Jonquils aren’t to be had. Roses? But they are not imaginative.” Miss -Carrington bowled over her ten pins as fast as she set them up. “I -particularly like to have flowers which declare themselves thought-out, -selected for their suitability.”</p> - -<p>“Orchids,” muttered Kit, crossly. “No, yellow jasmine. Isn’t that the -stuff that is so unnaturally heavy-scented?”</p> - -<p>“Long sprays of jasmine with ferns, and over across the room<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_57"></a>57</span> great -white roses!” Miss Carrington looked delighted. “Yellow jasmine is the -very thing! Helen is so wonderfully graceful. I’ll tell her it was your -suggestion, Kit. Helen has acquired all the modern ways, independence, -equality of mind, and that sort of thing, but a woman is always a woman -below the fashions of the varying periods; Helen will be gratified that -you were perceptive of her peculiar charm.”</p> - -<p>“Well, Aunt, if you tell her of course I’ll have to stand for it; I -can’t explain, but the heavy-scented jasmine wouldn’t be my choice as -a representative, if I were a girl. What time is she coming? Shall you -meet her?” asked Kit.</p> - -<p>“She gets here on the 4:12. I’ll send the car, but you’ll go down with -it, I assume,” Miss Carrington implied that her remark was superfluous.</p> - -<p>Kit shook his head hard. “Couldn’t possibly to-day,” he said. “I had -it in my head that to-day was Wednesday, and I told Antony Paul I’d go -with him to see a dog he’s dickering for. He asked me yesterday. It -won’t matter; I’ll be in long before dinner.”</p> - -<p>“Can’t you call Antony Paul and defer the dog’s inspection?” Miss -Carrington admitted Kit’s authority on dogs, for which he had a -reputation.</p> - -<p>“Antony’s got an option only till this afternoon. Another man’s waiting -to gobble the pup if Tony drops him. Oh, come, now, aunt, it isn’t -necessary for me to go to the station; you’re Helen’s hostess, and -for that matter, I’d back Noble against the world as a chaperon or -guardian.”</p> - -<p>Kit grinned, cheerful over this small victory.</p> - -<p>“I suppose you do not need to be told that one doesn’t meet a guest -either as her guardian or chaperon. Courtesy is valuable, Kit! And a -warm welcome is pleasant to us all. But since you’ve promised young -Paul it cannot be helped; I’ll meet Helen. Try to be at home early, -please.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_58"></a>58</span> -Miss Carrington went away to order the jasmine, and Kit departed to -join Antony Paul at lunch, and then go with him to the suburban kennels -to inspect the pup that was intended to grow up with baby Barbara.</p> - -<p>It was a most promising dog Kit declared when he had looked it over, -and managed to rescue his glove from the youngster’s white teeth, not -so damaged but that it could be worn home, provided he remembered to -hold the thumb well against his coat.</p> - -<p>Antony bought the pup and Kit bade it a cordial good-bye, holding its -uneasy head between his palms as he looked into the purplish eyes, in -process of change from blue to brown.</p> - -<p>“You’ve done me a favour, small dog, and I’ll do one for you when -chance offers,” said Kit. “I suspect I’ve done you a favour already in -helping you to a home with Antony and nice Mrs. Antony.”</p> - -<p>“Here, stop undermining me in my dog’s affections!” protested Antony. -“That pup has no use for me while you’re around.”</p> - -<p>“Dogs and I are natural pals,” said Kit, releasing the puppy. “The -trolley leaves on the even hour, Tony; we’ve got to get right out after -it.”</p> - -<p>Warned by a shrill whistle they ran for their car from the corner. They -made it and established themselves on the platform, lighting up their -cigars and recovering breath.</p> - -<p>“Dogs and I do get on,” Kit reverted. “I like them, though that’s a -fool remark. Most men do.”</p> - -<p>“Not all, though. How they keep off it beats me,” said Antony Paul. -“When you want to say the best possible things about a man you -attribute to him the qualities every good dog has, but not every good -man, or men who are accounted good by themselves and others. Loyalty, -fidelity, generosity, forgivingness, hero-worship, unfaltering love, -patience, admiration, confidence—these are the things every good dog -gives us. And<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_59"></a>59</span> intelligence! What a fine dog doesn’t know! It’s amazing -the way they understand you. I had a dog once, the best comrade a -fellow could have asked. When I——”</p> - -<p>Kit knew what happened when people started on anecdotes of their pets. -He ruthlessly interrupted Antony.</p> - -<p>“Yes, I know; that’s the way I feel about dogs,” he said. He turned and -knocked his cigar ashes over the end of the car, carefully, as if the -trolley platform were carpeted.</p> - -<p>“But you know, Antony,” Kit continued the conversation with his own end -in view, “a lot of people seem to think it’s all poppycock to look for -things like that in humans. People, experienced people, you know, whose -opinion ought to count, tell you it’s sentimental to insist on—well, -on marrying for love, you know. They say take a nice girl, a suitable -girl, one that isn’t going to get on your nerves, of course, and marry -for expediency. They say that this kind of an arranged partnership -holds out better than the kind that is not arranged, that flies, so to -speak, a winged thing from the start. What do you say about it? You’re -married to the nicest sort of a girl; of course you fell in love with -her; any one would love Joan Berkley, but you’ve got sense, and by this -time you must have perception of what various sorts of marriages could -be. What do you say? Do you think it’s better to go in for romance? All -decent young chaps have a leaning toward it, I think.”</p> - -<p>Antony looked at Kit sharply.</p> - -<p>“As a rule, Christopher, my son, you are not given to abstract -speculation. What’s up? Or don’t you care to tell me?” he said.</p> - -<p>“I wouldn’t mind, only it’s currish to talk, you know,” said Kit. “Aunt -Anne has ideas about me which I don’t share; that’s about the sum of -it. She urges me to ambition, and she thinks marriage would land me at -the top of the heap. The top of the heap is all right, but I can’t see -her road to reach it.”</p> - -<p>Antony and Joan had discussed Helen Abercrombie when she<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_60"></a>60</span> had made her -previous visit to Cleavedge. It required no great perspicacity to see -that Miss Carrington desired her for Kit. If Helen Abercrombie were the -sort of girl that Kit wanted, that would be his business, but it seemed -to this youthful pair of Kit’s friends that Helen was not for him. Now, -as Antony looked at Kit, he saw that Helen was decidedly not the girl -that Kit wanted. He said:</p> - -<p>“Well, Kit, old man, as to the top of the heap being a better berth -than the side, or maybe the foot, that would depend entirely on what -suited your constitution, or whether you found more briars at the top, -or farther down. I don’t think ambition as an end is worth what a man -sacrifices for it. It’s a means, not an end; the part you play in the -world. As to romance, to my mind it’s about the one real thing there -is. That’s only another way of saying that life’s pretty punk when you -strip it of ideals. And as to marriage without love—now I don’t mean -the stuff people call love and eventually haul into divorce courts to -make room for the next case of it, but what you and I mean when we use -the word—I think marriage without it comes mighty close to sacrilege. -It would bring a heavier penalty than you could carry around. I’m a -lucky man, Kit, but perhaps it’s not altogether luck. Joan and I are -truly married, but we didn’t blunder on our happiness accidentally; -we went after it right. Trouble wouldn’t sicken us of each other. If -Joan broke down and got—well, not downright ugly, because how could -she?—but lost her looks, she’d still have her loveliness in my eyes. -And when I’m an old grouch, or if I go stone broke, Joan won’t get sick -of me. It’s the real thing, founded on the biggest thing there is. My -advice to you, Kit, is to keep off! You’re not a fellow to put up with -less than the right marriage. It’s a solemn risk to tie yourself up -for life to one person, and I tell you right now I’d hate to take it -on ambition. If you’re in love with the girl, that’s another matter; -then you wouldn’t<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_61"></a>61</span> marry her for ambition, but for love of her, same as -if she were a poor girl. You’ll repent in dust and ashes if you marry -a woman that you don’t love. More especially in ashes! You needn’t -mention to Miss Carrington that I said so, but the prizes you’d get at -the price of your ideals wouldn’t look to you better than a brass scarf -pin in a package of popcorn. Selah!”</p> - -<p>“Much obliged, Antony,” said Kit, looking grave, though he laughed. “I -suppose everyone considers his own brand of happiness the right one; -that’s only another way of saying it’s perfect happiness. But I seem -to have a lot of faith in your judgment. I’d take your advice sooner -than almost any one’s. You’re able to look out of your own windows to -see the other fellow’s view. I suspect you’re right. It’s a funny thing -that one person attracts us and another person doesn’t! Perfectly all -right person, too! You don’t want her though she’s handsome, desirable -enough. But——”</p> - -<p>“But you don’t desire her! There you are. And that’s good and -sufficient proof that there’s where you ought to stop. It’s no funnier -than that Joan tucks away whole saucerfuls of strawberries, and is -ready to cry for more, while if I eat the smallest saucerful of them -I’m crying <em>from</em> them, not for them. It’s our digestion, our -acids, our fitness, Kit! Don’t swallow a person who is not to your -palate; you’ll be fatally ill if you do, my son,” preached Antony.</p> - -<p>“Cannibalistically put, but sound doctrine, Reverend Father Antony -Paul!” said Kit. “And what shall you call the dog?”</p> - -<p>“Guard, short for Guardian,” said Antony, promptly. “I’m getting him to -guard Barbara when she begins her excursions into a dangerous world.”</p> - -<p>Kit got into the house quietly on his return and went softly to his -room, making signals to Minerva, whom he met in the hall, not to betray -him. He wanted to set his thoughts in order before he met Helen. He -wanted also to dress for dinner.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_62"></a>62</span> -He heard Helen’s silvery, prettily modulated voice as he slipped past -his aunt’s sitting room. There was no denying that she had many gifts.</p> - -<p>When Kit came down an hour later his aunt and Helen were in the drawing -room. He looked well with his clear-tinted skin, his fine features set -into relief by the expanse of white linen which he wore.</p> - -<p>Helen estimated him anew as she arose to greet him. A glance would -reveal Christopher Carrington a gentleman; that he could be trusted; -that he was kind and upright and that, if he were not brilliant, he had -excellent mental powers.</p> - -<p>“He does very well,” thought Helen, and extended her hand with a hearty -friendliness that instantly demolished Kit’s barriers and made him -slightly ashamed.</p> - -<p>It was caddish to have it in mind to refuse a hand that was held out as -one boy greets another; after all, Helen might not be cognizant of his -aunt’s plan, still less coöperating with it.</p> - -<p>Kit saw a girl as tall as he was, slender, with perfect dignity and -grace of carriage; a handsome face, a well-shaped head upborne with -spirit by a rounded neck that had the sweep of line that is best shown -by an evening gown. The carefully arranged hair was pale gold in -colour; not yellow, but the shade of the palest jonquils.</p> - -<p>“She’d look well at a court,” thought Kit, involuntarily recalling -what his aunt had hinted of a future embassy through ex-Governor -Abercrombie’s influence. But what he said aloud was:</p> - -<p>“Hallo, Helen! You’re beating yourself at your own game!”</p> - -<p>“Hallo, Kit! It’s this becoming gown. You look uncommonly fit, and -aren’t ugly to-night, yourself,” retorted Helen. “It’s fine to see you -again, nice Kitten! I like to come here because I can do and say and be -exactly as I feel!”</p> - -<p>“Yes. I don’t know another girl to whom I can talk as I do to you, -Nell,” said Kit, cordially, his old familiarity with her<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_63"></a>63</span> springing up -now that he saw Helen in the body. His aunt’s attitude toward her was -lost in Helen’s own frank attitude toward himself.</p> - -<p>Miss Carrington’s maid announced dinner and Miss Carrington turned to -Kit, all gracious smiles and pleasure as she saw the admiration for -Helen in Kit’s eyes.</p> - -<p>“Take Helen out, Kit. We aren’t a party, but she, being guest, may have -as much as that of a dinner party,” she said.</p> - -<p>Helen laughed and drew the elder woman’s hand through her arm, patting -it as it rested on her diaphanous sleeve which floated from the curves -of her beautiful arm.</p> - -<p>“Not a bit of it!” she cried. “I’ll take you out, or we’ll take each -other, and Kit can trot along by himself, thanking heaven that two such -noble specimens of womanhood allow him to watch their gracious backs.”</p> - -<p>At dinner Helen chatted merrily with wit and charm on all sorts -of subjects, treating Kit and his aunt with much the same kind of -friendliness, but giving it to Miss Carrington in warmer degree. She -was evidently emancipated from the prejudices of an earlier generation, -for she touched on subjects once taboo, treating them as if they were -part of daily life without emphasizing them. But Kit remembered that -Joan Berkley Paul hardly knew this part of life, and that possibly -little Anne would never know it. He thought of Anne Dallas, also, as a -sheltered type of mind, as one that sought shelter.</p> - -<p>After dinner, when they had returned to the drawing room, Kit asked,</p> - -<p>“Does Helen sing to-night?”</p> - -<p>“No, Helen doesn’t sing to-night; she waits till she has had a night’s -sleep after her journey, because she makes it a rule not to use her -voice when she is tired. Helen talks to Kit and gets his view of some -of her problems; Miss Carrington says that she has three unescapable -letters to write. Bless her old heart! What<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_64"></a>64</span> should we do, we women, -without heads to ache and letters to write! Of course it’s obvious that -these letters are for Kit’s and Helen’s benefit! So come along, Kit! -Take me to your particular shrine, where you smoke, for I’m going to -smoke and talk with you.” She put her hand in Kit’s, waiting to be led.</p> - -<p>“You’re a great one, Nell!” cried Kit. “What others think you say. Aunt -Anne doesn’t know you smoke.”</p> - -<p>“Doesn’t she? Well, then, she gives herself the benefit of her -ignorance. I’m sure she suspects it, with reason! And feels she’d have -to protest if she knew it. Funny, when she’s so up-to-date, that she -minds smoking! So many other things are intrinsically wrong, if you’re -going to bother about it, and she doesn’t mind them, plays and novels -and so on.”</p> - -<p>Helen swung his hand as she talked and they went down the hall to the -small room at the end which had been set apart for Kit’s use.</p> - -<p>Helen threw herself on the couch with careless ease, freeing her narrow -feet from the twist of her skirt, and crossing them a little above her -pretty ankles.</p> - -<p>Kit laid out a box of cigarettes and held a light for Helen, who -accepted it with her eyes fastened on his as she drew her cigarette -into a glow.</p> - -<p>“Fine, Kit! This is the kind I like. Nice boy; you’d never offer me -feminine substitutes, would you? Say, Kit, I was looking at you. You’re -not a genius, but you have sense. I believe I honestly do want your -opinion, though I set out to ask it in order to be nice, rather than -from actual craving for it,” she said.</p> - -<p>“Go to it, Helen!” said Kit, throwing himself into a deep chair and his -used match into a small hammered dish at the same time. “What’s wrong? -I suppose I should say: Who is it? since it’s a girl’s confidence that -I’m to receive.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, piffle, Kit! You know me better than that,” cried<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_65"></a>65</span> Helen. “In -fact, it’s the opposite sort of confidence. I’m not a bad-looking girl, -you know. Kit——” She paused.</p> - -<p>“Ripping. Stunning,” said Kit.</p> - -<p>“And my father is at once a coming man and a man that has arrived,” -Helen nodded acknowledgment of Kit’s interpolation, “so men, several, -want to marry me! Kit, I’m trying to decide whether I’ll ever marry, -or go in for a career. Now, just wait! I’ve brains as well as looks; -I sing well, but not well enough to follow it up too far. My father -could get me pretty much anything I wanted. I don’t care to marry as -most women do. I know precisely its value, both as an arrangement, -we’ll call it, and as a supplement to a clever, handsome woman’s -assets. But I can get on without marrying; in fact, I’m not sure I’d be -happy married. I think I can reach my goal, in the shape of a career, -just as well unencumbered. What would you say to me as a Power, a -Lady-with-a-Salon, a Personage to be Reckoned With in the State at -Washington? Look here, Kit, wouldn’t that be a game to play alone? I’d -lose a lot of my winnings with a partner. And besides, I couldn’t carry -out the game if I married for love. A friendly, able partner would -be the only one for that, and they’re not common. Men aren’t often -friendly to a girl who is ripping, as you call it.”</p> - -<p>“Well, my gracious, Helen, what makes you put it up to me? What do -I know about it? And exactly what are you getting at?” cried Kit, -perturbed.</p> - -<p>“Because, Kit, and you’d have seen this if you weren’t the sort you -are, there’s a man who wants me bad; right away, too! And I don’t know. -He’s richer than the Ind. I like him, but he loves me. That’s likely to -be a nuisance. It wouldn’t do, would it? And I’ve got to decide pretty -soon as to him, and I’d like to decide as to myself, too, and get about -my job. It’s tiresome to hang along, and time is valuable. Youth for -beginnings, you know.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_66"></a>66</span> -Helen waited, and Kit looked at her from a new angle. He did not know -this Helen. He saw her with eyes that viewed her as a man sees a woman -who is desired by other men. And how mistaken his aunt had been to -think that she was ready to marry him! She was not considering him; she -was frankly his old friend who liked, trusted, consulted him. In this -rôle he liked her.</p> - -<p>“Well, Nell,” he said, slowly, “I don’t quite see how I can answer you. -You’re hard on this man, on all the men you know and whom you don’t -care to marry. It’s wasteful for a woman like you, with all you are and -have, not to marry, isn’t it?”</p> - -<p>“Wasteful?” Helen laughed her pretty laugh. “I suppose I may as well -tell you the whole story! I’m thinking of ‛commencing author,’ as our -British cousins say. I can write!”</p> - -<p>“Sure. You can do anything,” said Kit, sincerely.</p> - -<p>“Richard Latham lives here. I’ve never met him, often as I’ve been to -Cleavedge. You know him, don’t you? I wish you’d take me to see him, -Kit. I’d like his help. I’ve begun something and I’d like to insinuate -myself into his acquaintance till I’d dare ask him what it amounts to.” -Helen waited, watching Kit under drooping lids.</p> - -<p>“That’s easy,” said Kit, unsuspiciously. “I’ll take you there.”</p> - -<p>“Good boy!” said Helen, lying back against her pillow.</p> - -<p>Plainly Kit did not suspect the long, confidential talk in which his -aunt and she that afternoon had discussed him and his possible error in -taste and judgment.</p> - -<p>“Oh, Kit, how I must have bored you! What a good sort you are to be -so patient! As if I had to decide my problem the minute I got here! -But you did look so sane and reliable when I first saw you! Let’s put -off the momentous decision of vacillating Helen’s fate till the next -time—or far longer! I’m getting<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_67"></a>67</span> sleepy, and your aunt must be through -with those fictitious letters.”</p> - -<p>Helen flung herself off the couch and went out of the room in advance -of Kit.</p> - -<p>“You smell of cigarettes,” said Miss Carrington as they came up to her.</p> - -<p>Helen went closer and laid her long hands on the old lady’s head, as if -to bless her.</p> - -<p>“One does when one has been where they are,” she said, -<ins id="lightly" title="Original has 'lighty'">lightly</ins> -kissing Miss Carrington’s soft white hair. Her breath -was not distinguishable in that kiss.</p> - -<p>Kit went to his room conscious of having spent a delightful evening. -Helen had treated him in the one way that he could have enjoyed; he was -grateful to her for having set him at ease, for banishing a dread for -which, he was convinced, she was in no degree responsible. Never before -had Kit liked Helen Abercrombie as well as to-night.</p> - - - - -<div class="chapter"> -<hr class="divider x-ebookmaker-drop" /> -<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_68"></a>68</span> -</div> - - -<h2 id="vii">CHAPTER VII<br /> -<span>The Poet’s Corner</span></h2> - -<p class="noi"><span class="dropcap">I</span>N the quiet room, with the sunlight shaded, for the day was warm, -Anne Dallas bent over her writing table, absorbed in her work. Richard -Latham sat opposite her, dictating slowly, his head resting on his -hand, his face turned toward her. If he could have seen one would -have said that he was watching Anne, and even though his eyes were -sightless the word was not unsuitable. He was so keenly conscious of -her movements, and his sensitive mind was so intent upon her, that he -perceived her almost as if he saw her.</p> - -<p>Yet this vision of Anne helped rather than hindered the dictation of -the lines of his play. That her permeation of his thoughts did not get -in the way of his developing the imaginary people whom his brain was -moving about like puppets, said as nothing else could say how one with -him she was, how completely, how selflessly she answered to his need.</p> - -<p>Richard Latham was writing a play. It was both comedy and tragedy, as -most real dramas are; it was realism, yet idealized as are all lives -which are worth living. It was that day reaching the end of its second -act.</p> - -<p>No one but Anne Dallas had yet heard a line of it. She took it from -Richard’s lips as it formed in his poet’s mind, feeling that she was -a part of something unspeakably great; it gave her at once a sense of -utter isolation and at the same time a feeling that she was in the -midst of crowding splendours which lay beyond the bounds of daily -events and their actors.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_69"></a>69</span> -Anne wondered while she waited for Richard to think out something that -he wanted to express exactly, why it was she to whom this experience -had fallen. Anne Dallas had not an undue opinion of Anne Dallas. She -considered herself one of the majority of average people, not exceeding -in face, mind, nor any way, hosts of girls correctly, but tamely, -described as “nice girls.” Yet it was she and none of the others -who was taking down this play to-day, these words and pictures and -characters so beautiful that she felt sure that they would live on long -after she had grown old and died.</p> - -<p>It was after three, and the rule was that work stopped at three, but -Richard was dictating the last lines of the second act. It was tense -with emotion, complex in situation, and many of the loveliest lines so -far in the play were in this scene. It had not occurred to the workers -to think of time.</p> - -<p>Anne Dallas looked up and saw little Anne Berkley coming up the walk. -Her table was beside the window, and she signalled to the child to be -quiet. Little Anne at once dropped down on the steps and began to fan -herself with her hat, for she understood the ways of the poet from past -experience, and knew that she must wait to be admitted.</p> - -<p>At last Richard Latham triumphantly cried: “Curtain!” and fell back in -his chair, suddenly realizing that he was tired.</p> - -<p>“Will it do, Miss Dallas? Could you judge it as you wrote it?” Richard -asked.</p> - -<p>“Oh, no, not judge it! It does far too well. I could not judge it. It -is supremely fine and beautiful; it sweeps one along with it, but I -know that it is the best thing that you have done,” cried Anne.</p> - -<p>“I don’t know; I’m afraid it isn’t much good,” said Richard, -despondently. “Oh, Lord! To feel something surging against your brain, -your lips, almost as if it literally pushed your ribs<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_70"></a>70</span> out, then to -be tongue-tied, to feel you’ve played it false when it wanted to be -born of you, that you’ve strangled it at birth, or brought it forth -deformed!”</p> - -<p>“If you could express all that you feel you would not feel enough to be -greatly worth expressing. It is neither slain nor deformed, but to you -the wings that bore it to you seem clipped. Perhaps they may be, since -your conception of it must exceed words, but you have made the rush of -those wings audible to others.”</p> - -<p>Anne arose as she spoke and rang for tea. She was used to dealing with -the poet’s reaction from the delight of creation; she understood it.</p> - -<p>“How you help me!” Richard smiled at her and put out his hand; Anne’s -skirt brushed it as she crossed the room.</p> - -<p>“It’s a hard thing to feel one minute like a tower reaching to heaven, -and the next like a toppled card house.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, it’s hard, but it doesn’t really matter, because you know it’s -only nervous reaction. It would matter if you took the tower or the -card house seriously, especially the tower! But you never lose your -perspective. It’s a great deal to be a perfectly sane great poet!” Anne -laughed, and added, “Little Anne has been meekly sitting on the steps -for some time. I signalled her to wait until you were finished. Shall I -call her now?”</p> - -<p>“Surely. Little Anne is as good a restorative as tea,” said Richard. -The little girl came in on her summons with a flushed and happy face; -she at once accepted Richard’s invitation to perch on the arm of his -chair, though she first violently hugged Anne Dallas.</p> - -<p>“I’ve been to instructions,” she replied to Richard’s question. “Yes, -I am warm; I am very warm, I am so warm that I’m boiling hot, only I’m -not to say that. It’s a pity. I think it’s one of the worst things that -ain’t—are not—sickness, or dying, or<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_71"></a>71</span> op’rations, or something, that -you can’t use strong words. I think it makes you hotter’n fury to be -just about roasted and say you’re warm!”</p> - -<p>Richard threw back his head and joined in Anne Dallas’s laughter.</p> - -<p>“You often remind me of Margery Fleming, little Anne, and it seems that -you share her love of strong language! I think myself it’s a useful -safety valve. What instructions are you getting?”</p> - -<p>“I don’t mean swearing, not blasphemy,” said little Anne, looking -shocked by the idea. “I mean words that sort of rip and hit things. -I wouldn’t swear, not for worlds! And I’m going to First Communion -instructions.”</p> - -<p>Little Anne bent her head as she said this and her thin, flashing, -elfin face took on an awed look, awe that her voice expressed.</p> - -<p>“At your age?” cried Richard. “Why, Anne, you are too young! When I -knew about these things we did not join the church before we were -fourteen.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t have to join the Church, I’m in it,” said Anne, puzzled. -“You’re old enough when you understand. And I do understand. Sister -Annunciata says I understand enough to make me dreadful ’sponsible if -I don’t try to be worthy. Though you can’t really be, you know. It’ll -be next month, Corpus Christi; it comes early. Sister says it’s often -later, but it has to come when Easter makes it. But it’s sure to be -warm, she says. We’ll have white dresses and veils, all alike, so if -a girl is kind of not able to get a fancy one, nobody’ll know which -she is. Anyway, mother says pure white and quite simple is the way we -ought to look. It is the happiest day of all my life. No matter what -other day I have, presents, or parties, or—no matter what—that’s the -happiest. How can I wait?”</p> - -<p>She threw back her head and lifted toward heaven a rapt, ecstatic -little face.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_72"></a>72</span> -“Do you think it’s possible she will feel that is true? Isn’t it -dangerous to tell her this? I’d be afraid of a disappointment and a -disastrous after effect,” said Richard to Anne Dallas.</p> - -<p>“Oh, no, I think not. Joan would tell us there was no danger. Little -Anne’s faith is strong. She cannot understand how happy she is to be an -innocent child, but later on she will look back to this day and realize -that she was one, and that, in very truth, her First Communion day was -the happiest one of her life,” said Anne, softly.</p> - -<p>Little Anne jumped down from the arm of Richard’s chair and flew to -take Anne Dallas around the neck in a tempestuous embrace.</p> - -<p>“Don’t be sorry you are grown up, my darling,” she cried. “You’re not -so very much grown up. And you are good! I love you. I’m going to pray -for all my dear ones on my First Communion day. You’re one! Sister -says Our Lord will love to give me what I ask for them. I’m going to -ask to be kept a little girl inside me always. Some people are. It’s -very hot—warm, isn’t it? And I see Kit Carrington coming along with a -handsome, elegant lady. She’s <em>awfully</em> handsome! They’re turning -in here.”</p> - -<p>“Do you mind being caught, Mr. Latham? Anne is right; they are coming -here. You have time to escape,” suggested Anne Dallas.</p> - -<p>“I don’t mind. I like Kit Carrington, and the magnificence of the lady -as conveyed by little Anne ought to be enjoyable, even to a blind man. -All right, Stetson. Ask them to come in here—or, no, show them into -the garden; we’ll go there. It <em>is</em> warm, little Anne!”</p> - -<p>Richard Latham, Anne, and little Anne stepped out from one of the long -French windows which gave on the garden from the dining room. Helen -Abercrombie and Kit had already reached one of the curved benches -beneath the elms which interlaced<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_73"></a>73</span> their sweeping boughs over the turf -of the upper end of the fine old garden.</p> - -<p>Helen was such a beautiful figure in her floating white gown, with her -drooping, white-plumed hat shading her golden hair as she arose to meet -her host that Anne Dallas, as well as little Anne, was dazzled. It -seemed a pity that a poet should not be able to look upon such wondrous -loveliness.</p> - -<p>“Mr. Latham, I brought my aunt’s guest, Miss Abercrombie, to see you -because—well, she wanted to come! Miss Abercrombie, Mr. Latham,” said -Kit.</p> - -<p>“Miss Carrington would have asked you to come to tea with us, she means -to still but I did want to come! Kit is right, and I’ve no better -excuse for intruding to add to his,” said Helen, her voice more than -ever like a delicate harp blown upon by a breeze.</p> - -<p>“Ought you apologize for kindness?” suggested Richard. “I am glad to -show you my garden. Kit and Miss Dallas know each—— Oh, really, I beg -your pardon!” Richard broke off with a shocked gesture. “Miss Dallas, -Miss Abercrombie.”</p> - -<p>Helen bowed. She possessed to perfection the art of grading her bows. -This one conveyed to Anne exactly the intended impression of her claim -to recognition for service rendered to the public, but not as a social -equal.</p> - -<p>Anne Dallas returned the salutation quietly. She did not miss its -quality, but it did not disturb her. She would not have been a woman, -a young woman at that, and not have been conscious to her finger tips -of the regal beauty of the girl beside her. She did not know that the -juxtaposition was planned by Helen to show Kit the contrast between -them, but it made her feel like a dull little weed to know that her -simple white gown and her smooth, dark hair were contrasting like -homespun against the elegant clothing of the other girl and the radiant -head held high above her.</p> - -<p>“Kit Carrington will marry her!” thought Anne, ignoring the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_74"></a>74</span> stab the -thought dealt her. “Mr. Latham, at least, can’t see us together.” Fresh -from the enthusiasm of her day’s work, she told herself that Kit did -not count if she could hold her place in Richard Latham’s mind. But she -had to remind herself of this.</p> - -<p>“It’s not easy to talk to a poet. I have tried to before, but not -to one great enough to make it matter how one talked,” said Helen, -accepting Richard’s invitation to the bench under the elms.</p> - -<p>“Talk to the man, and never mind the poet!” said Richard. “I am not -merely a poet. Therefore I wish that I could see you, Miss Abercrombie!”</p> - -<p>“Now I know how well you fill the rôle I’m to play to! I already had -your measure on the poet side,” laughed Helen. “Who is the child that -looks like a changeling? Your niece?”</p> - -<p>“This is Miss Anne Berkley, my intimate friend, Miss Abercrombie, but I -cannot claim kinship with her except in mind,” said Richard, gravely.</p> - -<p>“How charming!” said Helen, carelessly. “How do you do, Miss Anne -Berkley? Another Anne!”</p> - -<p>“I am well, I thank you,” said little Anne. “There are many Annes in -this place, but we don’t know them all, I s’pose. I didn’t like it long -time ago, but I made an act of it, so I could bear my name, and now I -like it.”</p> - -<p>“What did you make of it?” cried Helen.</p> - -<p>“Anne means an act of mortification. She has many curious bits of -vernacular from the nuns who teach her; curious to others. That is one -of them,” explained Anne Dallas.</p> - -<p>“How interesting!” said Helen, by this time surfeited of little Anne -and not intending to be drawn into conversation with Anne Dallas. -Little Anne was quick to feel atmospheres. She flushed and said -vehemently:</p> - -<p>“The best of all lovely Annes, or anything, is Miss Anne Dallas!”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_75"></a>75</span> -“Indeed that is true, little Anne, though you and I love each other -so well,” said Richard Latham. “Miss Dallas stands between me and -darkness; between me and silence, between me and inability to do my -work, Miss Abercrombie.”</p> - -<p>“What a beautiful thing to say, Mr. Latham! Miss Dallas must feel -recompensed at this moment for all that she has done, all that she -will do. Yet I can see how bad it would be for you not to have a good -secretary.” Helen smiled toward Anne, and over her.</p> - -<p>“It would, indeed. But I cannot say that it has ever occurred to me -that Miss Dallas was a good secretary,” said Richard, slowly. “Are you -too tired to walk about? Do gardens bore you?”</p> - -<p>“Not such a garden as this one,” said Helen, graciously. “Please let -Miss Dallas come with us. Kit will look after the little girl. I am -sure that you are accustomed to Miss Dallas’s guidance.”</p> - -<p>“That is another profoundly true remark, Miss Abercrombie,” said -Richard. “You will show our best spots to Miss Abercrombie, in case I -pass them, Miss Dallas?”</p> - -<p>“Gladly,” said Anne, obeying Helen’s gesture to walk at her other hand. -“But you know we think them all the best! This garden is one of Mr. -Latham’s loveliest, though least-known, poems.”</p> - -<p>Little Anne slipped her hand into Kit’s and held him back.</p> - -<p>“Who is she?” she whispered.</p> - -<p>“Like her?” asked Kit, interested in the reply.</p> - -<p>Little Anne shook her head hard. “She is like all the things in fairy -tales,” she said. “She’s like a cloth-of-gold, and a fairy princess, -she’s so beau-ti-ful! But she’s something like Cinderella’s sisters at -the ball. No, I don’t like her, not one bit. What does she want to do? -Is she going to try to be Mr. Latham’s—you know! His writer? What do -you call it?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_76"></a>76</span> -“Secretary? No, indeed, little Anne! Miss Abercrombie is a royal lady; -not even a poet would she serve,” said Kit.</p> - -<p>“Well, what makes her mean?” asked little Anne, candidly; she had used -her keen young eyes and ears to some purpose. “Miss Anne’s ever’n’ ever -so much nicer, and ever’n’ ever so much prettier, even if she isn’t, -because she looks so kind of dear and sweet. I know she’s being not -nice to my Anne, because when anybody isn’t nice to someone I love, -and I don’t know what it is they’re doing, that makes me mad, and I -remember my vocation.”</p> - -<p>“Your vocation, you queer little Anne? What can you mean?” cried Kit.</p> - -<p>“Putting beetles on their legs,” said the child promptly. “When they -get on their backs and can’t get over, you know. It makes me feel -like that. I do not like her one speck, so there! But I s’pose Sister -Annunciata’d say I had to because I’m going to instructions. But ought -you like everything, Kit? I think it’s fearful to be a saint!”</p> - -<p>“Great Scott, little Anne, is that what you’re tackling? No wonder you -find this sinful old world a puzzle!” Kit’s great roar of laughter made -the others turn back.</p> - -<p>“What has little Anne said now?” asked Anne Dallas with a look of such -friendly understanding to Kit that Helen was annoyed.</p> - -<p>“Don’t tell! Oh, don’t, please don’t tell!” begged little Anne.</p> - -<p>“Surest thing you know I won’t tell!” Kit reassured her. “Not now. -Sometime when I’m alone with Miss Dallas you won’t mind? Because she’d -love to know what you said of her.”</p> - -<p>“She knows! She knows we all love her to pieces!” cried little Anne, -seizing Anne Dallas around the waist, to the inconvenience of Helen, -who drew her skirt away.</p> - -<p>“Is this child an orphan? Why doesn’t that Sister -<ins id="Something" title="Original has 'something'">Something-or-Other</ins> -<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_77"></a>77</span> teach her manners?” demanded -Helen, indulging her temper at the expense of prudence.</p> - -<p>“We find our little Anne’s manners most admirable. Her mother is Mrs. -Berkley, and she is so lovely that no little girl could have a better -model,” said Richard, patting little Anne’s cheek; it was as hot -beneath his hand as he had known that it would be.</p> - -<p>Little Anne swallowed hard several times and clasped her hands tight.</p> - -<p>“Well, that was a <em>good</em> act to offer up!” she said in a choked -voice, and her friends had difficulty in restraining their smiles.</p> - -<p>“When you are ready, Helen?” suggested Kit. “I suppose you have -confided to Mr. Latham the secret that you were planning to tell him?”</p> - -<p>“Not this time,” said Helen, recovering her smile. “Mr. Latham is -coming to tea at your aunt’s; then I shall tell him, because there he -will be at my mercy.”</p> - -<p>“Are not men always at your mercy, Miss Abercrombie? Though I cannot -see you, I have divined that,” said Richard, suavely.</p> - -<p>“If you are walking our way, Miss Dallas, won’t you come with Miss -Abercrombie and me?” Kit suggested.</p> - -<p>Again Helen’s temper slipped its leash. She turned toward Anne, looking -down on the girl who was a half head shorter than Helen.</p> - -<p>“Oh, don’t you sleep in the house?” she said with so much insolence -in the simple words that Richard flushed to his hair, and Kit found -himself as hard put to it for self-control as little Anne had been in -“making her act.”</p> - -<p>“Miss Dallas does not sleep at her post; she boards near by, and all -day and every day helps me in every way that her charity can devise,” -said Richard. “Please do not go yet, Miss Dallas. I want your advice as -to the next act, but more I want the honour of taking you home myself.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_78"></a>78</span> -“Good-bye, Mr. Latham,” said Kit, grasping his host’s hand so tight -that he winced. “I’m proud and grateful that you let me come here. -Good-bye, Miss Dallas. Come, little Anne; you’re going to be taken home -by me. Helen? Are you ready?”</p> - -<p>Helen made her adieux with her most charming grace, including Anne -Dallas in her cordiality. She had allowed her temper to get away from -her, but she had no mind to let it be the final impression which she -left behind her. She was far too wise to stir men to championship of -another girl, however her inferior in wit and beauty that girl might be.</p> - -<p>Anne Dallas, with heightened colour, responded quietly to Helen’s -farewell. She did not betray the slightest annoyance.</p> - -<p>“She surpasses in breeding as she does in all other ways,” thought -Richard, listening to Anne’s courteous replies, spoken in her soft alto -voice.</p> - -<p>“Good-bye, you darlingest! You very sweetest and darlingest!” cried -little Anne, hugging Anne Dallas, and voicing what they all felt, -though the feeling puzzled the child.</p> - -<p>Kit left little Anne at her own door; she had walked in utter silence, -holding his hand tight, while Helen chatted cheerfully, ignoring little -Anne.</p> - -<p>“What a queer, thin, dark, clever little creature!” exclaimed Helen -after they had bade the child good-night. “Even bright children bore -me. I don’t care for crudity in any form. I daresay your least Anne -will make a clever woman.”</p> - -<p>“Well, Nell, I can’t recall consulting you about little Anne,” said -Kit, but so pleasantly that Helen could not resent it.</p> - -<p>“Not about either Anne do you mean?” laughed Helen. “That little -secretary person is a nice girl. Not particularly interesting, not -particularly pretty, but interesting and pretty enough. It’s a mutually -lucky thing that she is working for Richard Latham. If he marries her -it will be quite well—and of course he is going to marry her. He is -blind, so more beautiful<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_79"></a>79</span> women won’t make him repent it, and his wife -will not be criticized as his wife would be if he weren’t blind. She -would be entirely dutiful, and of course marriage to him will give her -a position that she could not otherwise hope to attain. She doesn’t -strike one as having connections.”</p> - -<p>“Marry him! Anne Dallas!” cried Kit.</p> - -<p>Helen glanced at him.</p> - -<p>“Certainly. I should say that it was practically settled now,” she -said. “Latham would be a step upward for most women, but no one would -dream of opposing anything that he wanted. He really is pathetic, so -gifted, so handsome, so polished—and so blind! I was not prepared to -admire him as I do. It would be wicked to cross him in whatever he -desired. I, for one, would not put a straw in the way of his marrying -that mousey little secretary, even if I could, and though there are -plenty of brilliant women who would gladly devote themselves to him.”</p> - -<p>Kit did not speak. He walked on whistling behind his closed teeth.</p> - -<p>Helen broke the silence:</p> - -<p>“I’m afraid I was not quite pretty-behaved there, Kit! Spoiled children -are so dreadful, and, till I discovered that the secretary was also the -poet’s dream and to be Mrs. Latham, I hated meeting her; that’s the -truth. I don’t mean to be a snob, but social equality is such utter -nonsense that it ruffles my feathers. I was annoyed that I had to -walk with that commonplace girl, and be shown the garden by her! That -is, until I discovered her future standing. So I’m afraid I was a bit -horrid. I’m sorry! And of course Miss Dallas is all right in her way.”</p> - -<p>Helen leaned forward to smile into Kit’s face.</p> - -<p>He threw his head back and away from her.</p> - -<p>“Oh, damn—ascus!” he said.</p> - -<p>Helen laughed blithely, and tucked her hand into his arm with high good -humour.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_80"></a>80</span> -“You needn’t convert your swear words on my account, Kit,” she said. “I -might use one myself were occasion demanding it. If I was naughty, at -least <em>I</em> kept my temper, poor Kit! How about it? Did we all?”</p> - -<p>“It’s a mighty poor thing to keep,” said Kit. “Get rid of it. Yes, you -sure kept your temper, Nell! That’s the kind of temper I remember you -had. You’ve kept it, all right!”</p> - -<p>“What a horrid boy you are, Kit Carrington!” cried Helen, delighted, -but pretending not to be. “I have not a bad temper; I never fly out. -I dislike foolish, tiresome, annoying things, that’s all! I’ve an -excellent temper to live with. My father says I’m the easiest woman -to get on with he ever knew, and a man who has governed a whole state -ought to be a judge of one little disposition! Come on, don’t sulk! It -would be too stupid to bring an unpleasant atmosphere home with us into -your aunt’s house.”</p> - -<p>He looked at her; she was smiling, and was wonderfully handsome. Poor -baited Kit, disturbed by Helen’s discovery and disgusted with the -afternoon, sighed helplessly and gave in.</p> - -<p>“You may be the easiest woman to get on with your father ever knew,” -he said. “From what experienced people tell us that’s not a strong -statement. It’s no fool of a job to handle any woman, they say, and I -believe it!”</p> - - - - -<div class="chapter"> -<hr class="divider x-ebookmaker-drop" /> -<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_81"></a>81</span> -</div> - - -<h2 id="viii">CHAPTER VIII<br /> -<span>Candour</span></h2> - -<p class="noi"><span class="dropcap">M</span>ISS CARRINGTON, seated before the hearth in her sitting room and -enjoying the wood fire partly because it crackled; partly because it -was too warm for the day, heard Minerva moving about in her dressing -room and called her.</p> - -<p>“Isn’t Helen back yet?” she asked.</p> - -<p>Minerva appeared in the doorway, disapproval in every line of her black -taffeta gown.</p> - -<p>“Miss Abercrombie came in three quarters of an hour ago; she went to -her room and it’s likely is resting there, though not having seen her I -am not able to say positively,” she replied.</p> - -<p>“Oh, well, Minerva, it will never come to a trial for perjury,” -observed Miss Carrington. “Ask her if she will not join me?”</p> - -<p>Minerva withdrew and shortly there appeared in the same doorway a -figure in sharp contrast to Minerva’s. It was Helen’s, tall and lithe, -swathed in a pale blue Japanese negligée, heavily embroidered in white -and faintest pink. Her golden hair was dishevelled; one hand carried a -box of chocolates, the other clutched her robe and a novel.</p> - -<p>“Want me?” she asked, and crossed the room as Miss Carrington invited -by a gesture to a chair at her side.</p> - -<p>Helen took it and piled three down pillows around her, twisting her -body into perfect agreement with the pillows.</p> - -<p>“How inconsiderate you are not to come without a summons!”<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_82"></a>82</span> Miss -Carrington reproached her. “Aren’t stay-at-homes always eager for -bulletins from abroad?”</p> - -<p>“I thought you’d be napping, or would come into my room if you wanted -me,” said Helen. “There isn’t much to report; a perfectly ordinary -visit. Of course the most interesting things about it aren’t those that -happened.”</p> - -<p>“Precisely. And your keen eyes would see them,” agreed Miss Carrington. -“First of all, is there the least ground for my suspicion of Kit?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, dear me, yes,” said Helen, promptly. “I more than suspect him, but -he doesn’t suspect himself. He is attracted by the girl; he likes her, -is ready to range himself on her side if any one doesn’t unreservedly -admire her, but the feeling has not taken on alarming proportions. I’m -sure he has no notion that he’ll fall in love with her if he isn’t -careful, that the ‛goblins will git him if he don’t watch out!’ He -doesn’t think she’s a goblin, and he isn’t clever enough to watch out. -Please don’t mind me, because you know what I think of Kit! She’s a -pretty little thing enough, but not more than pretty. And she has a -gentle, amiable way with her, unsophisticated and all that. One of -those <em>good</em> girls! Men are drawn by sweetness and goodness at -first, and then, when they have to live with it, they are sure to be -drawn by the other thing! Beauty unadorned, beauty of character, is -pretty deadly daily diet, Aunt Anne-elect!”</p> - -<p>Miss Carrington laughed. “These are not original remarks, Helen, though -they may be the result of your original research,” she said. “The point -is not how wise you are, nor how accurate a prophet, but what Kit -thinks of her.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, well, do you suppose Kit thinks of her?” Helen asked, lightly. -“It strikes me that it is only that she is here, and nobody else is, -most of the time. There must be lots of pretty girls in a place this -size, but this little brown thing is new. I suppose she must have -brains, for Richard Latham finds her the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_83"></a>83</span> greatest help; he spoke of -her as marvellously perceptive, says her criticisms are a great help -to him. But Kit has been drawn to her simply because—he is! That’s -the only reason it ever happens, of course! And I don’t imagine he has -thought about her; not actual, appraising thoughts. She is essentially -feminine. I am dead sure he is attracted to her, but I’m also sure he -isn’t analyzing himself, nor her, and it ought to be possible to divert -his attention. Have a chocolate?” Helen extended her box.</p> - -<p>Miss Carrington accepted a chocolate with a twinkle in her eye and a -laugh that was not wholly flattering to her guest.</p> - -<p>Helen’s embroidered robe had fallen to the floor on each side of her; -her white skin gleamed above and through the thin crêpe and lace of her -underclothing; her white, lace-trimmed skirt was drawn tight above her -knees as she sat back in the chair; her thin, lustrous silk stocking -outlined the beautiful curve of her leg.</p> - -<p>“If Kit could see you now he might be diverted,” said Miss Carrington.</p> - -<p>In her youth, with girls of her own age, she had never been so -unreserved.</p> - -<p>“Call him in,” suggested Helen. “I’ll tell you in confidence, Miss -Carrington, that I never found a trusting youth hard to divert, if I -went about it.”</p> - -<p>“What did Thackeray say? That any woman could marry any man if she had -sufficient opportunity and had not a positive hump? Something like that -in <cite>Vanity Fair</cite>.”</p> - -<p>“Anticipating G.B.S.? I remember Shaw better than Thackeray. I read -<cite>Vanity Fair</cite> when I was about fourteen. Of course everyone admits -that the woman chooses, but how about two women choosing the same man, -each with the ‛sufficient opportunity?’ Then it does seem as though the -man cast the deciding vote, though that would be only another way of -saying<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_84"></a>84</span> that one woman had the stronger attraction. I never heard that -threshed out. It’s interesting, opens out vistas. The only thing I’ve -heard that might bear on it is that once seven women laid hold of one -man. I don’t know what came of that. I haven’t read the Book that’s in -much, not even at fourteen!” Helen laughed, throwing herself back and -crossing her ankle on her knee as if she had been a man.</p> - -<p>Miss Carrington did not smile. Her brow contracted slightly, and her -eyes did not applaud Helen.</p> - -<p>“You funny old dear!” Helen cried. “When you are so emancipated, boast -of your modernity, read the books, novels and philosophy, love the -plays you do, why do you suppose you are half-scared of me at times? -And you are. I jar you.”</p> - -<p>“A matter of taste, Helen,” admitted Miss Carrington. “I was bred up -in old-fashioned conservatism. I can theorize; I don’t mind the new -ideas in print, on the stage, provided they are cleverly put, but I -admit that I like to see young women what I was trained to consider -well-mannered. I don’t defend my inconsistency; I’m explaining myself.”</p> - -<p>“Atavism; Shintoism,” said Helen, carelessly. “No one is consistent. -Taste is stronger than principles, I’ve always noticed that. It will -take two generations to get our mental clothing fitted, and by that -time the fashion will probably swing back; that’s the way it works. -You’ve got your grandmother’s and mother’s minds grafted on your mind. -You’ve survived; you were born before the old ways had passed. But to -return to our muttons, which means the Dallas lambkin: Richard Latham -is in love with her himself.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, Helen, do you think so?” cried Miss Carrington.</p> - -<p>“Know so,” Helen corrected her. “And I warned Kit. I went so far as -<ins id="to" title="Original has 'to to'">to</ins> try to ingraft upon his trusting mind the suggestion that no -one would snatch her from a man so important to the world, so afflicted -as the poet. I hoped that it would<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_85"></a>85</span> seem to him later that he had -thought of that himself. And, really, Miss Carrington, Richard Latham -is a peach of a man, aside from his poetry. He is charming; modest, -clever, gentle, and you feel that he is stainless. I wondered for a -moment if it wouldn’t be worth while rescuing him, instead of Kit, from -the little Dallas? I could put him on a pinnacle, give him the rewards -of his genius while he lived, instead of after he is dead. I could do -it alone, and I am always plus father. But I decided it would be a pity -to waste my looks on a blind man.”</p> - -<p>“Your conceit is so colossal, Helen Abercrombie, that it is raised -above ordinary weaknesses,” declared Miss Carrington, energetically.</p> - -<p>“Dear Aunt-elect, you are quite right. I do not think that I am in -any way a small woman. If you call it conceit, so be it. But if I did -not know that I am handsome I should be a fool, and like the fool say -in my heart that ‛all men are liars.’ I am clever. Experience teaches -me that, and my will is not easily downed. You may call it colossal -conceit, but I call it an intelligent appraisal of myself. I know -that I can do for the man I marry what few women can do, and that I -shall do it, and I do think it would be a pity if my husband could not -see me.” Helen ended her frank speech with a downward glance at her -generously displayed beauty. It was her complete disregard of any sort -of concealment that shocked the elder woman, who had been trained in -the reserved manners of what used to be called “a gentlewoman.” Miss -Carrington realized that in this she was at variance with her views -which admitted freedom, equality, the right of every human being to be -and to do what he, and she, as much, saw fit. But the application of -the theory, especially in the case of a fair young girl, hurt her.</p> - -<p>“Indeed, Helen, I know that you will do for your husband more than -other women can,” Miss Carrington said, almost humbly. “That is why I -want you for Kit, as you understand<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_86"></a>86</span> quite well. But just why do you -want my boy? He is a fine, honest, loyal lad; has a good mind, nice -manners; would be no end fond and unselfish, and he is personable—I -like that word!—but there are others far richer, others with famous -names, better placed in the world. I am glad that you do want Kit, -but—why do you? I am sure you are too candid to mind telling me.”</p> - -<p>Helen sat erect, drew her drapery around her, and leaned her elbows on -her knees to elucidate.</p> - -<p>“Aunt Anne,” she said with considerable earnestness, and omitting the -restrictive word in the elder woman’s title, “I suppose no one quite -understands these things. I don’t altogether. But I have decided that -when I say I want Kit that about covers it. It’s precisely what I said -awhile ago about Anne Dallas. Attraction attracts, and you can’t define -wherein it lies. Kit’s strong, virile beauty—he really is an awfully -well-set-up chap—attracts me. Others may have it, in fact they have; -the average college boy gets a lot of it if he trains, but in Kit I -like it best. I like the way he nods at me when he says something which -he thinks is profound and which I’ve always known. I especially like -the way his hair grows in the back of his neck, and he has one funny -ear lobe, sort of kinky—ever notice it? He doesn’t know what fear is, -either physical or moral; doesn’t stop to find it out that it exists. -He has a dandy voice in talking, and he says deliciously fool things -about girls! He’s strong, clean—I could do a lot with him if he’d love -me. And I’m pretty sure he’d get taught how to love me if I married -him. I’d put myself out to teach him, and I know how to teach! I think -that’s about all there is to it. As I say, it comes to the one thing -with which I started: I want Kit Carrington!”</p> - -<p>Miss Carrington always sat straight in a straight chair, so she could -not be more erect than she had been, yet she had the effect of sitting -straighter as she listened to Helen; she became alert.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_87"></a>87</span> -“Helen, child, all that you say must mean, it <em>does</em> mean, that -you are in love with Kit! I never dreamed that you were in love with -him, but you surely are. I am glad of it. This atavism of mine, as you -call it, makes it easier for me to carry out our bargain knowing that -you are in love with the boy,” she cried.</p> - -<p>“Oh, come, now, Miss Carrington,” laughed Helen. “I play the game -with you, cards face up on the table. You are the sort of woman with -whom one can do that; you can’t with most of them. I’m not in love -with Kit sentimentally; there isn’t a drop of the Elizabeth Barrett -Browning slush in it! What’s that thing she wrote? ‛Unless you can -muse in a crowd on the face that fixed you?’ Heavens! When I’m in the -midst of a crowd I’m busy seeing to it that it knows I’m there! And -no face ever fixed me—sounds like a spitted chicken! Stuff! If I get -Kit—and I mean to—I’ll be as pleased as Punch, and so shall he, I -promise you. But if I don’t get him I’ll take someone else and make a -good thing of it. What I won’t do is to fail in life. I want Kit, do -you see? He suits me; I want him. I like all the things about him that -I enumerated, and then some. Simply and truthfully, I want Kit. We’d -make a corking pair. He’s good material. As far as this is worth, I am -in love with Kit. But you and I are wide-awake women, with the right -labels on ourselves and our world, only I’m beginning to think I’m -the elder, you nice old Anne Carrington! Help me to capture your boy -and we’ll never repent it, you nor I, nor that silly Christopher, who -thinks, or will think if we don’t straighten his thoughts for him, that -he wants that demure mouse! She would make him gruel, possibly, but she -would surely make any clever man who had to put up with her monotony -sick to the point of needing gruel! She’s just the average woman since -Eve, Aunt Anne!”</p> - -<p>“There’s no such thing as an average woman, Helen Abercrombie!” laughed -Miss Carrington. “Untold millions of them<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_88"></a>88</span> since Eve, and every one of -them a special creation—ending with you, who are, I confess, the least -average of any I have known.”</p> - -<p>Helen laughed with her and said:</p> - -<p>“Helen fired Troy; it’s queer if she can’t set Kit afire. See here, -Miss Carrington, why aren’t we riding, Kit and I? Don’t you know that -on a horse I inevitably ride to victory?”</p> - -<p>“I’ll have them here in the morning, Helen,” said Miss Carrington. -“Make Kit start early enough to ride to the Daphne Woods. It’s the most -exquisite, the most emotional road I’ve ever seen, here or abroad.”</p> - -<p>“Its name is all of that; I remember it from other visits. I always -thought there must have been a poet here before Mr. Latham’s time to -name those woods. All right; Daphne Woods it shall be for Kit and me -to-morrow morning. And thanks, Miss Carrington, for this satisfactory -confession I’ve made. Do I understand that I am shriven?” Helen asked, -rising.</p> - -<p>“Of what you intend to do? Even an old pagan like me knows that you -can’t be shriven of an intention to act, unless you give up the -intention. And I hope you will not abandon your plan to steal Kit!”</p> - -<p>“Not I!” declared Helen, her soft silks gathered into a spring-like -mass of blue and white and blush pinks, turning to wave her hands, thus -filled, from the doorway. “I’ll be an improved robber, not with a kit -to steal, but a stolen Kit!”</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Early the next morning the horses were at the door, Kit’s own horse, a -fine-skinned, chestnut sorrel, and one that Miss Carrington had secured -for Helen’s riding, a spirited black horse, high-headed, high-stepping, -whose magnificent strength made a perfect pedestal for the girl’s -blonde grace.</p> - -<p>Helen came down the stairs in her golden-brown riding clothes, russet -boots, trousers and full-skirted coat of russet-coloured cloth, -wearing a silk beaver hat of the same colour, and russet<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_89"></a>89</span> gauntlets, -her ivory-handled stock under one arm. Her hair glinted below her -hat, brought down low and held by a net in golden masses above her -high white collar and white cravat. Not everyone could have triumphed -over this uniformity of tint, but it turned Helen into an autumnal -sun-goddess, and Kit, buttoning his gloves as he waited for her, -uttered a note of satisfaction on beholding her.</p> - -<p>“You’re a sight, Helen!” he said, opening the door for her to pass.</p> - -<p>“There are sights and sights, Kits! It doesn’t as a rule convey -anything complimentary to call a person a sight, you know!” Helen said, -gaily. She had decided that her rôle for that ride was to be youthful -light-heartedness, that of the girl revelling in sunshine, air, and -contentment.</p> - -<p>Kit gave Helen a hand to mount, which she did not require, swung into -his own saddle, and they were off with a wave of their stocks to Miss -Carrington, who was smiling on them from the piazza.</p> - -<p>“They are a glorious pair; Helen is right, and it does seem as though -Kit must perceive the value of such a mate,” she thought.</p> - -<p>After they had passed out of the city streets they trotted and galloped -by turns eastward. The apple trees were in full blossom, and the -orioles, those bits of flame amid the sweet delicacy of the springtime -bloom, were singing their ecstatic warbling note.</p> - -<p>“The May Day of the world and the heyday of youth, Kit! Aren’t we lucky -to be so young, prosperous, well-mounted, healthy, and handsome among -this ravishing beauty?” cried Helen. “I go into the world so much—the -world in the other sense—that I often feel almost old; I see and learn -so much that is not a part of youth. But when I come here and am out -with you, a healthy, wholesome boy, though you are a year older than -I am, it all falls away from me, and I feel like a nice little girl -rolling her hoop!”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_90"></a>90</span> -“Poor old Nell,” said Kit. “You are mixed up with a whole lot that -you’d be better without. I’m glad that you get sips of the Fountain -of Youth here. I seem to hate worldliness, do you know it? Now I know -people here, Antony Paul and his fine little wife and that wife’s -family; oh, you saw the child, little Anne, yesterday! They’re the most -unworldly people——”</p> - -<p>“Oh, well, you know, Kit, one mustn’t go to extremes,” interrupted -Helen. “It’s a good thing to get the finish and knowledge given by -contact with the world. I don’t like unworldliness. That’s only another -name for stupidity. It’s no better than a badly furnished room, or -poor music, or fake art, or any other ignorance. My idea is to conquer -the world, to get the best it has to give you and rise superior to -it; to be—what’s that trite way of putting it?—in it but not of it? -Well, that’s the thing. I’d not give up the sense of power, moulding -things and people, being one of the worth-while things in the world, -for—well, for the world!”</p> - -<p>She paused to laugh at herself, but went on: “Don’t you think, Kit, -that what my father can do, and what he can put me into the way of -doing, is great? And what’s the matter with using one’s advantages to -improve things? Isn’t that quite possible, and isn’t that a worthy -ambition? Frumpy folk can’t do anything for the keen old world; it -knows a good thing when it sees it. You may be sure, Christopher, -my son, that half the unworldliness is self-delusion. It is -lazy-mindedness, or else an instinct that warns of unfitness for the -world; that the person can’t play a part in it. He thinks he’s superior -and renouncing; in reality, he’s inferior and thrown out.”</p> - -<p>“Honest, Helen, that’s true!” cried Kit; he looked at Helen with -cordial admiration. “I often wonder if I’m not too commonplace to -amount to a whole lot, and so I think that I don’t want to make a -splash. I never saw this side of you; that you cared to help and all -that. You are a wonder, Nell; I take off<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_91"></a>91</span> my hat to you. There isn’t -much that you couldn’t do or be. I’m one of your ‛frumpy folk’ and -couldn’t keep step with you.”</p> - -<p>Helen drew up her horse beside his; she leaned toward him with her -bright hair close to his face, her beauty within his reach.</p> - -<p>“Ah, Kit,” she said, softly, “you are not frumpy! You are a dear, -humble-minded fellow; all truly great men are humble; they are -simpler than women. There is nothing that you might not do, if you -would see yourself as your friends see you. Let me inspire you to -self-confidence! Let me feel that when you are a man honoured by others -for your benefits to the world, your achievements—for I am sure, Kit, -that you could be a power for good with your clear vision and your -simple incorruptibility—let me feel that I kindled in you the desire -that bore such fruit. Even though after all is said I am but a pretty -girl, yet I am one that can love what is worth loving though you think -me only a shallow, vain creature!”</p> - -<p>Helen’s face bent forward; she dropped her lids over her eyes as if to -hide their flame, or their tears; her voice thrilled, her beautifully -trained, silvery voice.</p> - -<p>Kit’s hand went out as if to draw her to him; the space between them -was slight. He flushed and quivered to her beauty as to her emotion. -Then there arose before him a small figure, simply clad; a low, broad -brow and beneath it steady eyes of brown, like a fire on a home hearth, -and sweet, firm lips moved to let a soft alto voice say in memory to -him again:</p> - -<p>“It would be a pity for you to fail with your life, because you can use -it well if you follow your instincts. And what is counted gain is often -tragic failure.”</p> - -<p>Kit straightened himself in his saddle.</p> - -<p>“You are mighty kind, Helen,” he said. “I don’t mistake myself; you see -I have my own measure fairly accurately. Miss Dallas was saying the -other day what came to almost the same<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_92"></a>92</span> thing that you’ve just said, -only she didn’t get it from the same angle. I’ll try to play up when -the time comes.” Helen’s horse leaped at the sudden pull which she gave -the curb and the blow that she dealt him. The horse dashed away and Kit -rapidly followed.</p> - -<p>“Say, Helen, don’t give Jack-of-Spades surprise parties; he’s one of -the sensible sort that doesn’t care for them, and he’s capable of -giving a return surprise party,” Kit warned her, regaining his place at -her bridle.</p> - -<p>“I can conquer any fool brute I ever attempted!” said Helen, her colour -high, her eyes flashing. Then she conquered herself.</p> - -<p>“Did I scare you, good old Kit? You were the one I meant to surprise. -Isn’t your aunt a dear to get me a horse like this? Isn’t she an old -darling, anyway? She’s truly fond of me, I’m gratefully sure of that. -It’s a big thing to win the love of a lonely old woman. She loves me -next to you, Kit, and I’m not unappreciative. How these horses keep -pace! What a pleasant thing it is to ride at the same gait, in unison -of hoofbeats! That’s a sermon in brief, though unintentional, and it’s -for you to draw the moral. So this is Daphne Woods! It’s the loveliest -spot I ever saw. I’m glad that you are showing me this shadowy, green, -mystic loveliness for the first time. We have many memories in common, -my dear old pal. Daphne Woods is a dream. Don’t let me waken, Kit!”</p> - - - - -<div class="chapter"> -<hr class="divider x-ebookmaker-drop" /> -<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_93"></a>93</span> -</div> - - -<h2 id="ix">CHAPTER IX<br /> -<span>Soundings</span></h2> - -<p class="noi"><span class="dropcap">H</span>ELEN and Kit rode on through the verdant shade of Daphne Woods with -few words spoken between them. At times the brown accumulations of the -leaves of past springs deadened the sound of the horses’ feet, but -oftener their rhythm was distinctly beaten out on the perfectly kept -road.</p> - -<p>“Riding at the same gait, in unison of hoofbeats.” Kit found himself -dwelling on the words as if they were an oracle’s prophecy and its -fulfilment.</p> - -<p>Was it possible that Helen meant what she surely conveyed? Was it -possible that a nice girl would intentionally convey it?</p> - -<p>Helen rode on pensively sweet and preoccupied. She rode somewhat in -advance of Kit; the honest boy thought that it was to hide her face. He -was right, but by inversion; Helen wanted Kit to see her back, which -she had been told was provocatively graceful on horseback. He felt, -as he had repeatedly felt in this visit of hers, that he did not know -her. The Helen of her exhortation to him he knew, keen-witted, worldly, -strong-willed, but this girl? Gentle, wistful, affectionate, dependent, -almost child-like in appeal for sympathy? This was another Helen; this -one might be as lovable as the other was dazzling. Suddenly she turned -to Kit, resting her hand on her saddle, swinging halfway around in it -to face him.</p> - -<p>“Kit, you don’t understand women,” she said with a quaver in her voice. -“Perhaps I mean girls, <em>a</em> girl, <em>this</em> girl! Can’t you see -how one may be defeated in victory? How little it means<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_94"></a>94</span> to be pretty, -clever, rich, admired, when one is all alone? Father is a dear to me, -but he can’t play the game of politics for such high stakes as those he -is out for and have much time to spare for his girl. Well! I pretend a -lot, but I don’t mind my old pal’s knowing that I’m just plain girl, -and no goddess, not even an ambitious woman at heart. Daphne Woods -stirs in me everything that I fight down. It doesn’t do to let it poke -up its head to be fed when I can’t feed it! It’s too lovely in here, -too ideal to be good for me. Oh, Kit, take me home!”</p> - -<p>Kit’s heart beat faster. Helen was intoxicating with her eyes downcast, -her voice low and vibrant. Her simple, direct appeal moved him by the -pathos of its revelation of sweetness where he had known only hardness; -of weakness where he had thought there was only self-reliant strength.</p> - -<p>“Why, Nell, dear,” he cried, “I didn’t know you felt like this! Spring -in the woods always sets me off, too. Funny how all human beings are -casting about for something, they’re not sure just what. Nature gets -us going, doesn’t it? October is as bad as May, in another way. Yet it -is a sweet sorrow, don’t you think? Something like parting! Sure, I’ll -take you home. You’re probably tired, too. Lunch will be ready by the -time we get there.”</p> - -<p>Helen swung back again in her saddle and turned Jack-of-Spades sharply. -Then she looked hard at Kit and laughed, her softened mood flung from -her.</p> - -<p>“It’s hard telling, Christopher Carrington, whether you’re a bit -clever, or more than a bit stupid,” she said, and rode ahead of him, -Jack-of-Spades on a gallop, toward the end of the woods.</p> - -<p>Kit went up to his room to get out of his riding clothes into his daily -attire. He was slow about it; considering hard, puzzled, interested, -confused in thought, clearer in impressions than he liked to admit.</p> - -<p>“Well,” he ended his meditations, arousing himself with<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_95"></a>95</span> difficulty -to be aware of the knot of his tie, “it makes you feel like a yellow -dog to think it, but what am I to think? Looks as if Aunt Anne knew; -probably women always know. But why in thunder——? Nell is strictly -and within bounds of statement a winner. There are such a lot of -fellows—I never have altogether liked Nell; that is, I never fell for -her. Worldly women strike me about the way an angel stock broker would -hit you. But apparently I haven’t got her right. I suppose it’s hard -for mere man to know ’em, fathom ’em. A kaleidoscope is stable compared -to ’em! Nell isn’t so worldly after all. She’s capable of unambitious -attachments, it seems. I suppose nice ones are cut on the same pattern -in their general lines. They all want affection, children, the things -best worth while.”</p> - -<p>Kit went downstairs feeling benignant. He was human, and though not -as conceited as most of his age and sex, there was no denying that he -found it pleasant to suspect that a clever, beautiful young creature -turned toward him, innocently betraying that she could love him. It -gave Kit a calm, uplifted, vague sense of pitiful but delightful things -enveloping him. It perturbed him, of course; what he should do about -it must be faced, but in the meantime there was no getting away from -the fact that he liked it. He was fine enough to attribute to Helen -the maternal instinct that led her from the plaudits of society toward -shadowy little hands, impatiently pat-a-caking for her to clasp them -and draw them forth into the world.</p> - -<p>As Kit came down the stairs Helen’s pretty laughter rang out to him. It -was her old mocking laughter, but this time it did not, as usual, jar -on him. He knew that often she did not laugh; she had shown him this. -He did not suspect that she had been describing their ride to his aunt, -who found Helen as entertaining as a Shaw play, and touching lightly -and cleverly upon his failure to take the good things that the gods, or -rather the goddess, provided.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_96"></a>96</span> -He paused at the hall table to take up and look over a pamphlet which -lay there, paying no attention to remarks which Miss Carrington was -making in train of Helen’s laugh.</p> - -<p>But clear as a bell and perfectly heard, not only by Kit’s ears, but by -his brain, came Helen’s reply. Her voice was as modulated as always, -but it rang to an uncommon degree with the fervour of strong conviction -and determination, and with no small amount of contempt.</p> - -<p>“No, indeed, dear Miss Carrington,” she said. “Not I! I cordially -dislike children. It used to be an admission of the lowest criminality -to say this, but any number of my generation feel as I do. Why should -I want children? Horrid, crude little animals at first, and later on -men and women who go off and leave one to get on as one can. Better -cultivate adults, select amusing friends, than to set up children and -waste one’s best years on a most improbable chance of getting something -out of it. I am free, strong, graceful, good-looking. Do you think for -one moment I’d lay all that down and be ugly, in order to have a thing -that I’d abominate to look at and positively would not handle? Poms or -pekes are more sensible, but I’ve no yearning for pets. As to someone -to come after me, inherit, all that idiocy, what do I care what happens -when I am dead? Ugh, horrible to be dead! Children would perpetually -remind you that they were posterity, and posterity is a <i xml:lang="la" lang="la">memento -mori</i>. No children for me, ever! Selah! I didn’t intend to wax -eloquent, Aunt Anne, but it always riles me to have anyone attribute to -me the maternal longing—like a cat, who really is a model mother; I -know none more devoted.”</p> - -<p>Poor Kit! Grateful to his rubber heels, he turned and walked away. -He felt like an aviator whose engine had gone wrong above the clouds -diving down to the ground with dizzy speed.</p> - -<p>Which was Helen? What was Helen? Could she be playing a part to Miss -Carrington? No; her voice was strained with<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_97"></a>97</span> sincerity, and why -should she play a part? Kit knew that his aunt’s devotion to the new -philosophies would not prevent the shock with which she would hear a -young, beautiful woman, endowed in every way to fulfil her rôle in -life, repudiate and denounce motherhood.</p> - -<p>Then had Helen played a part with him? Much more likely.</p> - -<p>He ate his luncheon almost in silence. At intervals he stole a glance -at Helen, saw her serene, exquisite; the charm of femininity and grace -in every motion of her slender hands, her willowy body. But the meaning -of her femininity was gone; only the shell of her beauty was left, if -those long, curling fingers would refuse to caress a baby’s cheek.</p> - -<p>As soon as lunch was over Kit went toward the door.</p> - -<p>“Going off, Kits?” asked Helen. “Not going to stay and be -pretty-behaved to me?”</p> - -<p>“I’m going to the Berkleys’,” said Kit. “Sorry, but I’m going to the -Berkleys’.”</p> - -<p>It was like him to make the statement baldly, not to invent an errand -to the Berkleys’. It had come to him as he spoke that this was where -he was going. The simple happiness of that household, its effortless -mutual enjoyment; the love for one another that permeated the -atmosphere of the house, rose up before him, and made Kit feel that it -was as necessary to get his perturbed mind cleared and cheered by the -Berkley family as it could be to find a spring if he were parched with -desert thirst.</p> - -<p>“Going to play with little Anne?” inquired Helen.</p> - -<p>“If she’ll let me! Nice kid!” said Kit, shortly, and was gone.</p> - -<p>“Don’t mock Kit’s idols. He’s like most quiet and peaceable people; -when he’s offended he’s hard to placate, and when he’s disgusted he’s -not to be won back. Kit’s tremendously fond of his friends. But I -share his pleasure in that precocious<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_98"></a>98</span> innocent, with her delightful -combination of normal mischief with abnormal conscientiousness,” warned -Miss Carrington.</p> - -<p>Kit found all the Berkleys at home, as he had hoped to, with the -addition of Joan Paul and her baby.</p> - -<p>Little Anne saw him coming and ran shrieking joyously to haul him into -the house, as if he would be likely to escape her unless she put forth -her best strength.</p> - -<p>“Here’s Kit! See, here’s Kit, Motherkins! Kit’s come!” she announced -needlessly as she towed him into the room.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Berkley arose with her white sewing held in her left hand, and -gave her right hand cordially to the young man.</p> - -<p>“Very glad to see you,” she said. “I’ve tried to make Anne remember -that you are Mr. Carrington, but she loves you too well to retain my -instructions.”</p> - -<p>“Sure! Because I’m not! I’m Kit, eh, Anne? Your little purring kit, or -at least I purr when I see you!” said Kit.</p> - -<p>“You’re lovely!” Little Anne sighed enthusiastically over his nonsense.</p> - -<p>“Hallo, Mother Joan! Don’t break that baby! Aren’t you holding her -carelessly?” Kit demanded, shaking Joan’s hand and looking anxiously -at Barbara, held under her young mother’s left arm, her head in front -sticking up like a turtle’s, her heels kicking hard and fast on Joan’s -waist at the back.</p> - -<p>“Can’t you trust me with her, Kit? I’m glad that you recognize how -precious she is, but, honestly, I like her myself and don’t want to -damage her,” laughed Joan, bringing her daughter right side up into her -arms and kissing her fat neck till the baby choked herself with giggles.</p> - -<p>“Say, Joan, there’s something I want to be told. Set it down to my -scientific bent: investigation of socialism, or economics, or anything -statistical you please, but I do want to learn something: Does that -baby ever tire you?” Kit asked his question hesitantly.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_99"></a>99</span> -“I should say she does, half to pieces,” said Joan, promptly. “I’m -sometimes tempted to try ether on her at night! You know those verses -of Mrs. Kilmer’s about keeping her children asleep? Maybe I don’t say -them!” Joan kissed Barbara again to punctuate her confession.</p> - -<p>“But you don’t tire of her the way I mean, do you?” persisted Kit. “You -don’t ever feel as if she weren’t quite worth while, as if you’d rather -be free from the bother——”</p> - -<p>“Christopher Carrington,” Joan sternly interrupted him, “one more word -and I’ll call the police and commit you as a dangerous ogre, not fit to -be at large. What in all this world makes you ask me that? As though -any woman worth her salt would feel that way to a little child, even if -it weren’t her own! And when it is——” Joan could end this sentence -only with more violent kisses in the neck and all over the face of the -ecstatically squirming Barbara. “Why, I only wish she were twins or -triplets! I’d like a houseful of the darlings, all sizes, sorts, and -colours! To be the mother of such a creature of God as this baby—Kit, -it’s the most awful, the most beautiful thing in the world! Why did you -ask me that? Whom have you heard talking like a monster, corrupting -your naturally good heart?”</p> - -<p>“You’re a sharp little woman, though you don’t betray it always, Joan!” -Kit said with amused admiration. “I’m not corrupted; I only wondered -how you felt. All girls don’t like babies.”</p> - -<p>Joan gave him a keen look.</p> - -<p>“Avoid the kind that doesn’t,” she advised, tersely.</p> - -<p>“First God made angels, then us, and He made everybody but Adam and Eve -a baby,” said little Anne, anxious as she always was to elevate the -conversation to a catechetical standard. “So it would be wicked not to -love babies when God made ’em for us to love, and then went and made -’em so darling that you<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_100"></a>100</span> have to love ’em. Herod didn’t, but he was a -fearfully wicked king. They were all boys, anyway.”</p> - -<p>“And Barbara is a girl,” commented Kit. “I hope you don’t think boys -are less fit to live than girls, little Anne?”</p> - -<p>“Well,” said little Anne, slowly, “Sister Gervase teaches the -middle-sized ones at my school, and she says boys pass through a -trying—I think she said ‛stage,’ but there aren’t any in Cleavedge; -there are buses in New York on Fifth Avenue, and I rode on top, but I -do think she said ‛stage.’ Sister says they have to be rather bad, but -that there’s lots of good mixed up with it, too. Anyway, she says, what -would we do if there weren’t any boys to grow up men, and that’s what I -think.”</p> - -<p>“Do you?” said a gruff voice from the doorway, laden with pessimistic -contempt. “What I think is that no boy at your age ever talked -one-sixteenth part as much as you do, and if boys were more trying than -girls I’d pity ’em. But what’s more, I’d pity their families.” Peter -stalked into the room and threw down an armful of books, nodded to Kit, -and said with the air of one who had outlived emotion:</p> - -<p>“I got your books changed at the library, Joan, but what you wanted was -out, except that history essay stuff Antony wanted. And the girl over -there sent something she hoped would suit you, but I don’t suppose it -will.”</p> - -<p>“You poor dear Pete!” cried Joan. “You’re a trump to do this tiresome -errand! If they’re not right, never mind; I’ll take them back in the -baby’s carriage when I go out with her to-morrow. I’m sorry I didn’t do -that in the first place; I’ve no business to be such a nuisance!”</p> - -<p>“You’re no nuisance; you never were, Joan,” said Peter, graciously. “If -I thought Anne would ever grow up to be a little like you it sure would -be a pleasant thought!”</p> - -<p>“Now never mind about little Anne,” interposed Mrs. Berkley, seeing -little Anne getting ready for self-defence, at<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_101"></a>101</span> which she was only too -adept. “She’s a loving little girl who tries to correct her faults, -especially now.” Mrs. Berkley held up the thin white material on which -she was sewing. “You see, Peter, dear, you are too near Anne’s age to -remember how it feels to be that age; we understand it better from our -greater distance. But you are the best lad in the world, Peter the -Second, just as Anne is the dearest little girl.”</p> - -<p>Mrs. Berkley, having contrived to suggest to Peter his extreme youth, -proceeded to rejoice the heart which adored her by beaming on him -affectionately that his vanity might not be too deeply wounded.</p> - -<p>As Kit looked on and listened to this talk the disturbance of mind with -which he had set out faded away. They were not saying wise things that -could be quoted; they were not doing great deeds, unless it were both -wise and great thus to correct, guide, make happy. Kit felt that it -was. He was not an analyst; he instinctively felt much that he could -not formulate in words; he possessed a code for his own guidance that -he would have found difficult to write out for another. Now he began -to see by the steady light of inward vision recent events cast upon -the screen in their true proportions, the unconscious goodness of this -simple family, the standard by which he measured them.</p> - -<p>“I’ve some money that my mother left me,” he said, aloud, as -unexpectedly to himself as to his audience.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Berkley looked up, trying to mask her surprise.</p> - -<p>“Have you, Kit? That’s nice, though it is not likely that you’ll need -more than the Carrington inheritance,” she said, in her motherly way.</p> - -<p>“I didn’t mean to inflict upon you an item of such limited interest,” -said Kit. “I didn’t know I was going to say that; I thought aloud. You -know, Mrs. Berkley, that Aunt Anne loves me in a way that may easily -unlove me if I ever displease her.”</p> - -<p>“Well put, Kit,” said Mrs. Berkley. “But do you think you<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_102"></a>102</span> are likely -to displease her? I’d be sorry to have you, not only for your own sake, -but because Miss Carrington is such a piteous, denuded person. It is -ghastly to think of her bleak horizon!”</p> - -<p>“I don’t suppose many people pity Miss Anne Carrington,” said Kit. -“But you are right; she is denuded, with a bleak outlook. I don’t know -whether or not I’ll ever displease her, nor how hard it would hit her -if I did; I mean how much she’d resent what I wouldn’t do. But a fellow -can’t go too far, from a sense of duty.”</p> - -<p>“Don’t you mean that a fellow can’t go too far, from a <em>mistaken</em> -sense of duty, but must go all the way for the sake of actual duty?” -suggested Mrs. Berkley. “You are mysterious, Kit, but we’ll always be -glad if you come to us when you want to thresh out your bothers.”</p> - -<p>“I know!” cried little Anne with one of her flashes of unchildlike -perception. “Miss Carrington likes the splendid princess lady, who is -one of the proud step-sisters, better’n you do, Kit!”</p> - -<p>Kit gasped. “Anne!” he cried. “What under the sun——?”</p> - -<p>“Anne doesn’t realize as much as her remarks convey to others,” -interpolated the child’s mother. “Children of her sort are sensitive -to atmosphere, but they can’t gauge all that it envelops. You haven’t -asked what I am making, Kit, and that is a safe subject!”</p> - -<p>“I ask now,” said Kit.</p> - -<p>“A dress for me!” cried little Anne, forestalling her mother. “It is -for my First Communion. Mother is making it only straight and full -because she likes it simple, she says. These queer places with the -threads all pulled out aren’t wrong, Kit; they’re for hemstitching and -it’s lovely. Mother’s making it every bit by hand, by her hand. I’ll -pray for you that day, Kit; then you’ll be all right. Is anything not -all right now, dear Kit?”</p> - -<p>“Everything is perfectly right, little Anne,” Kit answered,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_103"></a>103</span> “but I -wouldn’t mind being prayed for by you, if you wouldn’t mind doing it. -Queer little Anne!”</p> - -<p>He kissed her thin cheek, clasping the small eager face raised to him, -its great eyes searching his face as if they would read his soul.</p> - -<p>“Everyone! Everyone in all this world that I love!” little Anne -solemnly assured him. “It will be on Corpus Christi, at the -nine-o’clock Mass, in the real church; not the basement. Kit, I shall -walk up the aisle all in white and have on a veil, and, and, Kit, I do -hope, <em>hope</em> I shall not die before that! And Father is going to -give the flowers, and so is Antony. And we shall all be there, in the -church, all my own I love. Even Peter-two!”</p> - -<p>“And I? Might I come?” asked Kit, hesitating whether he should ask the -privilege.</p> - -<p>“Oh, goody, goody!” cried little Anne, instantly changed back into a -joyous little girl, and whirling madly about, clapping her hands. “Kit -can come, Kit can come! All K’s—no; all C’s—no; well, it sounds all -something alike, anyway! What a day it will be! Mother, Kit will come -to the church for me!”</p> - -<p>“Yes, dear,” said Mrs. Berkley. “Thank you, Kit, for loving my little -Anne. Must you go? Come again soon, dear Kit Carrington!”</p> - -<p>Then all went out on the steps to see him off: Joan, with her baby on -her hip; Peter, dignified, but affectionate to Kit, whom he admired; -Mrs. Berkley, motherly and kind; little Anne clinging fondly to his -hand.</p> - -<p>As he walked down the street he felt that he had learned the wisdom -that he had gone to seek.</p> - - - - -<div class="chapter"> -<hr class="divider x-ebookmaker-drop" /> -<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_104"></a>104</span> -</div> - - -<h2 id="x">CHAPTER X<br /> -<span>The Stray Page</span></h2> - -<p class="noi"><span class="dropcap">R</span>ICHARD LATHAM, his dictation over for the day, had gone with Stetson -to the bank. He had been unusually silent, Anne Dallas had thought, -absent-minded, and he looked pale, as if he had not rested well.</p> - -<p>She had not asked him questions; more than most men he disliked to -discuss his health, but it seemed to Anne, considering after he had -gone, that Richard Latham was not himself.</p> - -<p>She sat in the poet’s beautiful garden at work on some lace, the pillow -on her knee. The fragrance of apple blossoms was on the warm breeze -that brushed her face.</p> - -<p>“‛Sumer is icumen in,’” thought Anne, skilfully catching her thread -into a knot on her needle point. She felt more than usual pity for -Richard, recalling his patient face, to know that he, of all men best -fitted to dwell with enchanted eyes on summer’s loveliness, never again -would see it.</p> - -<p>“Miss Dallas! Miss Dallas! Miss Anne! Miss Anne Dallas! Anne! Anne!” -shouted someone in such rapid-fire calling that reply was impossible. -It could be but one person, and Anne Dallas looked up expectantly to -see little Anne coming flying down the garden. Her long, thin legs, in -their long, brown stockings, her brown, straight frock, her bobbed hair -standing out around her head, all combined to give her the effect of a -forked branch of a tree which had been snapped off and blown along the -path by a higher wind than that which was actually blowing. Behind her -ran the beagle, Cricket, his black-and-tan<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_105"></a>105</span> ears streaming backward, -his tongue out, his eyes excitedly rolling, his breath visibly short. -He did not venture with Anne into most of her explorations, but he had -learned that the Latham garden was safe for timid bow-legged dogs, and -hither he confidently came.</p> - -<p>“What is it, Anne, dear?” asked Anne Dallas, guarding her work against -little Anne’s imminent onslaught. “Glad to see you.”</p> - -<p>“Guess what!” cried little Anne, throwing herself upon Anne. As she -spoke she waved papers held together by a fastener.</p> - -<p>“I never could guess!” declared Anne with conviction. “Are you -appointed Queen of the Birds, or are you sentenced to exile in an ant -hill, you little quicksilver creature?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, you are nice!” panted little Anne, appreciatively. “This isn’t -a—a—an appointing dockerment. What do you s’pose?”</p> - -<p>Anne shook her head, and little Anne cried triumphantly:</p> - -<p>“It’s these is; Peter’s!”</p> - -<p>“These <em>is</em>? These <em>are</em>, Anne. And what are Peter’s? That -isn’t English.”</p> - -<p>Anne looked puzzled.</p> - -<p>“That’s just what it is; his English class; he said so,” little Anne -insisted. “Peter-two said he’d bet I couldn’t make him mad, a child -like me! That’s when I got kind of mad with Peter-two, and I said so’d -he be, and he said I couldn’t make him mad, ’cause I wasn’t ’nough -importance. And he had his these is—these are—but, Miss Anne, I know, -at least I pretty near know, Peter said these is—and he had to have it -in school this morning, and I got it, and hid it, and here ’tis, and -he’s gone without it, and I guess he will be good’n mad, won’t he?”</p> - -<p>In spite of herself Anne laughed, then she arose to her duty.</p> - -<p>“Anne, that is poor Peter’s thesis!” she cried. “Let me see it. Of -course it is that! And you have sent Peter to school without it! Don’t -you know, dear, that Peter will be reprimanded<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_106"></a>106</span> for his carelessness, -and receive bad marks besides? You should not play tricks on Peter that -will get him into trouble at school.”</p> - -<p>Instantly little Anne dropped from her height of triumphant glee into -depths of contrite shame.</p> - -<p>“Oh, dear, oh, dear! Oh, Miss Anne, is it bad? And I’m preparing and -trying to be good! I mustn’t do one least, littlest sin. Is it a sin, -Miss Anne? Do you think it could be a mortal sin, or just venial? -But I’ve no business to commit even the weeniest venial sin when I’m -preparing! Not the weest, littlest one! Is it a mortal sin, Miss Anne?”</p> - -<p>“Goodness, what a child!” sighed Anne. “Dear little Anne, I suppose I -don’t know as much as I should about it, but if mortal means what it -usually does, this isn’t a mortal sin. It seems to me a fault, not a -sin, you small Mediæval Survival! It isn’t kind to vex Peter, and you -ought not to get him into a scrape.”</p> - -<p>“What’ll I do?” Little Anne looked profoundly downcast for a moment; -then she cheered up. “It’s too late now to do anything,” she said in -a relieved tone. “Peter’s school gets out at two and it’s ’most noon. -I’ll tell him I’m sorry, and I’ll give him—give him—my new blank -book. He’ll love it and it’ll be good for him to write these ises in, -to remind him his little sister’s sorry—and how she <em>could</em> make -him mad, even if she is little!”</p> - -<p>Anne grew more and more consoled as she looked longer at the brighter -side of her fall.</p> - -<p>“And I’ll ask my mother what kind of a sin it was; she knows all about -every kind of sin. Should I say the Act of Contrition?”</p> - -<p>Little Anne looked ready to fall on her knees and do penance with -hearty enjoyment, and Anne said, hastily:</p> - -<p>“Better ask your mother about that, too, dear. What a queer child you -are!”</p> - -<p>Then Anne’s changeable little face lost its elfin look of mingled<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_107"></a>107</span> -regret and satisfaction, her eyes dilated and were raised, her lips -quivered, a flush slowly spread to her hair; she clasped her thin, -quick hands and said:</p> - -<p>“Just to be good! Just to be so good that there never would be one -stain on me and I’d never be mad, nor make Peter-two mad, but be a -white, loving soul in the world!”</p> - -<p>Anne looked at her, startled. She was accustomed to little Anne’s -flights, her strange, unchildlike aspirations and depths of -understanding, and her mercurial falls into human mischief. But there -was on her small face now such a rapt look that Anne was conscious of -awe that was partly fear. She laid her hand softly on the child’s hair -and little Anne came down to earth without the loss of a moment.</p> - -<p>“I found something,” she said. “Can Mr. Latham write?”</p> - -<p>“Write? Do you mean—— Oh, you mean write as we do, with his own -hand?” asked Anne, trying to adjust to this new topic. “Yes. He was -not always blind; he lost his sight in an accident. He writes a tiny, -tiny hand, hard to read, though every letter is clearly formed. He uses -paper with raised lines, else his lines would run together. He does -not often try to write; he writes to a few friends, to Mr. Wilberforce -most. Why did you ask that, dear?”</p> - -<p>“I found something,” repeated little Anne, “when I was looking for you. -It was on the floor, upstairs in the hall. I went upstairs and I called -you, but of course you didn’t hear out in the garden. I picked it up.”</p> - -<p>Little Anne produced from the pocket in her skirt, of which she was -inordinately proud, a sheet of paper, folded small. She spread it -out on her knee and carefully smoothed it; Anne saw that it was an -ordinary sheet of letter paper, unruled, covered with Richard Latham’s -microscopic characters, running together in places, straggling apart in -others, lines of irregular length, verses.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_108"></a>108</span> -Anne hesitated a moment; she probably had already copied these verses, -dictated to her by Richard. They could not be anything that he did not -wish her to see. If it had been something in prose form she would not -have looked at it, fearing it might be a letter not intended for her -eyes, but verses written by him belonged to her official care.</p> - -<p>“May I see, little Anne?” she asked, and took the paper.</p> - -<p>She knew at once that these were not verses that she had ever copied. -She read them with difficulty in deciphering them, with greater -difficulty in controlling the terror, actual terror, which they -inspired in her.</p> - - -<p>FOR ANNE</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="verse"> - <div class="line indent4">“<i>There is a song I must not sing</i></div> - <div class="line indent6"><i>Which sings itself the livelong day;</i></div> - <div class="line indent4"><i>There is a plea I must not bring</i></div> - <div class="line indent6"><i>Which ev’ry breath I draw must pray;</i></div> - <div class="line indent4"><i>There is a word past uttering</i></div> - <div class="line indent6"><i>The only word my tongue would say:</i></div> - <div class="line"><i>Oh, sweetest, fairest, dearest, best, in silence I must go my way!</i></div> - </div> - <div class="verse"> - <div class="line indent4"><i>Oh, blinded eyes deprived of light;</i></div> - <div class="line indent6"><i>Oh, hunger that is never fed;</i></div> - <div class="line indent4"><i>Oh, love that yearns, denied the right</i></div> - <div class="line indent6"><i>To kiss a tress upon that head;</i></div> - <div class="line indent4"><i>Oh, broken life, creep far from sight</i></div> - <div class="line indent6"><i>To hide where pity makes thy bed</i></div> - <div class="line"><i>For glory, fame, and wealth are stones to me, a beggar craving bread.</i>”</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<p>“I love poetry,” hinted little Anne, but checked herself when she saw -the elder Anne’s face.</p> - -<p>It had turned quite white, tears stood in her dark eyes, her lips -quivered.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_109"></a>109</span> -“Oh, little Anne, what can it mean? Who is it? Why didn’t I have it to -copy?” Anne murmured. “Oh, he mustn’t know we read it!”</p> - -<p>“I didn’t,” said little Anne, reproachfully, and Anne kissed her, -grateful that the child made her smile.</p> - -<p>“Promise me on your honour, little Anne, that you will never speak to -any one of having found these verses. Promise! And remember that a -promise is a sacred thing, faithfully to be kept,” she said.</p> - -<p>“I never in this world break my promises,” declared little Anne, -proudly, but truthfully. “I promise! Not even Mother?”</p> - -<p>“You may tell her that you found the verses, but that no one is to know -it; you can say that you did not know what they were like,” Anne said, -wisely deciding that this concession would be a safety valve to little -Anne’s unimpeachable honour.</p> - -<p>“Do you know where you found the paper, Anne? Then take it into the -house, please, and lay it where it was, and come back to me. Hurry, -little Anne! Oh, if Mr. Latham should come in before you did this!”</p> - -<p>“He can’t find it on the floor, can he?” little Anne demurred.</p> - -<p>“Then Stetson will. Don’t delay, dear; please be quick!” Anne fairly -turned the child around by the shoulders and pushed her toward the -house. Little Anne was speedy; she was back before Anne had time to -worry over the likelihood of Richard’s coming, or Cricket to fall into -utter despair at being abandoned by his small mistress.</p> - -<p>“I think I’d better go home now,” announced little Anne on her return. -“I heard the Angelus down at our church quite a long time ago, so it’s -’most my lunch time. You look kind of pale, Miss Anne, dear. Was that -bad for me to pick up that paper? I thought it was only neat when it -was lying around like that. Was that a sin? Like troubling Peter-two? -It’s very, very awful hard to walk sinlessly in this world, isn’t it?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_110"></a>110</span> -“Oh, Anne, darling, of course it was only neat!” cried the girl, -kissing little Anne heartily.</p> - -<p>“Well, you can’t do sins unless you know they are wrong and just go -ahead and mean to, but I kind of forget that; only when I recite it, -you know,” said the thin theologian. “I’ve got to tell Peter ’was me -took his these is, and nobody can tell what he’ll say to me! Mother -won’t let him <em>do</em> anything, but she’ll talk to me, and that’s -worse. It’s the most fearfullest of all when mother’s sorry! But I’ve -got to be willing to bear it, if I didn’t do right, and I can offer it -up. Good-bye, darling Miss Anne. I hope I didn’t make you sick with -that paper; you look sicky.”</p> - -<p>“Not a bit, funny little Anne. Good-bye, and come soon again,” she -said, cheerfully.</p> - -<p>Little Anne looked worried, she went slowly toward her acknowledgment -of wrong-doing and her penance, but she forgot all about it as new -thoughts took possession of her. She flew at her customary speed down -the street, Cricket breathlessly running after her.</p> - -<p>To Anne’s inexpressible relief Richard Latham telephoned to her to say -that he would lunch out, and that there would be nothing to keep her -within doors that lovely afternoon.</p> - -<p>She gladly availed herself of this chance to get away from the familiar -beauty of the garden and adjust her perturbed mind to her dismaying -discovery. She went down through the garden and let herself out by the -small gate at its rear that opened on a path which led to a pretty -bit of woods of which she was fond. It must be set down in honesty -that before she went out Anne went upstairs, picked up the paper which -little Anne had faithfully laid exactly where she had found it, and -made a copy for herself of the two stanzas which had so stirred her. -Then she, like the smaller Anne, put the paper on the floor and went -away.</p> - -<p>She walked swiftly to the spot in the woods which she had in<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_111"></a>111</span> mind -in setting forth and dropped on the mossy sod to think. She was not -a vain girl, not prone to believe herself admired, not consciously -seeking admiration. She was singularly direct in mind and simple in -motives. She accepted herself, the fact that she was pretty, that she -had several accomplishments and was generally liked, as a pleasant -thing, but not to be emphasized more than any other pleasant fact like -sunshine, or good green grass.</p> - -<p>In her silent way Anne held strongly to strong purposes in life; young -as she was she “had found herself,” as it is expressively put nowadays. -And the person who is thus balanced, who actually has “found herself,” -is not likely to waste time looking for other things or people.</p> - -<p>In her close intimacy with Richard Latham for almost a year, she had -been flooded with a pity for him that was always at high tide within -her. She admired him for his beauty of character as much as for his -gifts of mind. His gentle courtesy, his sweetness, the modesty that -persevered in spite of the plaudits that he received, had inspired in -her a passion of affectionate pity for him that rather excluded than -led to love for him. Of herself in connection with him—beyond her -ability to be useful to him, to serve him in his work, to brighten his -days—she had never thought. That his reliance on her, his appreciation -of her personally, as well as of what she did, might mean love for her, -had never till that day crossed her mind. He was to her a man removed -from this possibility no less by his misfortune than by his genius.</p> - -<p>Anne laid her head down on the moss and cried miserably. It was -unbearable to think that she had brought pain into this afflicted life. -True, it would be easy to assuage it. Yet not so easy. She did not -love Richard. She held him as one of the dearest of her earthly ties, -but she did not love him. She felt sure that if she were to try to -make him happy, if she devoted<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_112"></a>112</span> her life to him, that he was far too -sensitive not to feel the lack of the right sort of love in his wife; -far too high-minded to be less than wretched at being the object of -her immolation. A strong word, an absurd one to use in connection with -marriage to Richard Latham, Anne knew that most people would say, yet -to a girl like her any marriage without the love that marriage implies -and demands would be immolation. She cried with all her might into the -soft moss.</p> - -<p>Presently Anne heard a footstep and raised her head to see Miss -Carrington near her, standing looking down on her with sincere -amazement, but also with carefully arranged sympathy in her face.</p> - -<p>“I suppose there is no use in denying it, but don’t mind me, Miss -Carrington. It’s only a bother that will probably prove more bearable -than it looks in perspective; most things are less unendurable than you -expect them to be when they come to close range,” Anne said, checking -her tears.</p> - -<p>“My dear child,” said Miss Carrington, coming over to put her arm -gently around Anne with an intense desire to get at the cause of her -emotion, “you are young, and I am at least elderly. You are alone in -Cleavedge. Won’t you trust me, my dear, and tell me what is wrong? I -can hold my tongue, I assure you, and I know what it is to be alone.”</p> - -<p>“It isn’t myself only, Miss Carrington,” said Anne.</p> - -<p>“How could it be? Did you ever hear of a human experience that was? My -dear, it’s my opinion that we not only cannot be separated to ourselves -in this world, but as a rule we should not have troubles if it weren’t -for other people! Won’t you let me try to help?” Miss Carrington -persisted.</p> - -<p>Anne shook her head. “Thank you, nevertheless,” she said. “This is -not the sort of thing that any one else can help, nor I, either, I’m -afraid.”</p> - -<p>“Let me guess!” Miss Carrington took Anne’s hands, cold<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_113"></a>113</span> from hard -weeping, between her silky palms, the soft, cool, frail hands of an -old gentlewoman. “Let me guess! At your age there can be but one cause -of such violent weeping, so I can easily conjecture. You have just -discovered what I have known all along, that Richard Latham loves -you.” She hoped that this was a good guess and not that this weeping -concerned Kit; she held Anne’s hands fast in spite of her attempts to -pull them away, disregarding her protesting: “No, no, no!”</p> - -<p>“Known all along?” Anne repeated her last words, startled out of her -caution.</p> - -<p>“Surely, my dear. My nephew and I have discussed it; we hope that it is -true,” Miss Carrington assured her, stretching the small “we” to fit -her need. “It frightens you? You are such a dear, maidenly, old-time -girl that I suppose we must allow for your first shrinking when you -learn that you are loved. Then, of course, it awes you to think that -it is a poet, Richard Latham, who loves you, a poet and a blind poet! -But, oh, my dear, my dear, how inappropriate are your tears! How -blessed, how exalted you are! By his genius, certainly, but by his -need of you more. A woman is blessed exactly in proportion to the need -of her in those she loves. Mr. Latham not only loves you, as we all -saw, devotedly, devoutly—that is the better word!—but he loves you -with such complete dependence upon you that it is no exaggeration to -say that, though he might not die if he lost you, he would in no real -sense go on living if he were deprived of you. To be the life of such -a man! To be his inspiration and his repose! Indeed I congratulate -you, I would envy you were I not done with life. And I am sure from -what I know of you that perfect happiness could not come to you except -in the opportunity to devote yourself. You are not ambitious, like, -for instance, the handsome girl who will be Kit’s wife. Of course her -ambition will help Kit, who is going in for a career. It is a most -satisfactory arrangement to me, but it would not do<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_114"></a>114</span> for you! I don’t -mind admitting to you that Helen’s ideals are less fine than yours, -but I am glad to have her marry Kit. Don’t think I’m underestimating -Helen. And of course what has slipped out to you is in confidence; it -is not to be made public yet. Dear child, dear little namesake, with -all my heart I rejoice that Richard Latham has his compensation in you. -We have all feared to conjecture what might happen to him if it were -the wrong woman. I can’t say more of you than that you are supremely -the right woman. I am deeply thankful. Never another tear, my child! -You would have slain our poet if you had failed him; you don’t know how -glad I am!”</p> - -<p>Anne, exhausted from weeping, stunned and frightened by what she was -hearing, made some feeble attempts to check this torrent of delight. -She heard, with terror and a sense of being engulfed, that Richard -Latham’s life was in her hands. It came upon her with overpowering -force that if this were so clear to these sharp old eyes, there was -no alternative before her but to marry him and do her best. She also -heard with a numb ache that bewildered her that Kit was to marry Helen -Abercrombie, who was so far removed from his simple kindliness, his -goodness, his warmth of heart. This secret was for Anne to keep!</p> - -<p>How strange a day of endings and beginnings!</p> - -<p>Patiently Anne submitted to being kissed by Miss Carrington. She -fancied there was an infusion of a salute to the bride in the embrace. -Slowly she went back to her boarding place, weary in brain and body.</p> - - - - -<div class="chapter"> -<hr class="divider x-ebookmaker-drop" /> -<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_115"></a>115</span> -</div> - - -<h2 id="xi">CHAPTER XI<br /> -<span>Penitential</span></h2> - -<p class="noi"><span class="dropcap">I</span>F a Roman general ever went out certain of conquest and returned -defrauded of his triumph to be chained to the wheels of a chariot and -dragged through the city in disgrace, instead of gloriously striding -that chariot, then that general and Peter Berkley the Second would have -understood each other’s bitterness.</p> - -<p>Little Anne’s heart sank lower when she heard the outer door slam, -though by the time that she had reached home and had waited, dreading -to hear Peter’s step, it was already sufficiently despairing. To make -matters worse, Mrs. Berkley had gone to lunch with Joan, leaving -Bibiana, Anne’s former nurse, now serving as waitress, to see that the -children were comfortable. Children, indeed! Peter was a ruined man. -He came into the house with a tragic stride, gloom upon his brow, but -in spite of his mature sense of catastrophe—he demanded his mother -instantly as Anne might have done, while he threw his books and hat -in different directions and himself into a chair, like Napoleon after -Waterloo.</p> - -<p>Little Anne rose from a dark corner looking white and small. She was -trembling, but she did what was required of her, albeit her voice was -faint and it quavered.</p> - -<p>“Mother went to Joan’s, Peter. I’m sorry, Peter-two,” she said.</p> - -<p>“So am I. I’d like to talk to her,” growled Peter. “But of course she’d -go when I need her so bad.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_116"></a>116</span> -“No, Peter; she’s ’most always here for our lunch, but Babs has a -cold,” little Anne was still able to justify her mother. “And you don’t -have to talk to her, Peter; I shall tell her myself, and I am sorry, -truly.”</p> - -<p>“Heh?” cried Peter, arousing to the fact that Anne was not sorry only -that her mother was absent. “What are you sorry about? What’ll you tell -her? See here, did you——”</p> - -<p>Little Anne nodded hard, choking. Peter looked dreadfully fierce and -grown-up, and she became sharply aware that she was only seven.</p> - -<p>“You stole——?” Peter’s emotions again choked his speech.</p> - -<p>“Your these is—are,” said little Anne, miserably.</p> - -<p>“What for?” Peter fairly roared at the trembling child. “What good did -it do you, you—you—bad, meddlesome monkey?”</p> - -<p>“It was because you said I couldn’t make you mad,” said little Anne, -rallying slightly. Peter calling her names was more familiar, less -formidable than Peter inarticulate. “I never thought it would make -you trouble till Miss Anne said so. I am dreadful sorry, honest I am, -Peter-two! I’ll give you my new blank book with the red cover to make -rusti—resti—to make up. And your these is—are—is not hurt.”</p> - -<p>“Good heavens!” burst out Peter. “You might think it was bric-à-brac! -You’d suppose even a kid would know it had to be turned in at school -to-day, and isn’t a thing to be harmed. I’m harmed, I’ll tell you -<em>that</em>, Miss Anne! I’m disgraced, that’s what! Heaps of the -fellows have been getting out of doing these, so the heads made a -rule that the next one that didn’t have his paper ready would be made -an example. <em>I</em> was <em>it</em>! It’s a thing a fellow can’t live -down; I was disgraced. And I hadn’t even a slim excuse to offer. I’d -no mortal idea where it was, went to get it out—gone! When I said -I’d written it, made a<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_117"></a>117</span> donkey of myself generally, looking like a -gibbering idiot, it settled me; ’course they thought I was lying!”</p> - -<p>“Tell them it was me, tell them, Peter!” begged little Anne. “I don’t -want them to know, but it’s truth, so I must. Tell them, Peter-two, I -took it and it wasn’t your fault.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, I guess!” Peter derided her. “I’d look well saying my kid sister -was allowed to rummage my things and steal my papers, now wouldn’t I? -I’d look well hiding behind you, my kid sister, wouldn’t I!”</p> - -<p>“Kind of like Adam,” said little Anne, absent-mindedly. “Then what can -you do, Peter-two?”</p> - -<p>“Bear it,” said Peter through his closed teeth.</p> - -<p>It had such a fearful ring that little Anne began to cry softly.</p> - -<p>“Oh, Peter-two, Peter-two,” she moaned. “I honest-to-goodness didn’t -mean to be wicked. I just wanted to make you mad, ’cause you said I -couldn’t. And oh, dear, oh, dear, I did, I did! Don’t you think you -could forgive me, Peter, when I’m so awful sorry and confessed, and -give you my book for repar—resti—making up? Couldn’t you forgive me, -not anyway at all, Peter-two?”</p> - -<p>“You’re spoiled,” said Peter, sternly, not hard-heartedly precisely, -but with a sense of obligation to make the most of this opportunity. -“I’ve said all along you were dreadfully spoiled, and you are. You’re -getting worse, Anne, and this was pretty bad. It won’t hurt you to do -penance.”</p> - -<p>“All right, Peter-two,” said little Anne, swallowing her rising sobs. -“Wha—what’ll I do?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, I don’t care what you do! Think of the harm you’ve done. Go sit in -a tree, or stand in the river. I don’t care what you do! I’m sick of -the whole business, and I’m going to get some gingerbread and study. Go -on and let me alone.”</p> - -<p>Little Anne looked at him with mournful dark eyes; the hollows which so -quickly showed below them deep and dark.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_118"></a>118</span> -“Before I go, Peter-two,” she said, softly, “won’t you please, please -kiss me and tell me you’ll forgive me by and by, after my penance?”</p> - -<p>“Anne, I’ve told you not to bother me!” Peter spoke in a sternly -parental tone. “Certainly I shall not kiss you; why should I, when -you’ve put me in such a position? I will decide about forgiving you -when I see whether or not you mean to behave yourself in the future.”</p> - -<p>Feeling that he had dealt with little Anne in a manner that was for -her welfare, and regretting that his mother could not see this object -lessen in the proper way to discipline her, Peter left the room and -little Anne’s stricken face to go after gingerbread, in the consumption -of which his adult manner was lost.</p> - -<p>He was in his room when his mother returned. She called him to ask if -he knew where Anne was.</p> - -<p>He did not. He had been too busy to think about her, he said, appearing -at the head of the stairs. He further guessed she was around. But she -was not. Bibiana, the waitress, had not seen her since she gave her -lunch. She admitted having thought that the child was not so hungry as -she might have been.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Berkley telephoned the mother of Monica, little Anne’s favourite -playmate, but Anne was not with Monica. She called up other houses, but -there was no news of the child.</p> - -<p>Peter, listening to the telephoning with his bedroom door open, began -to feel an uneasiness which he did not intend to betray to his mother. -It was uncomfortable not to know where Anne was, remembering how -sternly he had disciplined her for her confessed and repented fault, -had refused to forgive her immediately or to seal the forgiveness with -the kiss that she had implored.</p> - -<p>Peter sauntered downstairs with a manner exaggeratedly casual, his cap -on the back of his head.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_119"></a>119</span> -“Oh, don’t go away, Peter!” cried his mother. “I am beginning to feel -uneasy about Anne.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, Anne’s all right!” Peter assured her. “I won’t be long. I thought -maybe I’d make her hurry home; I thought you were getting worried by -the way you were telephoning all over. I’ll tell her to hurry in and -not worry you.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, Peter, it sounds as though you did know where she was!” cried Mrs. -Berkley.</p> - -<p>“Not hard to guess,” said Peter, and slammed the door before his mother -could ask what his guess was and he should have to confess to having in -mind nowhere that she had not already interrogated. Once out of sight -his nonchalance fell from him like the mask that it was. He pulled his -cap down over his forehead and set out on a run. He made speed to find -Anne Dallas, feeling that in some unforeseen way she could help him.</p> - -<p>“Gee, if only I had kissed the kid!” he thought, nameless forebodings -gripping him.</p> - -<p>Anne Dallas knew nothing of little Anne; Mrs. Berkley had already -called her to ask, she told Peter. He thought that she looked ill and -her eyes were swollen; there was reason for his own fright, then, if -Miss Dallas was worried to this extent over Anne.</p> - -<p>“Oh, I knew Mother’d call you up,” Peter said, shifting from foot to -foot as he stood. “But I sort of thought if you didn’t know where she -was maybe you’d come home with me, talk to Mother till Father gets -there—though Anne must come before he does!” he interrupted himself -hastily. “Joan couldn’t come at this time very well—baby goes to bed, -and Antony gets in early—and Mother’s kind of worried. Women do worry -a whole lot over their children.” Peter gave Anne the benefit of his -unique experience.</p> - -<p>“I’ll go this minute,” said Anne. “My hat is right here.”</p> - -<p>“You see Anne was feeling down in the mouth on account of<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_120"></a>120</span> something -she’d done to me,” Peter said as they walked along, unable to restrain -this confidence.</p> - -<p>“She took your thesis. Yes, but she went home to tell you and beg for -forgiveness, so that’s all right now. Isn’t it?” Anne cried, frightened -by Peter’s expression. Then, as he did not answer, she understood.</p> - -<p>“Oh, dear! And she is such an emotional child! Oh, poor Peter! But of -course no harm can have befallen her,” Anne said, laying her hand on -Peter’s arm.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Berkley welcomed Anne without many words. She clasped her hand, -and said: “Thank you, dear!”</p> - -<p>Peter went past them up to his room again. It was getting late.</p> - -<p>After lunch that day Kit Carrington had found his home and its inmates -beyond his power to endure. He was seized with an attack of nerves, -made evident by his restlessness of body and complete repose of tongue.</p> - -<p>In vain had Miss Carrington tried to involve him in plans of her own. -Equally in vain had Helen offered suggestions that were practically -requests to Kit to do one of several things which would have -sufficiently amused her. Kit had one of his most obtuse fits; he met -both his aunt and Helen with polite obstinacy and mental deafness.</p> - -<p>It ended in his going off to his room and getting himself into his -fishing clothes, taking his rod, and starting off to fish the river for -a long afternoon of his own unshared companionship.</p> - -<p>He was too unused to introspection to know what ailed him; indeed the -symptoms were confused and contradictory. He felt at once unhappy -and glad; heavily dull and restless; filled with vague expectation -that seemed to urge him on, he did not know whither, as if something -glorious awaited him just around the corner; yet pain that was almost -despair flooded him, as if all the meaning and value were out of life.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_121"></a>121</span> -“Well, good gracious, I wonder what’s wrong with me! Must be getting -sick,” thought Kit as he realized the civil warfare within him. All day -long Anne Dallas had been before him, alluring, desirable, close to his -mind, yet removed, as if she had died.</p> - -<p>“Funny!” thought simple Kit.</p> - -<p>Later, his aunt returning from a walk in the woods, might have offered -him a solution, if he would admit telepathy as a premise.</p> - -<p>He began to find the quiet of fields a balm to his perturbed spirits. -The woods, when he came to them and entered them, quieted him still -more.</p> - -<p>“Why didn’t I bring poor old Sirius? What a brute I am to forget -him when he so loves this sort of excursion and gets so few!” Kit -reproached himself. “Just the trip for a dog! Well, that’s queer! -There’s little Anne’s beagle, Cricket. Wonder if I could persuade him -to join me? He’s such a scared beggar! Still, he’s getting reconciled -to me. Here, Cricket, Cricket, you bundle!”</p> - -<p>Cricket came cautiously in wide loops toward Kit, wagging his body -deprecatingly, expressing a hope which he was not convinced had -sufficient foundation.</p> - -<p>“Flattered, I’m sure, that you trust me to this extent, young -misanthrope!” Kit patted the dog with a finger tip, and followed it up -with his palm. “Seems to me you act queer, but then you are always such -an absurdity that it’s hard telling! I suspect that you came out after -rabbits, sir, and are properly ashamed! Though a man with a fishing -rod is no moralist to impress you, eh? Well, Cricket, I admit your -reasoning.”</p> - -<p>Kit got out his bait and began to fish. Cricket left him, returned, -whined, and curved himself imploringly; went away again, returned -again, barked, and finally disappeared.</p> - -<p>Kit paid slight attention to the beagle’s vagaries. He fished<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_122"></a>122</span> along -the bank, waded out into the stream, sat for a time upon a rock and -fished from there, whistling softly, forgetful of the perturbation -which had sent him out to look for peace.</p> - -<p>“Pretty good fun to invite your soul and have no one else at your -exclusive party,” thought Kit, recognizing his own pleasure and that it -was satisfying, though he had taken no fish. “Must get back, I suppose, -when there’s a fair lady to dine. But I’m going to try that other place -first.”</p> - -<p>“That other place” lay farther up the river. It was a quiet spot, -shaded by over-hanging branches. He strode to it in his rubber boots, -his walking shoes hung across his shoulders by their knotted lacings. -He walked in the water, finding it more comfortable with his boots on -than land; he noticed how cold the river was still, although there had -been several days of considerable warmth.</p> - -<p>“Well, now for a last try!” Kit thought as he came to the spot which he -had in mind.</p> - -<p>There on the river bank sat Cricket piteously whining.</p> - -<p>“Anne! Little Anne!” shouted Kit.</p> - -<p>Mid-stream stood little Anne, her skirts gathered up in her hands, her -bare, slender legs shaking beneath her as the ice-cold river lapped -them to the knees.</p> - -<p>When Kit called her name she turned to him a disfigured, tear-swollen -face and fell forward into the water. He strode out to her and gathered -her up in his arms. She was unconscious and her poor little body was as -cold as the dead.</p> - -<p>“Oh, Lord, and so far from everything!” thought Kit.</p> - -<p>He did not dally to consider. Casting away his rod and basket he set -out on a run toward the town, holding Anne close to his breast. Cricket -streamed after them, but Kit had been a sprinter and an all-around -athlete; the beagle’s short bowed legs stood no chance at keeping up.</p> - -<p>It seemed to Kit that he made no sort of time; he cursed his<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_123"></a>123</span> impeding -rubber boots fervently; in reality, he covered the distance to the -nearest drug store at a record speed.</p> - -<p>He laid little Anne on the counter, still unconscious, and supported -her head on one arm.</p> - -<p>“Brandy!” he gasped.</p> - -<p>“Artificial respiration,” said the bland but frightened druggist, -prompt with first-aid knowledge.</p> - -<p>“She’s not drowned; it’s exhaustion. She fainted, fell into the river. -Brandy, man! Don’t stop to talk!” Kit ordered.</p> - -<p>“You know, Mr. Carrington, I can’t sell brandy without a doctor’s -prescription,” said the druggist with finality.</p> - -<p>It is certain that Kit’s exclamation was accounted to him as -righteousness, for it sprang from love for little Anne.</p> - -<p>“Give it and don’t sell it then, you idiot!” he said, savagely. “Give -the child brandy and I’ll give you a present later. Good heavens, is -this child to lie here in this state while I stalk a doctor? Who’s to -know what’s done here, anyway? You use my name; you know me. I’ll be -responsible. But I swear I won’t be responsible for what I do to you if -you don’t get a move on you, quick! And I’m some boxer, if you want to -know.” Kit glared furiously at the small man with the timorous air and -the druggist got down a bottle.</p> - -<p>“It’s the law, Mr. Carrington; I’m not to blame, and I certainly don’t -want to get into trouble breaking laws,” he said, pouring a little -brandy into a glass.</p> - -<p>“Get a spoon,” Kit ordered, disregarding him.</p> - -<p>He poured the liquor down little Anne’s throat and chafed her wrists. -The druggist rubbed her legs.</p> - -<p>“What happened to her?” he ventured to ask, plainly doubtful of Kit’s -patience. “Who is she?”</p> - -<p>“Mr. Peter Berkley’s child. I don’t know what happened. She was -standing in the water and fainted just as I came along to fish,” said -Kit. Little Anne opened her eyes with a sigh.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_124"></a>124</span> -“Was it enough? Is it all right?” she murmured and closed her eyes -again.</p> - -<p>“It was a heap too much, little Anne,” said Kit, tenderly. “Help me get -off her wet dress and lend me something to wrap around her, can’t you? -Haven’t you a coat?”</p> - -<p>“I have a blanket which I use when I sleep in the store,” said the -druggist. “Easy to see you have no little girls, Mr. Carrington. Now I -have; two. You unbutton their dresses this way.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, please don’t, Kit! I’d much rather be undressed at home,” little -Anne implored.</p> - -<p>“You shall be. Only this wet dress, Nancy-Bell, and then I’ll roll you -up in a blanket——”</p> - -<p>“Seventy times as high as the moon,” murmured little Anne, feebly -submitting.</p> - -<p>“Another ‛wee deoch and doris,’ Anne!” said Kit putting the teaspoon to -her lips. And this time little Anne could help herself.</p> - -<p>Kit rolled her up in the blanket which the druggist produced and which -he could not help being glad to see was a bright-coloured Navajo; he -wanted little Anne to be wrapped in something cheerful.</p> - -<p>“I’ll be back to-morrow and bring the blanket and some money. I haven’t -any with me. I beg your pardon for cussing you, but time counts in such -a case—so does a stimulant!” said Kit, as he shouldered his precious -burden and went away.</p> - -<p>Little Anne rallied enough to want to explain.</p> - -<p>“It was penance, Kit, dear,” she said. “I did a fearful thing to -Peter-two and he couldn’t forgive me yet. He told me to do penance and -said stand in the river when I said what kind. He wouldn’t kiss me. So -I did it. It’s a cold, an <em>awful</em> cold penance, Kit!” Little Anne -shuddered.</p> - -<p>“Oh, little Anne, didn’t you know Peter didn’t mean that? Fancy, -penance! It sure <em>was</em> cold! What a foolish child you<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_125"></a>125</span> were! -If only it hasn’t harmed you! Were you there long?” demanded Kit, -anxiously.</p> - -<p>“I don’t know; I think so. Peter-two gets home half-past two, or -something, and I went pretty soon. I’m sleepy, Kit. Is Mother worried? -I forgot my mother.” Anne spoke wearily.</p> - -<p>“Dear, I don’t know about going to sleep; perhaps it would harm you. -You see I don’t know what it might do to you. Keep awake, little Anne! -Let me tell you how worried your Cricket was about you, and how he -tried to say there was something wrong.” Kit accompanied the homeward -journey with chatter about the beagle to which little Anne faithfully -strove to listen, but her heavy lids would not stay open.</p> - -<p>When Mrs. Berkley, her husband, Peter, crowded to the door with -terror-stricken faces, seeing Kit coming and what he bore, little Anne -was asleep.</p> - -<p>“Kit?” Mrs. Berkley managed the word, but could ask no more.</p> - -<p>“I don’t know, Mrs. Berkley; she’s not hurt; she may be harmed,” Kit -answered her.</p> - -<p>He relinquished little Anne to her father and watched her family as -they gently turned away the blanket from the thin face, now crimson, -with pinched lips.</p> - -<p>“I found her standing in the river. She had some sort of an idea of -doing penance; of course, one of little Anne’s queer notions,” Kit -said, for with a groan as his words to little Anne came back to him, -Peter bolted.</p> - -<p>“We’ll put her to bed. Sometime I can thank you, Kit, dear,” said Mrs. -Berkley.</p> - -<p>Little Anne’s father did not speak and he had no hand to give. He -nodded to Kit, tears streaming down his face, and carried the child -upstairs.</p> - -<p>From the corner where she had sat, forgotten, Anne Dallas now emerged.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_126"></a>126</span> -She looked haggard; it had been a day of intense emotions. She felt -embarrassed to speak to Kit. She had just learned that he was to marry -Helen Abercrombie, and that she herself was beloved by Richard Latham. -The face of the world had changed. But Kit looked so surprised, so glad -to see her, he seized her hand so cordially, that she could not help -responding to his warmth. Why had she been disinclined to speak to him -in the first place? she wondered. He was the same fine boy; nothing had -happened to alter their friendship.</p> - -<p>“Are you going?” he asked. “I’ll walk with you, please. I’m troubled -about little Anne. She fainted dead when she saw me, been standing no -end of time, and the water is like ice to-day. Good heavens, if she has -pneumonia!”</p> - -<p>“Heaven forbid!” said Anne.</p> - -<p>Her heart leaped with pleasure at Kit’s kindness, his anxiety, the -warmth of his love for the child. She glowed with joy that he was so -good.</p> - -<p>“Saint Christopher bore a little Child out of the water, across to -safety, you know. Let us hope he will bless this Christopher’s rescue,” -she said, softly.</p> - -<p>Kit stared. “What nice things you think of; sweet, womanly, lovely -things,” he said, simply, and took Anne home.</p> - - - - -<div class="chapter"> -<hr class="divider x-ebookmaker-drop" /> -<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_127"></a>127</span> -</div> - - -<h2 id="xii">CHAPTER XII<br /> -<span>Making Alive</span></h2> - -<p class="noi"><span class="dropcap">D</span>URING three days and for as many long nights Anne Dallas lived -intensely in unrealities. Richard Latham was not inclined to talk; she -herself was submerged in feeling that silenced words. It seemed to her -that it blanketed thought, yet all the time she was thinking intently -and, unknown to herself, was reaching conclusions. She worked fast, for -Richard was working fast; she rapidly took down notes for the first -part of his third act, and was aware somewhere in her brain behind her -absorption that he was dictating to her lines which surpassed himself -at his previous best.</p> - -<p>Little Anne Berkley was dangerously ill. Pneumonia had developed on -the second day after her pitiful penance, and, little-Anne-like, she -was having it hard. Anne Dallas and Richard Latham were surprised to -find what a large place in their days and hearts the child had filled. -The thin little body as it lay prostrate in its fight for life cast a -shadow over the house in Latham Street. His anxiety stimulated Richard -to better work, but in Anne’s mind fear for little Anne aggregated to -her personal anxiety and benumbed her further. The world had grown -still, hushed by anxiety; she was feeling so intensely that she seemed -not to feel.</p> - -<p>Nor did the shadow of little Anne’s suffering darken only the poet’s -house. Kit was so afflicted by her danger that he hovered constantly -around the Berkley door, getting bulletins many<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_128"></a>128</span> times a day, bringing -preposterous gifts to the child who could not see them.</p> - -<p>Once, when she was sleeping, Mrs. Berkley took Kit up to look at her. -She lay with a disreputable doll beside her, her face so pinched, her -breathing so laboured, the look of suffering, of imminent death so -stamped upon her that Kit groaned aloud. Mrs. Berkley led him away as -little Anne stirred.</p> - -<p>“It’s bad, Kit, dear, but we are hoping and praying,” she said with -such a brave smile that when Kit got down to where Antony Paul was -waiting for him he broke down.</p> - -<p>Peter sat with his head in his hands, bowed over his knees. He looked -up fiercely as he heard Kit sob.</p> - -<p>“She isn’t your little sister. How do you suppose I feel?” he demanded. -“There never was such a kid as Anne. Joan isn’t in the same class, -Antony, no matter what you say. More brains than all the other children -in town put together, and never a fresh thing about her; sweet, -obedient, pious! And I wouldn’t forgive her for a clever little trick -that I ought to have enjoyed; yes, been proud to think she was smart -enough to work it! Wouldn’t kiss her! Oh, my Lord! Anne, Anne! Told her -to go stand in the river for penance, when she was so sorry, the little -saint! Wouldn’t kiss her!”</p> - -<p>Down went Peter’s head again and his shoulders heaved.</p> - -<p>“See here, old chap, we haven’t lost her yet. You know what to do. Get -out and do it. I believe she’ll be given back to us,” said Antony, his -arm laid across poor Peter as tenderly as a woman’s. Kit watched and -wondered, but Peter understood Antony. He drew his arm across his eyes, -got his cap, and went out without a word.</p> - -<p>Kit went miserably home. Aside from his sense of personal loss, it -seemed to him unbearable that a child so young, so vital as little Anne -should die. He had not meditated so profoundly on the mysteries of -life in all the brief time that he had lived it<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_129"></a>129</span> as he found himself -doing on his way home that afternoon. He distinctly shrank from going -into the metallic brightness of his aunt and Helen’s presence from the -sublime patience that he divined in Mrs. Berkley, and the solemnity of -little Anne, clothed in the mystery of suffering and death.</p> - -<p>He was met at the door by Helen, her face all gentle commiseration.</p> - -<p>“I am sure that you have nothing good to tell me, Kit, but Anne?” she -asked.</p> - -<p>He shook his head. “Not either sort of news. Of course there’s a chance -she may pull through.”</p> - -<p>“Kit, don’t feel so sorry. I can’t bear to see it. But if you are -sorry don’t exclude me as you do. What makes you? I’m not absolutely -inhuman!” Helen smiled, but she looked hurt.</p> - -<p>“She’s a nice child. You don’t like children,” said Kit, dangerously -near to rudeness. “It’s not excluding, Nell. What’s the use of talking -about things, anyway?”</p> - -<p>Kit went upstairs, leaving Helen where she stood. As he went he was -conscious that he would not have asked Anne Dallas what was the use of -talking about things; he knew that it would be the greatest comfort to -him to go to her and discuss little Anne and his recent thoughts. But, -he reminded himself, this was explained by Anne’s love for the sick -child.</p> - -<p>The next afternoon he did go to Richard Latham’s. He was shown directly -into the peaceful room where Anne Dallas and the poet were sitting.</p> - -<p>“Do I interrupt work?” Kit asked, pausing in the doorway.</p> - -<p>“No, indeed; all done for to-day,” said Richard. “Kit, have you bad -news?” he added.</p> - -<p>“Oh, your face says so!” exclaimed Anne; Richard had caught the note of -strain in his voice.</p> - -<p>Kit came in and dropped heavily into a chair.</p> - -<p>“I don’t know; I suppose it is not anything portentous.<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_130"></a>130</span> They are -waiting for the crisis, now; it’s near. Poor little girl!” He paused, -and Richard patted him on the shoulder.</p> - -<p>“We are all broken up here, too,” he said.</p> - -<p>“But there is something else, some change?” Anne asked.</p> - -<p>“She was conscious this morning and in the night,” said Kit. “She has -been conscious a good deal, they say. She asked what day this was, and -when they said Thursday, she asked if it was Corpus Christi? I don’t -know what that means, but——”</p> - -<p>“Yes, I do. I’ve seen it kept abroad, processions, and——” Richard -began, but Kit interrupted him.</p> - -<p>“Well,” he said, indifferently. “But the point is that this was -the day on which little Anne and some other children were to go to -Communion for the first time, and that through her pain the poor mite -had kept track of the days, somewhere in her fevered brain. And Joan -told me that the priest came and she did—what do they say?—make her -First Communion this morning. And afterward she said—isn’t this like -her?—‛I didn’t know my white dress for to-day would be my nightie.’ -That sort of broke me up.” Kit choked, and neither Anne nor Richard -spoke.</p> - -<p>“Well, little Anne’s father and Antony Paul were to get flowers for her -to give to the church. So they bought them for her room. Her mother -took me up. It was full of flowers, but Anne was not conscious when -I was there. They said she’d asked to have them taken to the church; -Peter was going to take them. They—the priest—he gave her—what did -Joan say? He anointed her for death. Little Anne!”</p> - -<p>Kit’s voice had been getting more unsteady; it stopped altogether and -he dropped his face into his hands.</p> - -<p>Anne was crying softly, but Richard said, though the effort was audible:</p> - -<p>“I’ve been told they often recover, those who receive Extreme Unction. -I am unable to believe that little Anne will die.<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_131"></a>131</span> Something tells -me that she is coming here one of these fine summer days to tell us -extraordinary things of her fight with death, just as she has so often -said strange things of her experiences in life. We won’t grieve till we -must, dear Kit, and dear other Anne. I am hopeful.”</p> - -<p>“Poets have visions withheld from us. We will trust this poet and -hope!” said Anne, trying to smile. “I wonder why this slender little -creature has so deeply entered our hearts? It really seems to me that I -could not bear to see little Anne lying dead.”</p> - -<p>“I only know that she has crawled into our hearts,” said Kit. He went -away comforted. Not only was Richard Latham’s hopefulness a relief when -he had felt that little Anne was doomed, but in an intangible way it -seemed to Kit that Anne Dallas had drawn near to him, that her tears -had been shed so close to him that he had wiped them away, comforting -her. It was not a reasonable feeling, but reason and feeling are often -opposed terms. In their love for this little child he and Anne were -one. How easily that oneness might go further!</p> - -<p>Kit’s simplicity accepted the oneness and rested upon it. His was a -nature inclined to believe in all that was good, even in good things -coming to him. And perhaps the impression of sympathy was not mistaken, -whatever might come of it. He slept little that night. The greater -part of it he spent in a chair at the window, gazing out on the silent -world, at the watching stars.</p> - -<p>It seemed to him now like something inconceivably solemn, rather than -sad, that little Anne might have passed out from this visible beauty. -He had only the vaguest ideas of what the sacraments which the child -had received meant, but “anointing for death” had a sound as awesome -as the sweep of Azrael’s wings. It lifted the child beyond the little -creature whom he had known and loved, the precocious, innocent, elfin, -spiritual child, full of contradictory charm; she was now become merely -a soul,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_132"></a>132</span> a passing soul, set apart and chosen to know at the dawn of -life all that man had yearned to fathom.</p> - -<p>He no longer cared to keep her. It was as if it were too stupendous a -matter for human desire to interfere in it, that little Anne must be -left alone to go on or come back, the decision untrammelled.</p> - -<p>Kit’s thoughts turned calmly to Anne Dallas; they partook of the mood -wrought by little Anne’s apotheosis. Anne Dallas loved him! Wonderful, -impossible once to have believed as this was, it seemed to Kit quite -certain. He did not know why, he could not have given a reason for -this certainty, but when one knows a thing beyond question it would be -absurd to ask for proof.</p> - -<p>He felt uplifted. Little Anne was close to infinity; he and Anne were -blessed in their closeness to each other. It was a profound, a restful -conviction. There would flow from it, Kit realized, intensely vital -action, but now it sufficed to rest in it, conscious feeling absorbed. -In a frame of mind in which he did not recognize himself Kit passed the -night. It was not unlike the vigil of a youth beside his arms on the -eve of knighthood.</p> - -<p>As the east began to redden Kit dozed, his arms on the windowsill -pillowing his head. He roused and shook himself as boys and dogs shake -themselves after a nap, and went downstairs, winding his forgotten -watch as he went, setting it by the tall clock on the landing. He was -surprised to see that it was after seven.</p> - -<p>He went out on the steps, intending to go to the Berkley house to ask -for news. He shrank from ringing the sharp telephone bell in that house -which he pictured as filled with the silence of oppressive grief. -For now, though the rising sun usually brings hope after the night’s -despair, Kit felt sure that little Anne was dead.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_133"></a>133</span> -As he came out he saw on the bottom step of his aunt’s house a figure. -It sat huddled, arms folded, head pillowed, knees drawn up, bowed -forward in a heap that for a moment prevented recognition. Then Kit saw -that it was young Peter Berkley.</p> - -<p>“Peter!” he cried, and went down to lay his hand on the boy’s shoulder.</p> - -<p>Peter jumped and sat up, rubbing his eyes, bewildered.</p> - -<p>“Must have dropped off,” he apologized. “I’m not used to being awake -all night, and this was the third one. I was awake pretty much all of -the two before this one. I thought I’d stop and see you, but I hated -to ring, didn’t hear any one stirring in the house. When I sat down I -guess I went right off.”</p> - -<p>“Have you been here long?” asked Kit, not daring to ask the question -that was uppermost in his mind.</p> - -<p>“Don’t know what time it is now,” said Peter. “I got here about ten -minutes to seven, I suppose. I went around to serve Mass at six. That’s -the first one. I had to go.”</p> - -<p>“Did you?” Kit’s voice was as softly pitying as Peter’s mother’s could -have been. “Is that what you do when——”</p> - -<p>“It’s what you want to do. You can’t thank God yourself; you’re not big -enough,” said Peter, simply. “What I came to tell you, Kit, is that -Anne’s pulled through.”</p> - -<p>“Living? Going to live?” Kit shouted.</p> - -<p>Peter nodded. “The crisis was last night about one. She got through -it like the little sport she is. The doctor stayed and helped all he -could, but he said it was her heart won out. He says her heart’s fine -this morning, so it’s sure she’ll get well with proper care. Think she -won’t get it? The doctor doesn’t know how true what he said was. Say, -don’t you think it was little Anne’s heart? She’s such a good kid and -tries so hard to do what she’s told.”</p> - -<p>Kit nodded. He found it hard to speak, but he patted Peter’s<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_134"></a>134</span> shoulder -steadily, as though something would go wrong if he stopped.</p> - -<p>“I knew how you’d feel,” said Peter, stretching his weary muscles. -“Got to go on home now. I haven’t had anything to eat yet, and I don’t -believe we had dinner; I can’t seem to remember. Isn’t that funny? I -didn’t go to bed; I lit right out for the six—Mass at six, I mean. I’m -going to serve that one for nine days; it takes something to get up at -five. That’s a novena I’m going to make.”</p> - -<p>Kit understood the boy’s elisions, being still a boy in spite of his -approaching third decade.</p> - -<p>“Well, Peter, I’d know you’d be thankful,” Kit said. “I am, too. I’d -like it if I knew how to do something to show I’m thankful.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, thankful!” Peter seemed to inhale the word. “Well, say! If Anne -had died from standing in the river when I was such a fool and a brute -as to say what I did to her—— Thankful! Well, say!”</p> - -<p>The boy walked away, head up, but shoulders heaving.</p> - -<p>Kit stood for a few moments on the steps, his head thrown back, the -sunshine on his face. He looked radiant but stunned.</p> - -<p>“I didn’t think she’d make it!” he said aloud. “I was sure when I saw -Peter sitting here she hadn’t made it. Gracious, but I <em>am</em> glad! -Anne will be glad. I must call and tell her.”</p> - -<p>Anne received Kit’s message at her boarding place. She hurried her -breakfast and went to Latham Street earlier than usual to take the -joyful news there.</p> - -<p>Richard Latham received it as a twice-told tale, not the less welcome.</p> - -<p>“The dear little thing!” he said. “But I felt sure that she was safe. -The first thing I thought when I wakened was that little Anne was all -right. But it is joyful to be confirmed by<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_135"></a>135</span> certainty. How glad you -are! I can feel the happiness radiating from you like an electric -current!”</p> - -<p>“Indeed I am happy!” cried Anne. “I love the child, but it’s not that -alone. That is such a dear family, so simple, so united, so loving that -I couldn’t endure the thought of their loss of little Anne. Though -perhaps it would have been better to let her slip away to the heaven -she’s so fond of talking about.”</p> - -<p>“Nonsense!” said Richard, briskly. “That’s a morbid, wrong notion. Life -is a gift. A wicked life is the gift thrown away, but do you really -think there is great danger of little Anne’s conscience ever abandoning -her to a misspent life—or of her abandoning her conscience, more -correctly? Anne’s conscience is as intrinsic to her as her heart, or -any other vital organ! She’ll be a good woman. So I’m mighty glad she’s -to live to make a happier world, as her mother has done. How good it -will be to have her around again! How did you hear about her?”</p> - -<p>“Kit Carrington telephoned me. Peter Berkley had been there to tell -Kit, and he knew that I—we—would be eager to hear,” said Anne.</p> - -<p>“Ah! Well, that was kind of him; we were eager to hear,” said Richard. -Anne did not see his face; he turned and left the room as he spoke, but -she heard the change in his voice that answered to a drooping body.</p> - -<p>“You do not feel too perturbed to work to-day?” Richard suggested when -Anne followed him to the living room a few minutes later. There was no -note of regret in his voice now.</p> - -<p>“Dear me, no!” laughed Anne. “I feel more like work than usual; there -is a load rolled off, isn’t there?”</p> - -<p>Anne had set down her problem in accurate figures, and had solved it. -There was nothing in the way of her making Richard as happy as she -could make him, except selfishness. She wanted the love that had not -come to her, which was to her the ideal<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_136"></a>136</span> approach to marriage. This -ideal was the true one, but her case was altered by circumstances. -First of all, there was no one whom she loved better than Richard -Latham. If there were, she could not have been untrue to that love, -whether or not it led to joy. Richard Latham was not only a man to be -honoured for his genius, pitied for his blindness, but he was a man to -be loved for himself. Rarely would any woman find in one person the -qualities which he united in himself; the manliness with the delicacy; -the tenderness with the courage; the unbending austerity with the -unfailing mercy. He could love a woman as few men could love one; he -would idealize her while protecting her; serve her in all humility, -yet expect from her all the goodness and strength that was in her. -Anne had decided that if Richard really were giving her this power -and wanted her, it was not for her to refuse his wealth, nor further -impoverish one who had been so bereft. Having reached her decision, she -went serenely on her way, characteristically debating it no more; ready -to give if the demand were made, desiring nothing except not to fail -either Richard or herself.</p> - -<p>This morning Richard resumed the dictation of his third act; Anne, pen -in hand, set down the cabalistic signs which Richard had once accused -of signifying more than he could produce.</p> - -<p>Suddenly she paused, her pen suspended, a shocked expression on her -face.</p> - -<p>“But, Mr. Latham, why are you saying this?” she cried. “What are you -doing with this act? This dialogue? You are turning it all wrong!”</p> - -<p>“No,” said Richard. “I am not going to follow my first plan. Our -friend, the hero, is not to be made happy, after all! I am separating -him from his beloved. They are not to marry, as we meant them to. It -won’t affect the two preceding acts; it will merely make another play -of it, perhaps a sadder one, but not a weaker one—better, I think. -Don’t you approve?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_137"></a>137</span> -“Indeed I do not!” cried Anne. “Why do you want to martyr him? And to -frustrate that beautiful, ideal love! It’s unbearable! I can’t take the -dictation that does this! And really, Mr. Latham, it will frustrate the -play as well as the hero’s life. Don’t you think we all want the happy -ending? It is always possible to get it in a play or a story! I’m sure -the public will rebel, that your play will never succeed if you change -your plot. No one ever drew a more ideal love than you have in the acts -already written. And to spoil it all, sever these two who have dared -for each other, borne for each other with such courage, yet so nobly, -so wisely! Oh, why do you want to do it?”</p> - -<p>“What a little enthusiast!” said Richard. “I am forced to do it. I -can’t tell you why, Anne—Miss Dallas—but I’ve wholly lost the power -to end it as I at first intended. It’s got to be a tragedy, a bloodless -but poignant tragedy. I don’t know any other ending. I’ll make our nice -girl happy with the nice youth, but for the man——” He shook his head -after a moment’s hesitation. “I know no other end,” he repeated.</p> - -<p>Anne laid down her pen. Her face wore an uplifted look, unlike the look -with which a woman goes to her lover, but nevertheless she arose and -went to her lover. She knelt beside him and took his hand.</p> - -<p>“Why do you know no happy end for him?” she asked.</p> - -<p>“Anne!” cried Richard Latham. “What are you doing? What do you mean? -Anne, Anne—what do you know?”</p> - -<p>“I know that if there were any one whom you wanted, Richard Latham, she -would be a happy, a blessed woman.” Anne spoke hardly above a whisper, -yet her words were clearly audible in the intense quiet of the room. -Richard bent toward her, but pulled himself back.</p> - -<p>“Do you mean—Anne, stop this! I love you. What right have you——”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_138"></a>138</span> -“Perfect right, Richard,” said Anne, and lifted his hand to lay it on -her bowed head.</p> - -<p>“Oh, my God!” cried Richard, with a sob in his throat.</p> - -<p>Then he leaped to his feet and caught her up in his arms and held her -tight, kissing again and again her soft masses of hair, her closed -eyes, at last her lips.</p> - -<p>“Oh, my God, my good kind God,” he said, hoarsely. “How can it be -true?”</p> - - - - -<div class="chapter"> -<hr class="divider x-ebookmaker-drop" /> -<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_139"></a>139</span> -</div> - - -<h2 id="xiii">CHAPTER XIII<br /> -<span>The Ill Wind</span></h2> - -<p class="noi"><span class="dropcap">I</span>T was with no small satisfaction that Kit learned that his aunt and -Helen were to spend that day and the greater part of the next one in -the large city three hours distant, returning to Cleavedge only in time -for dinner. There was upon Kit an unwrapping profundity of isolation, -a peace with which the elder and younger woman were in ill-accord; it -was a relief to know that duty would not summon him out of his personal -atmosphere to breathe theirs.</p> - -<p>That afternoon he spent in the woods, contentedly wandering, for some -time sleeping on the moss; his vigil of the preceding night had made -him drowsy. This time he had not forgotten to invite his old dog, -Sirius, the English setter who had been his comrade for years, to bear -him company. On his way to enjoy the silence which he craved, he had -stopped at the Berkleys’ to get confirmation of the good news of the -morning.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Berkley had cried on his shoulder as if he had been Peter, grown -taller, and as she had not cried when little Anne was in mortal danger. -Kit had patted her back and ended by kissing her with warmth in his -heart: it seemed to him that at last his lonely boyhood had ended in -his finding kindred.</p> - -<p>All the while the permeating sense of Anne Dallas’ nearness, the fact -that he loved her and that she knew it and that everything was all -right, made at once the foundation and crown of this blessed day. He -went on to the woods to brood over this sense of blessedness; not to -think of it precisely, not at<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_140"></a>140</span> all to debate, nor demonstrate it, but -to yield to its exquisite bliss.</p> - -<p>Humility is the handmaid of perfect faith. Kit was not conceited, but -he was sure of Anne’s love; he did not know why he felt sure of it, -nor would he have said that there was any reason why she should love -him, but he knew that she did, and he humbly gave himself up to the -wondering joy of it.</p> - -<p>“If you know a thing you know it,” Kit would have said, and that was -all. He went whistling homeward as the loveliness of the sunshine of -the last days of May began to be veiled with the poetical beauty of its -westward lengthening.</p> - -<p>He ate a dinner that was unromantically hearty, but which was flavoured -with romance and elevated into the sacramental. It occurred to him -that he should not always eat alone, nor at his aunt’s table; that one -unspeakable day he should raise his eyes and see Anne sitting in her -quiet loveliness opposite to him. It took his breath away to think -that he should carve a thin slice of the breast for her and lay it on -her plate, with a spoonful of the dressing; it was to be her second -helping. His hand would brush hers and she would be sure to say, “Not -so much, Kit, dear!”</p> - -<p>He should watch her put smooth brown gravy, with dots of chopped things -in it, over his potato, and should tell her, in the indifferent tone of -blessed accustomedness, not to put any on the side of the plate which -he had left for the cranberry jelly.</p> - -<p>It was a fairy dream, though its terms, put into English, would have -sounded prosaic enough, but of all miracles the most divine are the -homely ones. Not least of these is the miracle that the radiant wings -of youthful love can be folded close to brood upon a hearth. This was -what Kit’s true instinct revealed to him, and moved and ecstatic over -the vision of Anne, his wife, he ate, unconscious of what he was eating.</p> - -<p>After dinner he went at once to the piazza and sat smoking slowly, -watching the moon rise, sufficiently companioned in<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_141"></a>141</span> knowing that -he was to see Anne on the morrow, so content in this strange, new -conviction of the possession of her that he was satisfied to delay -the joy of seeing her in the effulgence of this new light. As long as -he knew it was but delayed! If he were not going to see her thus that -would be another, a tragic matter!</p> - -<p>Kit went to bed early and slept like a tired, happy boy, and arose -early to begin another happy day; an endless succession of such days -stretched out ahead of him, to that inconceivable day when Anne and he -should be old.</p> - -<p>He was disappointed when, in the afternoon, he went to Latham Street, -to be told that the poet, with Miss Dallas, had gone in Richard’s small -car, driven by Stetson, to visit the falls, which were the point of -pilgrimage for all strangers who came to Cleavedge. The falls were some -miles distant, where the river gathered itself together and hurled -itself down over rocks.</p> - -<p>“Well, it’s a fine day to go there, and the falls are still swollen by -the spring rains,” said Kit, sorry for himself, but resigned to others’ -better luck.</p> - -<p>“I wanted to tell Miss Dallas—and Mr. Latham—that I stopped at -Mrs. Berkley’s on my way here, and that the little girl has not an -unfavourable symptom. It’s quite certain now that she will live. You -might tell Mr. Latham when he comes in, if you will, please. I’ll see -Miss Dallas to-night at her boarding place.”</p> - -<p>Mrs. Lumley, the housekeeper, Minerva’s gossip, who happened to be -in the hall when Kit sounded the knocker, and so had exceeded her -obligations and opened the door, looked at him with significant -commiseration.</p> - -<p>“Miss Dallas is going to dine here to-night, Mr. Carrington,” she said. -“Mr. Latham is going to pick up an elderly lady who he’s great friends -with, and bring her to dinner with him to-night. And Miss Dallas is to -come with ’em.”</p> - -<p>There was a note in Mrs. Lumley’s voice that arrested Kit’s<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_142"></a>142</span> attention, -but then he was not familiar with her voice, and it glanced off the -surface of his mind as it vibrated against it.</p> - -<p>“I’m disappointed to hear that,” said Kit, “but it’s pleasanter for -Miss Dallas. It’s a tiresome trip to the falls and Miss Dallas finds it -a bore, at best, to board. I did hope to see her! Oh, well, one more -day! And there are many days.”</p> - -<p>He smiled the smile that made everybody his friend and turned to go, -saying “good-day” to Mrs. Lumley.</p> - -<p>“It is truly said, Mr. Carrington, that it is pleasanter dining here -than at her boarding place. This is a beautiful house, so cunning seers -tell me; let alone Mr. Latham’s being even more agreeable as a man than -as a poet. And it is true that there are many days. There are many of -most things, Mr. Carrington; fish in the sea and much besides. So it -is well to keep our minds on this well-known fact so’s’t not to let -ourselves feel’s if there wasn’t hardly more than one of a thing, day, -or whatever it may be. Good-day, Mr. Carrington; I’ll tell Mr. Latham.”</p> - -<p>“Cryptic cook! Or is she the cook?” thought Kit, amused yet vaguely -disturbed. “Sounds like the oracle hinting disaster. That class of -woman eats up anticipation of misfortune and licks the platter clean. -Seems as though she grudged Anne her comfort! Maybe she’s afraid of -automobiles; probably is! But I’m good and ready for a glimpse of my -dear. Those Elizabethans had a nice way of calling things: ‛a glimpse -of my dear!’ Now that’s nice!”</p> - -<p>Kit had mused into less disappointment, but there was still enough left -to give him a subdued manner, and to shadow his bright face of the -morning as he greeted his aunt and Helen.</p> - -<p>He found them on the piazza; their diaphanous gowns showed that they -had returned on a train early enough to have allowed them to change to -these from their travelling garb. Beside Helen there stood a basket -with a small window in one end. Kit’s animal-loving eye quickly noted -it.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_143"></a>143</span> -“My gracious! is Helen setting up a pet?” he wondered.</p> - -<p>“How are you, Kit?” said Miss Carrington, extending her left hand -lazily. “I hope you are all right?” She looked him over sharply. “You -look all right! Come, that’s good and sensible!”</p> - -<p>Helen leaned forward in her chair, holding out her pretty hand.</p> - -<p>“It seemed queer to come home and not find you, Kit,” she said. “A big -boy fills up a house, doesn’t he? And his absence fills it up, too—in -another way!”</p> - -<p>“That’s a kind and delicate implication, Nell, but it’s like -Pudd’n-head Wilson’s idea of calling a man a mule; it leaves him in -doubt, though the mule is such an admirable character. There are ways -and ways of filling up a house, Nell, and boys aren’t popular in the -rôle.”</p> - -<p>Kit shook Helen’s hand merrily and talked glibly, with a happy -carelessness that made the girl stare in her turn.</p> - -<p>“You must have liked keeping house alone,” she said. “I never saw you -look jollier, not even when you played on the winning team, ages ago! -What’s the news? Are you rejoicing for yourself, or, altruistically, -for others?”</p> - -<p>She contrived to shake her head at Miss Carrington and signal to her -that Kit did not know.</p> - -<p>“Just general well-being; that the world is so full of a number of -things,” answered Kit. “I’ve been off with Sirius most of the time -since you and Auntie went; haven’t heard any news whatever. Except that -little Anne is coming on splendidly.”</p> - -<p>“Well, after dinner is the best time for news when there is any,” -Helen gave Kit the impression of talking nonsense, but Miss Carrington -understood the hint that ill news interfered with appetite.</p> - -<p>“I knew that the child was going on well the instant that I saw you. -What do you think I have in that basket?” Helen asked.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_144"></a>144</span> -“Couldn’t guess! I hope for your soul’s sake that you’ve set up a pet, -but I don’t dare hope for the best,” returned Kit.</p> - -<p>“No, Master Christopher, not even for my soul’s sake shall I ever set -up a pet. I don’t do a whole lot for my soul’s sake, anyway! But it -is a pet, nevertheless. On the strength of the news before we left -yesterday, that little Anne was going to live, I bought one for her. -I thought an Angora kitten would be the best tonic to hasten on her -convalescence. She can have it on the bed with her, and watch it play -and strike fascinating attitudes.”</p> - -<p>Helen was unstrapping the basket as she spoke.</p> - -<p>Kit’s delight was unmistakable, but his surprise was not flattering.</p> - -<p>“What a happy inspiration, Nell!” he cried. “There’s nothing like a -kitten to entertain an ailing child. How did you ever happen to think -of it?”</p> - -<p>“‛A princess of the direct Herodian line, like you!’ your too-honest -manner implies, my dear!” laughed Helen. “Oh, I am not stupid, though -I be heartless, or so I flatter myself! I have been a sick little girl -myself. I remember I was most interested in having kittens visit me -in those circumstances. I never got attached to them, never wanted to -continue the acquaintance, but they did amuse me. Cats have lovely -muscles; I still like to watch them. Your Anne—<em>little</em> Anne!—is -probably a model of affection and will love this catlet personally. It -struck me as a delicate compliment, since you are so fond of the child, -to give her a kit! How’s this?”</p> - -<p>She produced from the basket a snowy-white kitten, high-bred, beautiful -in every line and in each fluffy hair; its face round and expressive, -its eyes still blue, with the look of innocence that only a kitten can -wear and to which nothing created since Eden can hope to correspond.</p> - -<p>“Oh, jiminy!” cried Kit, as pleased as little Anne would surely<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_145"></a>145</span> be. -“Helen, it beats the world! What a beauty! Little Anne will either die -of it, or recover at her first glimpse of it.”</p> - -<p>He took the kitten from Helen, who held it out by her thumb and -forefinger, its legs drawn up into its downy stomach, and nestled it in -his neck.</p> - -<p>“You small, soft thing!” Kit said.</p> - -<p>Helen flushed to her hair. Her eyes gave out a gleam, and she looked, -as she felt, as if she would gladly have taken Kit in her arms—so big, -so simple, so lovable he seemed with the “small, soft thing” creeping -close to him trustingly.</p> - -<p>“Give it to the child yourself, Kit, as soon as she is able to bear -the emotion it will inspire. I want you to take it to her. Don’t say -anything about me; let it be your gift. No!” Helen held up a protesting -hand. “I don’t care to get credit for this sort of thing; I would if -I wanted to win the child, but I don’t. I’ll give you the kitten; you -give it to Anne, and we’ll all live happy for ever after.”</p> - -<p>“Anne will be told correctly the tale of your thoughtfulness, of how -you brought pussyette to her,” said Kit. “What a curious mixture you -are, Nell! I wonder if you pose as a metallic creature, and that it is -all pose? I’ll take this winner to Minerva.”</p> - -<p>He went away with the kitten purring close to his face, the basket -swinging in his hand.</p> - -<p>Helen sighed. She turned excited eyes upon Miss Carrington.</p> - -<p>“He certainly is an attractive boy,” she said. “He doesn’t know a thing -of the engagement, that’s clear. Wait till after dinner. If he does -mind, it would be a pity to damage his inspiring appetite. I love to -see Kit pitch in!”</p> - -<p>At dinner that night Kit certainly “pitched in.” He talked more than -was his custom and he talked well. Miss Carrington, who was sharply -critical of him, not always satisfied with his simplicity, was pleased -to hear him, announcing opinions on<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_146"></a>146</span> some of the events of the day, -well-expressed, logically thought-out from intelligent premises.</p> - -<p>Helen was clever and she had a rare opportunity to learn inside -political facts, as well as to acquire skill in marshalling them to -conclusions. She spurred Kit on and made him put forth his best powers -to cope with her. When they returned to the piazza Kit found himself -aroused, thinking fast, conscious of having enjoyed the past hour -keenly, as a man must enjoy whatever puts him on his mettle.</p> - -<p>“You’re a great girl, Helen Abercrombie!” he said with sincere -admiration. “You will hold your own if ever you get that salon you -dream of, or are launched on a sea wide enough and windy enough for -you.”</p> - -<p>“Helen is the peer of the most brilliant men. She will be a tower of -strength to her associates,” said Miss Carrington, delighted to see -that Kit was impressed.</p> - -<p>“Oh, it’s hats off! When the governor’s daughter passes by! Passes by -us all,” agreed Kit, so readily that his aunt frowned. She suspected -that Kit was thinking that womanly sweetness surpassed Helen’s talents. -But she said pleasantly:</p> - -<p>“Quite right, Kit! I can’t help feeling sorry that Richard Latham is -going to miss complete intellectual companionship. No matter what -nice things he says of her, of course we know that Miss Dallas is not -his equal. However, she is a nice, trusty, sympathetic girl, and on -the whole I am glad—since he can’t have such as Helen, for the good -reason that there is none like her!—that he will be taken care of, and -at least be secure of the self-sacrificing devotion that a blind man -needs. It is hard to keep in mind that he is a blind man; not only a -great poet.”</p> - -<p>“Why do you speak, or did you mean to speak, as though Miss Dallas -would marry Mr. Latham?” Kit smilingly asked.</p> - -<p>“Oh, don’t you know about it?” asked Miss Carrington,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_147"></a>147</span> blandly. “I -suppose it isn’t talked of yet. You should keep a lady’s maid, Kit! -Here we are just returned and are in possession of facts, while you, -right within hail of Cupid, never saw a flash of his arrow!”</p> - -<p>“Facts, Aunt Anne? Do you mean <em>facts</em>?” Poor Kit spoke with -difficulty.</p> - -<p>“Surely, Kit, my dear; why not? Isn’t an engagement usually a -fact? Minerva met Mr. Latham’s housekeeper who knows all that the -principals themselves know, probably more! Mrs. Lumley—that’s the -housekeeper—rather resents it. Naturally a woman of her class would -resent her employer’s marrying below his own. Though I confess I’ve -found Miss Dallas in every way correct, quite like a well-born person. -Then Mrs. Lumley would be jealous of authority, a woman’s authority -over her, where she has reigned supreme. These things embroider the -story attractively when Minerva tells it, but they are not intrinsic -to the fabric. The important fact, important to us all, since Richard -Latham’s work will be affected by it—Cleavedge’s celebrity’s work—is -that our poet is engaged to be married to the little brown Dallas girl.”</p> - -<p>“Aunt Anne, he isn’t! What nonsense you—I beg your pardon! I mean what -nonsense Minerva talks. It isn’t so because—because—it can’t be so!” -Kit exploded.</p> - -<p>Miss Carrington adjusted her glasses the better to look at her nephew. -Helen leaned back in her chair somewhat tense, amusement, yet strong -annoyance in her face.</p> - -<p>“He is hard hit!” she thought, calculating the chances of consolation.</p> - -<p>“<em>Can’t</em> be so, Christopher? But it can be, because it <em>is</em> -so! Why should it not be true? She is at his hand every moment while -he is at work and shares the work with him. She has a nice alto voice, -moves well, would not annoy him; why should he not, lonely as he is, be -attracted to her?” inquired Miss<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_148"></a>148</span> Carrington, temperately, ignoring any -other side to consider in the matter except the poet’s.</p> - -<p>“I don’t believe it!” Kit almost groaned.</p> - -<p>“My dear boy, that sounds rude, but I’m sure you don’t mean it so,” -said his aunt. “Don’t you recall my saying that this marriage was -certain to come off? Miss Dallas read a poem not intended for her -reading—I suspect Mrs. Lumley of eavesdropping to have known this! -Miss Dallas was not dishonourable; she mistook the poem for her work, -I’ve no doubt. In it Richard Latham voiced the love for her which he -thought, foolishly, when you consider what he is, that he was forbidden -to tell Miss Dallas because he is blind. I talked with Miss Dallas when -she had just learned that Latham loved her. We agreed that she was -free to admit to herself her love for Richard Latham; that it was now -her right, her duty to walk the beautiful way open to her. I have no -doubt that she will be happy. He is a rare man. There is no question -that they both are now blissfully happy. Miss Dallas is dining there -to-night, and Mr. Latham, instructing Mrs. Lumley as to the table, -himself told her to put an old lady friend of his, who is also dining -there, at his right, but to put Miss Dallas opposite him. ‛Though I -cannot see her, Mrs. Lumley, I shall know that she is there. I want to -say to you that it will not be long before Miss Dallas will preside -over my table, seated opposite to me. She has consented to be my wife.’ -Mrs. Lumley quoted this to Minerva with what I feel sure was dramatic -accuracy, for Minerva’s repetition of her words carried conviction. -I am sure that though she hates the marriage, the housekeeper enjoys -having her feelings harrowed! It is really more exciting than a movie, -I make no question!”</p> - -<p>Miss Carrington laughed her light, amused, tolerant laugh.</p> - -<p>With an imprecation Kit shoved back his chair and went away.</p> - -<p>He was numb with puzzled incredulity, yet he knew that what<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_149"></a>149</span> he had -heard must be true. How it could be true—how this could follow -to-day after his certainty of yesterday, of this afternoon, till this -moment—Kit could not think. He could not think about it, anyway. All -that he could do was to feel. Poor Kit was one dull ache, stunned by -the blow that had fallen upon him. He recalled the significance, the -pity <ins id="with" title="Original has 'whth'">with</ins> -which Richard Latham’s housekeeper had regarded him. -His secret must be suspected then; he was warranted in his feeling that -Anne had understood, if the housekeeper knew.</p> - -<p>Kit went to his room and sat by the window at which he had spent the -night of anxious vigil before Anne Berkley’s fate was decided. Then -Anne Dallas had seemed to be with him, sharing his sorrow for the -little girl, but also sharing the love which upheld him. He tried -to think back to discover what had made him so sure that Anne had -understood and had answered to the call of his longing for her, but he -could discover nothing that she had done or said.</p> - -<p>“I am a fool, an utter, consummate, wretched fool!” he said, aloud. -“It’s like that pocket knife that I was sure Aunt Anne was giving me on -my eighth birthday; she had a set of kid travel books for me! It was -only that I wanted that knife so badly! I still remember how I felt -when I opened those books! I wanted Anne so much I thought I’d get her. -Of course any one would love Latham. He’s fine. And it isn’t her fault. -I—I’m the blind man!”</p> - -<p>It was a comfort to decide that Anne was in no wise to blame; it was -such a comfort that Kit did what he must have done when he was eight -and the knife that he had convinced himself was coming never came. He -was alone in his room with no one to see, and he dropped his head on -his folded arms and sobbed over his ruined hopes.</p> - - - - -<div class="chapter"> -<hr class="divider x-ebookmaker-drop" /> -<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_150"></a>150</span> -</div> - - -<h2 id="xiv">CHAPTER XIV<br /> -<span>Adjustment</span></h2> - -<p class="noi"><span class="dropcap">A</span>FTER Kit had left them Miss Carrington and Helen remained till late -talking earnestly, with their chairs drawn close. Their voices rose -and fell—the fall emphasized—in all the earnestness of an important -discussion, but never did they rise to the point at which words were -distinguishable at any distance.</p> - -<p>Minerva passed in and out of the room behind them, and though its -windows were open she heard nothing except a clear yet muffled murmur.</p> - -<p>“She will know all about it, <em>plus</em>, but there is no reason why -she should be gratified now,” said Miss Carrington, malice in her -eye. At last, when the old clock on the stairway struck eleven, Miss -Carrington rose.</p> - -<p>“Well, Helen, it will be past midnight before we get our chapter read -and are in bed,” she said. “Of course, my dear, you read your nightly -chapter? I am sure I can’t predict. Men differ almost as much as other -animals; in fact, I’m not sure that they don’t vary more—sorrel -horses, black ones, maltese cats—it’s easy to generalize on their -traits. I’ve never known Kit under these conditions; I can’t say how -he’ll react. It’s notorious that widowers are easily consoled. Still, -it is often easier to console a man for the loss of what he had than -for what he missed. Death is supposed to soften the hard heart. Kit -might easily be caught on the rebound; then, again, he may not rebound, -but drop. You handle a racquet well; can you bat him? That’s the wrong -term!”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_151"></a>151</span> -“Serve him?” laughed Helen. “That’s the word, and a lovely word it is -in this connection.”</p> - -<p>“Well, I don’t know. My recollection is that you serve into another’s -court, which is not to our liking in this case. I think I mean pick him -up; you do that with racquets, don’t you? I don’t know why I should -insist on a tennis term! The whole thing, Helen, is that you are to be -nice to my boy, and wisely nice. You will slip along, pussy-footed, -your hand on the leader. I believe, from my experience with youngsters, -that Kit will learn to lean upon your satisfying comradeship. It can’t -be more than a fancy for the Dallas girl. He was ready supplied with -ideals and she stood convenient, as a sort of rack, to hang them on. -That’s the explanation of most first love. No harm done, my dear! -Except that it is keeping us up, and that is harmful to me at my age! -Unless there’s something going on, and then tiny hours don’t harm me!”</p> - -<p>The dauntless old lady laughed and went into the house, Helen following -with her forgotten knitting bag.</p> - -<p>Kit presented himself at breakfast with the marks of misery on his -face. He was not used to unhappiness; aside from the actual pain, the -discomfort of its friction hurt him, as a chain galls in addition to -its weight. He did not know how to adjust himself to what had happened. -He had the good sense to see that the only thing for him to do was to -occupy himself with something that demanded genuine effort of body and -mind.</p> - -<p>“I’ve got to get at something that I can’t foozle over,” is the way he -put it to himself.</p> - -<p>He had amused himself so far through life successfully, but he -instinctively realized that entertainment did not entertain, except -when one’s light-heartedness might dispense with it.</p> - -<p>Helen and Miss Carrington had made a compact to be unconscious of Kit’s -depression. At breakfast Helen talked happily of inconsequent matters, -not to Kit, yet not excluding him;<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_152"></a>152</span> she did not suggest his sharing any -part of that day with her; instead, she announced plans for herself -that excluded him. He was grateful for what he mistook for Helen’s -unintentional mercy to him and rewarded her with a friendly smile as -he left the dining room. He had added to his advice to himself while -dressing the sane counsel not to show it if he felt sore, and not to be -a grouch.</p> - -<p>The first necessity upon him was to make an errand to Richard Latham’s -house to see for himself. There were moments when he did not believe -that what he had heard was true, yet at every moment he was surer that -it was true.</p> - -<p>He found work going on so briskly in the poet’s room that, like little -Anne on an earlier day, he bestowed himself outside the window to wait. -Anne waved her hand, the pen in it, to him, but Richard did not know -that he was there.</p> - -<p>Where he sat Kit could not help catching every movement that Richard -made. They were not many: Richard sat with his head resting against the -back of his chair, his voice flowing steadily on, rising and falling -so expressively that, though he could not hear the words, Kit found -its cadences dramatic, interesting. The poet’s slender hands moved -ceaselessly, the long fingers rapidly opening, closing, pointing, erect -or drooping, but otherwise he was motionless.</p> - -<p>The look that passed over Richard’s face at intervals when he turned -his blind eyes upon Anne; the tone with which he sometimes asked a -question that Kit fancied was extraneous to the dictation, gradually -destroyed whatever slight hope had lingered.</p> - -<p>At last Richard straightened himself, and Anne began gathering up her -papers, laying one upon another. Richard held out his hands with a -smile that told Kit all that there was to tell. He saw Anne’s lips -move, though her voice did not reach him, and Richard jumped up to -hasten to the door.</p> - -<p>“Why, Christopher Carrington!” Richard cried, boyishly.<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_153"></a>153</span> “What are you -doing here? Come in, come in! Glad to see you.”</p> - -<p>Kit let the poet shake his limp hand, though Kit’s tight grasp was -famous.</p> - -<p>“Good morning, Miss Dallas,” Kit said, and Anne greeted him with the -sweet cordiality that had always been one of her chief charms.</p> - -<p>“It was silly of me to wait,” Kit said, “but that’s a nice step to sit -on! Now it’s too late for me to do more than say I’m going.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, but we have more than that to say to you!” protested Richard. -“We’ve had a great morning, Kit! We’ve done the third act. And it’s a -great third act, if I do say it as shouldn’t! We’ve made our notes on -it these past two days and to-day we’ve written it. I needn’t hesitate -to say it’s great, either: Anne did it. She saved it from being a sad -third act; she changed the play back to our first idea of it. I was -going to spoil it!”</p> - -<p>“You don’t as a rule,” Kit managed to say; he had had too much of the -“we” to answer easily.</p> - -<p>“There is no rule, Kit, my son!” Richard laughed. “There is no rule, no -precedent, because there is no old me! There’s not even English grammar -left of my old self, you see! All the world is new. Do you know that -this is <em>Anne</em> now?”</p> - -<p>He held out his hands to Anne and she came over to him and laid her own -hands into his. She was pale, her eyes cast down, her lips parted as if -she were breathing quickly; Kit saw her breast rise and fall. He could -not guess that Anne was wondering why she found her new part almost -impossible to play. She had been thankful to find herself peacefully, -unemotionally happy since she had made Richard ecstatically happy, but -now the situation crushed her.</p> - -<p>Kit made an attempt to answer, but Richard forestalled him.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_154"></a>154</span> -“She was Anne all along, you are going to say? Indeed, she was not! She -was my devoted, wise, unselfish little secretary, Miss Dallas! But now -she is Anne. Don’t you see, Kit? We have made a happy end of the play. -I didn’t know how; I should have spoiled it, but she saved it—and me! -We made a happy end of the play, good old Kit!”</p> - -<p>Anne raised her eyes and looked at Kit, gravely, steadily. Then she -smiled at him. He had no idea of what that smile conveyed; for that -matter Anne was equally in the dark. Kit threw back his head, pulled -himself together as he had done on the football field more than once -when the game demanded him and he was nearly finished. He smiled back -at Anne and put out his hand, first to her, then to Richard.</p> - -<p>“I had heard something about it,” he said, and his voice rang out -cheerily. “I suppose, to be honest, that is why I came around to-day -and why I waited; I wanted to know. Wish you all sorts of luck, Miss -Dallas, and whatever good comes to you won’t be luck, you know, after -all! Congratulations, Mr. Latham! You surely do deserve the best thing -in the world. I know what it is, too, though I don’t use your label on -it: she’s Miss Dallas, not Anne to me, but there’s only one best thing, -anyway.”</p> - -<p>“What a trump you are, Kit Carrington!” cried Richard, jumping up and -seizing Kit’s hands delightedly. “Why, you’re a poet yourself! That had -the ring of imagination and beauty! Sit down. You’re here to lunch, you -know.”</p> - -<p>“Sorry, but I’m not, thanks,” said Kit; he could not wait to escape. -“I’m on my way to Paul’s, Antony Paul’s. Miss Abercrombie bought -a white Angora kitten for little Anne to play with while she’s -convalescing. I’m going to find out when it won’t be too exciting for -her to have it. Good-bye. Thanks for telling me. I don’t wonder you -made a big thing of the play, Mr. Latham. Good-bye, Miss Dallas.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_155"></a>155</span> -Kit hastened out of the door, thankful to get into the air, yet -tortured in leaving Anne with her betrothed.</p> - -<p>If he could have seen how gently Richard touched her hair and let her -take the low Greek stool on which she sat to read to him; how tight he -clasped his hands lest he forget and draw her to him where he hungered -to have her, Kit would have been a little consoled.</p> - -<p>Richard knew that Anne shrank from a caress. He loved her for it; it -seemed to him part of that rare quality of soul for which he adored her.</p> - -<p>It was too soon, he was still too new to the wonder of the happiness -that had fallen upon him when he was schooling himself to do without -it, to miss in Anne the warmth that would have glowed in her had she -loved Richard as he loved her. Thus far Richard was content, and waited -as a worshipper to become a lover.</p> - -<p>Kit walked fast to the Berkleys’; he had decided to go there first. -Very likely Joan was at her mother’s, admiring little Anne’s progress.</p> - -<p>He found that he had been right. The first thing that he saw when -he was admitted was the baby, standing beside a chair, her rings of -hair exceedingly up-standing and tousled, waving one hand lightly, -proudly, to show that she was balancing with but one little fist on -the chair seat, yet that she did not disdain to salute a world of -her inferiors. The inferiors present—Mrs. Berkley and Joan—made no -claim to equality. With a delight that surpassed the baby’s, as if -countless millions of human beings had not once stood alone for the -first time, they waved their hands at Barbara in return, making sounds -as rapturously inarticulate as hers. It ended in Joan’s swooping down -on her, snatching her up, burying her face in Barbara’s tiny mound of a -stomach and swaying her up and down, till baby and mother were gasping.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_156"></a>156</span> -“Oh, Kit, forgive us, dear!” cried Mrs. Berkley. “You saw how Barbara -stood? Isn’t it wonderful, the beginning of living? Think how far those -little feet will carry her through the world and beyond the world! Anne -is gaining every hour, thank you.”</p> - -<p>Joan righted the baby, then her clothing, and set her down to her toys -on a blanket on the floor, to which Barbara, who was the embodiment of -health and hence of contentment, turned with the interest of an hour’s -separation from them.</p> - -<p>“Kit, nice boy, anything wrong?” asked Joan, seeing, now that the baby -was settled and she looked well at Kit, that he was changed. Kit sat -down on a chair that allowed him to rest an elbow on its arm and shade -his face with his hand.</p> - -<p>“Richard Latham is going to marry——”</p> - -<p>“Anne Dallas!” cried Joan, and exchanged significant looks with -her mother. “I was afraid of that; he’s so fine and she’s so -sympathetic——”</p> - -<p>“Joan!” warned Mrs. Berkley.</p> - -<p>She shook her head hard at her daughter. She and Joan had long -suspected that the interest growing up between Anne and Kit was -stronger than either had gauged. It would never do to let him know that -they feared that Anne loved Richard less than she should love the man -whom she married.</p> - -<p>Kit made no secret of his unhappiness to these two simple, sweet women.</p> - -<p>“He’s the finest fellow I ever saw,” said Kit. “He’s all around fine. -Always makes me think of the Round Table, those great old knightly -chaps. She couldn’t find another like him short of—Camelot!” Poor Kit -made a sorry attempt to laugh. “All the same, I’d rather she’d choose -someone more ordinary, provided that I could nominate him.”</p> - -<p>“I, myself, would have selected another sort of man for Anne,” said -Joan, making up for her narrow escape from indiscretion by<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_157"></a>157</span> her most -mature manner. “I’m sorry, Kit! Mother and I are both sorry, aren’t we, -Mother?”</p> - -<p>“I’m profoundly sorry if Kit minds,” said Mrs. Berkley, gently. “I -think Kit means us to understand that he does mind. Anne is a dear -girl; she is worth loving. But I’ve no doubt it will make you a nicer -boy than ever to carry a cross, though we can’t endure seeing your -young shoulders bend, dear Kit, and you are nice enough now, in all -conscience! Little Anne will stand by! You will have lots of help, -dear, and win through with benefit from the experience. Little Anne has -been asking when she should see you. Would you like to see her?”</p> - -<p>Mrs. Berkley rose and laid her arm over Kit’s shoulder as she would -have over her Peter. Kit rested his head against her for a moment, and -felt better.</p> - -<p>“You know I lost two children between Joan and Peter, and one between -Peter and Anne, Kit, so I know that denial is good for us. It taught me -a great deal to relinquish the babies that I loved,” Mrs. Berkley said, -softly.</p> - -<p>“Oh, what a peach, what a dear, sweet, good, good woman you are!” Kit -exclaimed, ashamed that he had seemed to complain of a loss that was -but a denial of his hopes.</p> - -<p>“Surest thing you know I want to see little Anne! I’ll go up, if I -may? You don’t think I’ll be exciting and bring on fever? I wouldn’t -consider myself that sort. And when may she have a kitten, Mrs. -Berkley? Miss Abercrombie has bought her a white Angora that gets me, -and I’m sure will make it necessary to put a strait waistcoat over -little Anne’s gown!”</p> - -<p>“Could anything be luckier?” Mrs. Berkley demanded of space. “Anne has -begged me to get her a pet that may stay with her on the bed. She asked -for a kitten, a puppy, a rabbit, or a small monkey, and she added that -if I couldn’t find any of these beasties she’d try to love a white -mouse, though the poor little heroine, longing for a comrade, shuddered -as she said it!<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_158"></a>158</span> -Her strong preference was for a kitten, an everyday kitten. I’m sure I don’t -<ins id="know" title="Original has 'knew'">know</ins> -what will happen when she sees yours!”</p> - -<p>“It’s the cream of creation!” declared Kit. “But it isn’t mine; it’s -Miss Abercrombie’s. She didn’t want me to say so, but of course I -should.” Again Joan glanced at her mother. They wondered if Helen was -to solve Kit’s difficulty, after all.</p> - -<p>“You are going to lunch with us,” said Mrs. Berkley, and Kit did not -demur. “You shall see Anne after luncheon. You won’t mind the baby? We -bring her to the table, in her high chair, inherited from Anne. She -pounds, but otherwise behaves with decorum.”</p> - -<p>“The baby and little Anne—but little Anne first in order, by your -leave, Joan—seem to me the most desirable of comrades to-day,” said -Kit.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Berkley smiled on him and patted his shoulder. “Good boy and true -instinct!” she approved him.</p> - -<p>It was a happy little luncheon party. Kit felt unaccountably soothed -and heartened. The sense of loss, the jealous pang of leaving Anne -to Richard, were softened. They did not talk of great things, nor -brilliantly, but Mrs. Berkley and Joan talked well; their subjects were -interesting, and it seemed to Kit that they judged justly and expressed -themselves with temperance.</p> - -<p>“Balanced, wise women!” Kit thought, judging in his turn.</p> - -<p>The baby did pound, it was true, but except for a frustrated attempt on -the cream, and, later, on the rosily alluring strawberries, she behaved -with propriety, admitting her premise that a spoon and a drum stick -were made for like purpose.</p> - -<p>“Why not let me cut around home and get that kitten? It won’t take me a -half hour, and if you think little Anne’s reached the kitten stage of -recovery I’d love to see her with it,” suggested Kit when luncheon was -over and Joan offered to take him up to see little Anne.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_159"></a>159</span> -“Won’t to-morrow do, as long as she isn’t told about it?” asked Joan. -But seeing Kit’s disappointment, she added:</p> - -<p>“Of course, if you don’t mind going, it would be dear of you to get it -for her right away.”</p> - -<p>Kit ran off, racing down the street like a boy, and Mrs. Berkley went -up to make sure, mother-fashion, that the carefully tended little -patient was ready for a caller.</p> - -<p>“What’s up, Kit?” asked Helen as Kit assaulted the piazza where she sat.</p> - -<p>“I’m allowed to give little Anne the kitten,” Kit explained. “I came -after it, told them it was your gift, Nell. Would you care to go with -me?” he added as an afterthought, unwelcome, but due.</p> - -<p>“Yes, I would,” said Helen. “I won’t wear a hat, I’m ready.”</p> - -<p>Kit fetched the kitten in its basket; he found that Minerva had allowed -it to entwine itself around her affections and was loath to let it -go. Helen and Kit took longer to cover the ground than Kit would have -consumed alone. He tried to keep in mind that the kitten was due to -Helen and not to regret her coming. She did not bother him with much -talk, and when they reached the Berkleys’ she refused to go upstairs.</p> - -<p>“No, indeed! I’ll stay here, happily, with a book and don’t you hurry! -Get all the fun there is out of the child’s pleasure. I hope she will -be pleased! I’m perfectly contented alone. Forget I’m here, but don’t -forget to tell me just what the little girl does! It would be horrid in -me to go up; she doesn’t know me,” Helen said with such friendliness -that the Berkleys were charmed.</p> - -<p>Kit followed Mrs. Berkley and Joan up to little Anne’s room and stood -in the doorway. Little Anne was fingering paper dollies but her lack of -interest in them was evident. She raised her eyes, which looked immense -and as dark as night in her thin white face.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_160"></a>160</span> -“Oh, Kit, my dear, dear, <em>dear</em> Kit! You saved me, but I loved you -hard before!” she cried.</p> - -<p>“Well, little Anne, I’m glad enough to see you to eat you up!” cried -Kit, sincerely.</p> - -<p>He lifted her in his arms and she kissed him again and again.</p> - -<p>“You are more splendid than I remembered,” little Anne sighed in -profound contentment. “Doctor says I may get up in my wrapper half the -day Sunday. But he says I can’t go to Mass yet, but it’s all right when -you can’t honest-truth go! And then, sooner than you’d think, I’m to -be dressed! And by the Fourth you wouldn’t know anything’d happened, -’cept I’ve got to look out and not catch cold. That’s what he says. I’m -grateful, Kit, that I’m going to stay right here with everyone! I know -lots of people in Heaven, nicer’n anybody, but, well, don’t you think -you love those you know sort of closer? And I’ll have to be just’s -good! Because I stayed here. And prob’ly I’ve got something to do, or -I’d have died.”</p> - -<p>“Just the same, little Anne!” Kit thought, but he said:</p> - -<p>“It’s reason enough for letting you live that we all wanted you so -badly, little Anne. Now, what have I here?”</p> - -<p>“Window in the end!” cried little Anne, all excitement in an instant. -“Alive? Oh, could it be a kitten, Kit?”</p> - -<p>“It could be. It is!” said Kit.</p> - -<p>He unstrapped the basket and took out the small white creature with the -appealing face.</p> - -<p>Little Anne fell back on her pillow, clasped her hands, and closed her -eyes for an instant of intense feeling. Then she caught the kitten to -her and kissed and kissed it in wordless rapture.</p> - -<p>“Oh, God, I thank Thee for making kittens like powder puffs, and giving -me one!” they heard her whisper as she held the kitten off, then -clasped it to her breast, passionately.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_161"></a>161</span> -Kit told her how Helen had brought it from the city to her, and she -listened with dilated eyes.</p> - -<p>“How wonderful! I shall love her now whether I can or not,” little Anne -said.</p> - -<p>“Thank her; oh, do thank her, and tell her the way I feel about it, -though no one on earth can ’magine! Would you mind if I named her -Kitca, for you, dear, dear Kit? Short for Kit Carrington? ’Cause you -fished me out that day and brought this angel-thing here?”</p> - -<p>“I should be honoured, little Anne! I must go now, or you’ll be tired. -Good-bye, dear! Some day, when you’re able to hear it, I will tell you -a story about Kit Carrington, and how he sat all night watching the -stars, heavy-hearted, when little Anne was so ill,” he said, bending -over the child to kiss her cheek.</p> - -<p>Little Anne clasped her long, thin arms around his neck, and drew his -ear to her lips, and whispered:</p> - -<p>“You don’t look well yourself, my Kit, but when I get up I’ll look -after you! Good-bye; and all the blessings of all the blessedest -blessings be upon your rather tumbled head. ’Cause I have tumbled your -hair, Kit, quite outrageous!”</p> - -<p>Kit took Helen home feeling happier than he had thought that he could -feel when the day had begun. He knew that his wound would throb again -in the darkness of night, but little Anne and that peaceful household -had helped him.</p> - -<p>Behind her Helen left conflicting opinions. Mrs. Berkley was inclined -to give her credit for her sweet consideration, but Joan was not sure -of her. Again Helen walked with Kit in silence. She was affectionate in -an unobtrusive way, like a kind sister. Kit, thinking her over as he -dressed for dinner, was forced to acknowledge to himself that she could -be very nice.</p> - - - - -<div class="chapter"> -<hr class="divider x-ebookmaker-drop" /> -<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_162"></a>162</span> -</div> - - -<h2 id="xv">CHAPTER XV<br /> -<span>Opportunity</span></h2> - -<p class="noi"><span class="dropcap">C</span>LEAVEDGE was a place of comfortable averages; it did not offer -brilliant opportunities in any direction. It was a pretty city, but not -strikingly so; it gave many men an excellent living, but it did not -afford them chances to amass great fortunes; its society, its library, -its schools, its shops were all up to the average, but not beyond it.</p> - -<p>It was understood to be the height of impropriety for Cleavedgians to -doubt that their city excelled all others of its size and rank. It was -an article of their faith that Cleavedge had advantages of situation -and climate unequalled by any other town of some seventy thousand -population in the United States.</p> - -<p>Kit realized that he must decide upon his course in life. Temptation -assailed him to let it all go. He was his aunt’s heir, provided that -she did not disinherit him, and at the worst, he had the small income -which his mother had left him.</p> - -<p>He did not rate himself high; there was no particular thing that he -wanted to be, or to do. He knew that he could do well anything that -demanded clear perception, accurate judgment, industry, fidelity; but -these are characteristics universally applicable, and Kit did not -recognize in himself any marked qualifications.</p> - -<p>The loss of Anne Dallas pushed him farther into quiescence. He was -surprised to find himself deeply wounded. Effort seemed less than ever -worth while in a world wherein he was to be denied what fell easily to -other men’s share.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_163"></a>163</span> -Still there was in Kit Carrington that essential manhood that inspires -human beings to strive, though the motive for striving has not been -made clear to them. He was impelled onward in the spirit that he had -shown when he was a young athlete in college; the spirit that has made -Kipling popular; the shibboleth of “being a man,” of “standing by,” -“not being a quitter,” though what the man is to stand by, what it is -that he is not to quit, in what especial way and why he is to be a man -are not formulated.</p> - -<p>If Kit had been asked to explain, he would have answered that you must -play the game and be decent; so, decent he was, and therefore he knew -that he must play the game, although he did not know its rules and he -had lost his first heavy stake.</p> - -<p>He turned over in his mind the facts of his situation and made his -decision. Until September he should not be able to act upon his -decision; in the meantime, he lived his accustomed life, surprised -to find it unfamiliar. Hitherto he had passed his days as a careless -boy; he went heavily now where he had run lightly; it struck him as a -curious way to find jolly Kit Carrington going about.</p> - -<p>Helen was a comfort as the time went from May into late June. She never -made demands upon him, never bothered him, but she was always ready -for whatever was his mood, and he gratefully admitted that she was an -all-round pal when she put her mind to it. And Helen kept in abeyance -all her attraction except that clever mind. Kit had shrunk from her -former emphasis of her physical charm, but mentally she was all that he -could ask; he let her make him cheerful, tide him over a hard place. He -rarely saw Anne Dallas. Miss Carrington had given a dinner for her and -Richard Latham which was a Cleavedge event, and a hard one for Kit to -bear his part in.</p> - -<p>The dinner acted upon him as a tonic, as his aunt had foreseen that it -would. The coffee that evening had much the same effect<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_164"></a>164</span> upon Kit’s -grief that the final sods of a grave have on another kind of sorrow. He -had buried Anne and must turn with his best ability to living.</p> - -<p>Occasionally Helen revealed another side to Kit, a side that stirred -him, dazzled him, yet repelled him. But this happened rarely, only at -intervals; as if to remind him that having a pal was all very well, -as far as it went, but that in the case of a beautiful girl it went -but a short distance. Helen did not purpose to let him settle down to -incompleteness, but for his completion she bided her time. When the -time came she intended to sway him to her will.</p> - -<p>With consummate skill she played her part. She was determined to win; -she herself was surprised to see how desperately intent she was upon -winning.</p> - -<p>“Christopher Carrington,” she told herself, “is just an everyday boy,” -yet she knew that this was not true. Kit’s qualities, his simple, -genuine personality, were uncommon. He was handsome, and Helen knew -that his vigorous beauty was the main factor in his charm for her, yet, -she told herself, there were many young men handsomer than he. As to -that, as Helen knew well, there was no reasoning; Kit attracted her; it -was Kit, Kit and not another, whom she wanted to marry.</p> - -<p>It took all of her prudence, her self-control, not to defeat her own -ends by forcing them too soon. She was not accustomed to dally on her -road to getting whatever she wanted. She began to find her impatience -mastering her, to try to set the stage for the part that she meant -to play. She had no doubt whatever that she would succeed. Kit could -not be blind; she had never found her beauty ineffective. He was one -of those queer people who have to be aroused from slumber, but Helen -believed that, once awakened, she would find Kit wide awake.</p> - -<p>“What about walking, Nell?” Kit asked one afternoon when July was -ten days old. “It’s too hot to walk, but it’s also too<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_165"></a>165</span> hot not to! -It makes me worse to sit around and think how uncomfortable I am! I -wondered if it might not be bearable down by the river; I know a fine -spot there, near where I fished out little Anne that day.”</p> - -<p>Helen outwardly hesitated; her mind instantly leaped to the suggestion.</p> - -<p>“I’m not shod for walking,” she said, extending her foot in its silly, -pretty covering. “I suppose I can change. Yes, I’ll go. I’ll not be -long Kit. I’ll put on stout shoes and come right back.”</p> - -<p>Helen was as good as her word. She came cautiously down the stairs with -her shoes unlaced; she knew the value of asking favours.</p> - -<p>“You don’t mind lacing them for me, Kit-the-kind, do you? It’s too warm -to stoop!” Helen said, and thrust out a foot as she spoke, its ribbon -dragging. She had the most shapely little foot in the world; there was -no reason why Kit should not like to hold it and pull the ribbons over -the high-arched instep.</p> - -<p>“Delighted, Miss Coquette!” said Kit, dropping on one knee, and Helen -laughed, enjoying the thrust. “But didn’t you say <em>stout</em> shoes?”</p> - -<p>Helen surveyed the delicate kid oxford as if it were a new acquaintance.</p> - -<p>“Of course they are stout, Kit; stout enough, at any rate,” she said, -and sank back apparently relieved that her shoes had not deceived her. -They went down the shaded street: Miss Carrington lived on the best -street in Cleavedge. But as soon as possible Kit led the way into -by-paths and across fields. Cleavedge had not grown large enough to -push fields far from its best section. They had been driven a long -distance away from its business streets and poorer homes—where they -were more needed—but it did not take long to reach them from Miss -Carrington’s house.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_166"></a>166</span> -“Let’s be babes-in-the-woods, Kitsy!” cried Helen, and put her hand -into Kit’s.</p> - -<p>He took it cordially and they went on, swinging hands in imitation of -childish ways, Helen singing softly. Her highly trained, light voice -was a pleasure for its accuracy of tone and method.</p> - -<p>Helen’s pulses beat rapidly; through her quick brain rushed words that -strove against her lips. She felt certain that her time had come, -and for once did not stop to analyze whether it was the hour, or she -herself, that was ready. Her will, her desires, were slipping their -leash, and she was no longer equal to whipping them down. Yet, though -they had got away from her, she was still able to follow them in -silence. She ceased singing and went on, her hand clinging to Kit’s, -still swinging her arm with his and smiling, her lips tight, her eyes -straight ahead, avoiding his because she knew what was in them.</p> - -<p>He glanced at her two or three times, wondering what was wrong. The day -was uncomfortable enough to account for anything; he remembered how -small and light Helen’s shoes were and charitably refrained from asking -whether she was tired.</p> - -<p>Since the day of little Anne’s rescue the leafy banks of the river had -grown dense with green, spreading luxuriantly from the watered roots -of trees and shrubs. Midsummer blossoms, insects, and birds filled the -moist, hot air with fragrance and murmurs and songs.</p> - -<p>“It’s great, isn’t it, Helen?” sighed Kit, throwing himself down in the -shade with a deep breath of enjoyment.</p> - -<p>“Worth the tramp,” she agreed.</p> - -<p>She rested lightly against a tree, her hands raised and clasped behind -her head, her fair hair fluttering like golden petals in the slight -breeze. Suddenly she turned, threw herself on her elbow, and crept a -little nearer as if drawn by the earnestness of a thought.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_167"></a>167</span> -“Kit, it isn’t too hot to talk! It’s tropical enough to cast off the -conventionality that ordinarily clothes our thoughts. I’ve wanted for -weeks—forever—to get you to talk to me with the honesty no adult ever -uses,” she said in a low voice.</p> - -<p>“Go ahead, Nell,” said Kit, uncomfortably.</p> - -<p>“Look here, Kit, what are you going to do? Do you realize that you are -wasting opportunities? Well, then,” she went on, rapidly, as Kit nodded -hard; she was not ready to let him speak, “when are you going to put -yourself in my father’s hands? He can make you, put you right on top, -Kit! Kit, dear, handsome, splendid Kit, let him do it!”</p> - -<p>“Oh, hold on, Nell!” he protested.</p> - -<p>He was crimson and he edged away from her.</p> - -<p>“I don’t mind telling you, but it is in confidence; Aunt Anne is not to -know yet; I’m going to New York in September. A college man I knew—he -was soph. in my fresh. year—took a liking to me and told me that when -I wanted to seek my fortune he was ready to push it. He’s inherited a -big business. I am going to get a job with him in September.”</p> - -<p>“Nonsense!” cried Helen. “You’ll do nothing of the sort! Aunt Anne -has heaps; it’s all yours, unless you displease her. Father will put -you into a berth in the English, or some other first-rate embassy, -and you’ll go on to be minister, or something like that! And, in the -meantime, travel, art, luxury, and <em>love</em>! Kit, are you a fool, or -a man without eyes and blood?”</p> - -<p>“It’s good of you, Helen, to take this interest——” began Kit with -difficulty.</p> - -<p>“Kit, stop!” she whispered. “Look at me!”</p> - -<p>He looked at her—slowly, reluctantly, and quickly again averted his -eyes. She half lay upon one hip, supported by her elbow, her face -turned toward him pillowed in her curved hand. She was handsomer than -Kit had ever before seen her, but he did not want to look at her.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_168"></a>168</span> -“You idiot!” Helen said, fiercely. “Are you a girl of twelve? Though -I don’t know one who is such an idiot! Kit, see me! I know what I am, -what I can give you. Will you marry me?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, my good Lord above us! Helen, for mercy’s sake,” he gasped. -“Don’t! It—it—it isn’t funny! It’s a poor joke!”</p> - -<p>“You know as well as I do that I mean what I say,” Helen said. “In -these hands I hold influence, wealth, fame, every prize you can name. -In this brain and beauty of mine I have all the treasures a man could -desire. Humble? No. Why should I be? Vain? No! Not that, either. Sure -of myself and honest; saying what you can see is true. How many in your -place would turn from me? Let’s talk it out, Kit. Why won’t you marry -me?”</p> - -<p>“I—I—— Oh, Helen! For heaven’s sake! I can’t!” cried Kit, tugging at -his collar.</p> - -<p>“You <em>can’t</em>!” Helen mocked him. “Ah, but you can, my dearest! -Listen to reason. Your aunt wants it above all earthly things. She -will be happy herself and endow you richly if you do what will pay -for itself without her help. Father is a winning card; you’ll hold -him. You’ll be playing in luck every day, with him up your sleeve. -And I? Haven’t I proved what I can be on the chummy tack? Haven’t -you had a good time with me lately, though I kept down and out of -sight everything really worth while? How could you have a better -travelling pal, or a hostess to back up your game in the embassy, or -at Washington? And the other side of me, the lover, the wife? Oh, Kit, -I’ll play that part till you’ll be drunk with happiness! Am I not a -princess? Haven’t you said so? Just look at what is here for your -taking!” Kit was compelled to meet her eyes. He stared at her and stood -transfixed.</p> - -<p>“Ah, Kit!” Helen purred. “Why can’t you marry me?—<em>can’t</em>, -forsooth! I haven’t told you that I love you, but I do! I want you, -Kit, and no one else, though I can have any one<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_169"></a>169</span> else on call. Are you -imagining yourself in love with the girl Latham has chosen? Nonsense, -Kit! That was the stirring of fancy, not love! What could make you -forget that surface scratch like real love, love for me, <em>me</em>, -your wife? When you learn what love is, as I will teach you, Kit, how -absurd all trifles will seem! Keep your eyes on mine, Kit, you young -sun god, and then tell me, if you can, why you will not marry me? Are -you afraid of love, Kit, as a girl is afraid? But not I, oh, not I! -I’m not afraid to take what I want, what wants me! Tell me, now as you -stand looking at me, why you who are strong, and young, and free, and -able to love, would throw away this Helen who will not let you go! Who -will <em>not</em>!” Kit had retreated farther, but he could not take his -eyes from Helen.</p> - -<p>There was left in him no power to think; only to feel.</p> - -<p>Helen had thrown herself against a tree; she was looking up at him, her -eyes like glowing coals, feline, compelling. Her face was white, her -lips parted by her quick breathing. She was irresistible, yet as Kit’s -will swayed to her, he blindly struggled against her.</p> - -<p>There was in him no sense of attraction nor of repulsion; all the -ages which had preceded him fought on Helen’s side, drew the youth to -the woman. Yet in Kit’s veins some beautiful inheritance from sweet, -patient, chastened women, as well as the ideal which he had formed, and -to which he could not then consciously revert, stood him in good stead. -He bent toward Helen and she lifted her arms to him. Then he stepped -backward, and muttered hoarsely:</p> - -<p>“Helen, help me! You are mad!”</p> - -<p>“I’ll help you, Kit! Oh, Kit, it’s for your dear sake, as well as for -my own that I want you! I swear this is true. But how I do want you, -want you, want you, <em>want</em> you!”</p> - -<p>She went over to him and knelt, laying her glorious head at his feet.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_170"></a>170</span> -“Say you’ll marry me, Kit. You’ll be happier than you can dream. It is -for your sake, too. See, I’m at your feet, Kit; take me! Helen is at -your feet! And she will make you endlessly happy, dearest!”</p> - -<p>Kit’s will, his judgment, his hold on his own identity seemed to -crumble and fall into nothingness. He stood for an instant with closed -eyes, suffering, he did not know what. He knew that he would raise -Helen in his arms in spite of himself. He knew that he must not raise -her, for, if he touched her, that identity for which he groped would be -forever lost. She waited at his feet, knowing that in a moment he would -lift her from her self-abasement and then, in his arms, she would kiss -him, and that Kit would marry her. It was but an instant of time, but -it measured an eternity.</p> - -<p>A piping voice came singing behind the trees, a child’s voice, slight -and not as lovely as a guardian angel’s, but it broke the spell as -effectually as St. Michael the archangel’s could have done:</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="verse"> - <div class="line outdent">“<i>Astre propice au marin,</i></div> - <div class="line indent2"><i>Conduis ma barque au rivage;</i></div> - <div class="line indent2"><i>Préserve-moi du naufrage,</i></div> - <div class="line"><i>Blanche Étoile du Matin.</i></div> - <div class="line"><i>Lorsque les flots en courroux</i></div> - <div class="line indent2"><i>Viendront menacer ma tête,</i></div> - <div class="line indent2"><i>Calme, calme la tempête,</i></div> - <div class="line"><i>Rends pour moi le ciel plus doux.</i>”</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<p>it sang, not inappropriately, Kit thought, listening intently. He -felt weak and dizzy from the sudden relaxation of the strain which -he had borne. Little Anne appeared from among the trees. In her hand -she held jewel weed, wilted from her hot little palm, but valiantly -bright-coloured as it drooped.</p> - -<p>“Why, Kit, dear Kit!” cried little Anne in the glow of surprised<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_171"></a>171</span> -delight. “I had no idea you’d be here when I came! And Miss -Abercrombie, my kind Angora Kitca friend! What you doing down in the -grass, Miss Abercrombie?”</p> - -<p>“Looking for four-leaf clovers for luck,” said Helen so savagely that -little Anne fell back a step and looked up inquiringly at Kit.</p> - -<p>Kit managed a smile that sufficed for little Anne, though it added to -her bewilderment, it was so unlike his usual bright friendliness.</p> - -<p>Little Anne was a lady with innate social instincts; here was something -oppressive, not understandable, hence she must, obviously, arise to the -occasion.</p> - -<p>“I was singing French, Kit,” she said. “I haven’t known how so very -long. Could you understand what it was? Is my pronunciation pretty -fair? That’s what Sister said it was. That’s a hymn to the Blessed -Virgin. Mr. Latham taught me it. He heard it over in France; fishermen -sing it, so do their children when they are at sea, sing it for their -fathers, you know. Mr. Latham just said the words at first; I didn’t -know what they meant. But afterward he took it to pieces and showed me -every sybable, so I’d know exactly what I sang, and I do. Don’t you -think it’s very remarkably nice?”</p> - -<p>Little Anne had talked on, her bright eyes roving from one to the other -of her perturbed adult hearers. She felt that there was a gap for her -to fill, a strange disturbance for her to cover, though it eluded her -curiosity. But no one, be she ever so tactful, could be expected to -talk on forever, and at last little Anne paused for a reply.</p> - -<p>“I think, little Anne, that it is indeed remarkably nice,” agreed Kit. -“It was also remarkably nice of Mr. Latham to dissect it and to teach -you the meaning of each separate sybable! Are you alone, little Anne? -Will you go home with—” Kit hesitated—“Miss Abercrombie and me?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_172"></a>172</span> -“I am alone,” said little Anne with dignity. “My mother knew I was -going walking and she knew it was safe. But I’d love to go back with -you. Why did you come, Kit? Looking for me doing penance again?”</p> - -<p>“No. Mr. Carrington came here to do penance himself, à la St. Antony, -and he has done it,” Helen said, and laughed; the laugh frightened -little Anne. “Mr. Carrington has done penance, but he has also -inflicted it upon another, which must be a joy to him. You don’t read -the Bible in your Church, I’m told. If you did you would read with -profit the story of Joseph. He was a righteous youth, also. I’ve no -doubt he enjoyed Mrs. Potiphar’s discomfort, as a righteous person -would. She deserved what she got. Wait till I screw up my hair, Kit. -It’s hard on hair to practise the virtue of humility.”</p> - -<p>Helen let down the masses of pure gold which crowned her. They fell -around her like a veil, and till she twisted them into her hand and -began to wind her hair around her head, it hid her from sight.</p> - -<p>Little Anne cried out ecstatically:</p> - -<p>“Oh, oh-ee! It’s like Jenny Wren, the dolls’ dressmaker! Mother read -me that out of a grown-up book that Dickens wrote. But we read the -Bible a lot, Miss Abercrombie; that’s not—I mean that’s a mistake. -It’s a golden bower, like Jenny Wren’s. Aren’t you the beautifullest, -Miss Abercrombie! I think Kitca takes after you; she’s the most -beautifullest of all the kittens that ever could be ’magined, and all -my life I shall bless you for her.”</p> - -<p>Helen threw back her head, her hair in place. Tears of rage and defeat -were on her lashes. Her lips were grim and her pallor had given way -to crimson in her cheeks. She was intelligent enough to know that she -was defeated. Never again would she have Kit in her power. Since he -had escaped her when she would have sealed him beyond the possibility -of<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_173"></a>173</span> honourable escape, he was lost to her. Calm reflections upon this -afternoon’s scene would put him beyond her grasp.</p> - -<p>She looked malignantly at little Anne.</p> - -<p>“What do they put on pincushions for innocents yet-to-be, or rather -used to do it in the good old days? ‛Bless the Babe?’ David Copperfield -had that on his prenatal pincushion. I shall work one for Anne Berkley, -but there will be the difference of a word in the sentiment,” Helen -said.</p> - -<p>“Oh, thank you, Miss Abercrombie, but Kitca is enough and too much for -you to do for me!” cried little Anne, fervently. “May I put in one of -your hairpins? It is rather out.”</p> - -<p>“Miss Abercrombie would rather put it in herself, Anne,” said Kit, -hastily. He took the child on his back. “Let me ride you home, or part -of the way.”</p> - -<p>“And avoid contamination,” smiled Helen, -<ins id="interpreting" title="Original has 'interpretating'">interpreting</ins> -Kit’s unconsidered impulse.</p> - -<p>At Miss Carrington’s, Helen went into the house, but Kit went all the -way to the Berkley house, seeing little Anne home.</p> - -<p>Helen turned back from the foot of Miss Carrington’s steps.</p> - -<p>“Kit,” she called after the pair of friends, “I’ve had a lovely time; -I’m fond of the drama. And I think you are right, and I was wrong. I -wouldn’t change it; I wanted to see, and I saw! Good-bye. Little Anne -likes a snowy-white kit, but not I! You’re a nice boy, Kit, but you’re -not much of a man.”</p> - -<p>She ran laughing up the rest of the way and rushed into the house.</p> - -<p>“She seems mad,” observed sharp little Anne.</p> - - - - -<div class="chapter"> -<hr class="divider x-ebookmaker-drop" /> -<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_174"></a>174</span> -</div> - -<h2 id="xvi">CHAPTER XVI<br /> -<span>Revelation</span></h2> - - -<p class="noi"><span class="dropcap"><span class="dropcap2">“</span>Y</span>OUR -daughter has not been rescued this time, Mrs. Berkley; I am -merely her favoured cavalier,” explained Kit, delivering little Anne -into her mother’s hands.</p> - -<p>“Thank you, Kit.” Mrs. Berkley spoke with difficulty for little Anne -had her around the neck in a hug that implied a long separation. “Mr. -Berkley is on the side piazza with Peter, and Antony is here. Joan has -taken the baby and left him. Why don’t you join them there?”</p> - -<p>“I always knew it would come to a separation between Joan and Antony,” -said Kit, gratefully accepting a respite from returning home.</p> - -<p>“And you knew it would be only for the length of a day and night, -didn’t you?”</p> - -<p>Mrs. Berkley looked sharply at Kit’s perturbed face. “Come, Anne; you -must be made presentable for dinner. Stay to dinner with us, please, -Kit.”</p> - -<p>“I can’t be made presentable,” he said, glancing at his tramping -clothes, and betraying his desire to stay.</p> - -<p>“That doesn’t matter; we are alone. Anne has obligations. One is that -her clothes are here; yours aren’t! Stay, Kit, dear, won’t you?” Mrs. -Berkley urged him.</p> - -<p>“Gratefully,” said Kit, “if you’ll put up with me. I think I may go -away to-morrow.”</p> - -<p>“Yes? For long?” asked Mrs. Berkley. Her eyes and her wits were working -fast; Kit looked badly perturbed.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_175"></a>175</span> -“I don’t know, Mrs. Berkley. It all depends; I may not go,” Kit said.</p> - -<p>“Depends on Helen Abercrombie’s going,” Mrs. Berkley supplemented him -in her thoughts. “She appeared well here, but Joan didn’t like her, and -I couldn’t help seeing that she meant to marry this boy.”</p> - -<p>“Then you must surely stay to dinner; tramping clothes are all right -when they are not what might be called worn in malice! We like you -better than evening garments, Kit. Come, Anne!” she said aloud.</p> - -<p>Upstairs with little Anne, Mrs. Berkley had difficulty in restraining -the questions that she wanted to ask. She made it a rule not to -encourage Anne in comments on her elders, to which her precocity and -ever-ready interest inclined her, but now her mother cast about in her -mind for ways to get Anne’s story without her knowing it.</p> - -<p>To her relief, little Anne, emerging from the bathroom, rubbing her -thin arms dry with a rotary motion from shoulder to wrist, asked:</p> - -<p>“Why should Kit hate to have Miss Abercrombie hunt for four-leafed -clovers?”</p> - -<p>“Does he?” asked her mother.</p> - -<p>“She was kneeling, hunting them, and he looked awful. I thought he -was sick. She was almost on his shoes, Mother! I was singing, but I -saw him look sick before he heard me. Then he looked for what was -singing. Do you suppose he thought ’twas a brownie? Brownies couldn’t -sing hymns. Fairies don’t either, do they? I was singing a hymn, that -French one. Kit said it was nice. Miss Abercrombie said she was hunting -for four-leafed clovers. You’d suppose they wouldn’t be so near Kit’s -feet. And she didn’t have any. Kit didn’t want her to hunt ’em, I’m -most sure. I couldn’t tell whether he was mad or what. But she got mad, -very mad, indeed!<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_176"></a>176</span> -She said I ought to read the Bible about Joseph. -Did she mean St. Joseph, Mother? He’s in the Bible, isn’t he? ’Course! -All about the angel and his dream! Well, I don’t see why they were -so queer. She said something about a lady—Mrs. Potfar—or for—or -something, how she got what she deserved. I’m ’fraid I don’t know -hist’ry very well, Mother. Is that hist’ry?”</p> - -<p>“Why, yes. It is ancient and modern history, Anne,” said Mrs. Berkley. -She had learned more than she had the least desire to know, and without -a word on her part.</p> - -<p>“Shall we put on the straight linen frock, with the little leather -belt? I think so. And perhaps it would be as well not to speak of -four-leafed clovers, perhaps not of meeting Kit, nor of your hymn. If -he was annoyed, though we don’t know that he was, we should not care -to remind him of it and spoil his appetite for our rather nice dinner! -Raspberry shortcake and raspberry ice, little Anne!”</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>“Kit can’t be coming in to dinner, Helen,” said Miss Carrington, -pausing at her guest’s chamber door on her way downstairs.</p> - -<p>Helen had been thinking hard since she had left Kit. Anger still blazed -in her eyes and flamed in her cheeks, but she had decided upon her -line of action. However frank she might have been in prearranging her -course, now that it had failed, her candour should be curtailed. She -would not admit to Miss Carrington how completely she had missed her -aim. She knew perfectly well that Kit’s aunt would condemn her, not -only because she retained the manners of a past generation, but because -she would feel that Helen would inevitably have repelled Kit by what -she had done. Helen would not admit this. If little Anne had not come -along precisely when she came; if Kit had once taken her in his arms, -Helen felt sure that she would have fastened herself within them for -all his life.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_177"></a>177</span> -“Oh, didn’t Kit come back?” asked Helen, indifferently, when Miss -Carrington said that she thought he was not returning to dinner. “He -took home that thin little dark marplot. She came wandering where we -were sitting. Kit left me here and went home with her. How common -youngsters do go about without being looked after, and nothing happens -to them! Kit probably went with this scrawny little beast for pleasure. -He has strange tastes and ways!” Helen’s fury escaped her.</p> - -<p>Miss Carrington clutched the back of the chair by the door and stared -at her.</p> - -<p>“What under heaven do you mean, Helen?” she gasped. “Little dark -<i>marplot</i>? Anne Berkley? Good heavens, was she a marplot? Did she -spoil anything?”</p> - -<p>“Only all our plans, Miss Carrington,” Helen said, turning from the -mirror with a laugh that was not pleasant. “I had Kit where I wanted -him; a moment more and I’d have been your niece. But it was against his -will. I’d have changed his will; he was past choosing. Then that brat -came singing through the trees, a fool French hymn like a shepherdess -in a badly cast musical comedy, and——” Helen waved her hands to -signify the dispersion of everything.</p> - -<p>Miss Carrington rallied.</p> - -<p>“But it’s not final. If he was entranced, as you imply, it is only -deferred.”</p> - -<p>“Not at all,” cried Helen. “Kit had resisted my arguments in favour -of our sensible marriage. He doesn’t approve in the least of -Christopher Carrington and Helen Abercrombie compounding the felony -of sacrilege—or some such fool notion. And now he’ll be on his guard -against my attraction. Frankly, never-to-be aunt, I won’t bother any -more with Kit. I don’t want him; he’s a fool, a milk-white milk-sop! -I’ll marry George Lanbury soon. He has money enough to buy up the whole -of Cleavedge, and when it comes to appreciating my<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_178"></a>178</span> beauty——” Helen -again ended with a gesture, this time conveying boundlessness. “I hope -that Kit will wait for that child to grow up, and that he will marry -her and have a string of black imps as long as the rosary he’ll be -forced to rattle off at Roman shrines, decked out in tinsel!” Helen bit -her lip, angry that at the last moment she had fully betrayed the fury -that is renowned as exceeding anything known in hell.</p> - -<p>Miss Carrington meekly followed Helen downstairs. She was angry with -Kit, but had not given up hope. She also felt a malicious satisfaction -in Helen’s rage; it somewhat compensated her baffled ambition for the -boy, if it were finally baffled, that he could scorn and infuriate such -a woman as Helen Abercrombie. She still wanted Helen to be Kit’s wife, -but what fun it was to see her gnashing her teeth in desire for him! -Miss Carrington thirsted for entertainment; it was entertaining to see -the humiliation of a woman who held every advantage over her own years -and withered face.</p> - -<p>They dined with but little talk between them, slowly, and Helen -regained her self-control at the orderly, well-served table, by the -help of the food and wine that she needed.</p> - -<p>“I’ll spare Kit’s blushes to-night, Miss Carrington,” Helen said, -laughing, as she put an arm around the old lady and went with her into -the drawing room. “I will go to my room before he comes in. And then, -if you please, I’ll leave you in a day or two. I think I’ll go down to -the sea, I and none other, and let Mr. Lanbury come there to see me.”</p> - -<p>“You will do nothing of the kind, Helen Abercrombie! You will stay -with me. Your father is coming here if you remain. Why should I lose -my pleasure because of my foolish nephew? For that matter, have this -Lanbury here later, if Kit doesn’t come to his senses. Though something -tells me, your manner I suppose, that I shall not like him. Helen, -I beg of you not to go away! Don’t you know that I should miss you, -my<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_179"></a>179</span> handsome girl? I am not feeling well lately. Stay!” begged Miss -Carrington.</p> - -<p>“Better see a doctor,” said Helen, carelessly. “Well, we’ll consider my -staying, but the seashore is livelier.”</p> - -<p>Helen went to her room. Now that the motive for taking pains was gone, -she took no trouble to entertain Miss Carrington. She was rather -pleased to be free of the duty; she did not find Kit’s aunt nearly as -interesting and up-to-date as that lady considered herself.</p> - -<p>When Kit came in and upstairs, he found his aunt’s door ajar and she -waiting for him in kimono and slippers on its sill.</p> - -<p>“Here, Kit!” she whispered, motioning to him and opening her door -wider. “One word with you!”</p> - -<p>His heart sank. He had spent a pleasant evening talking with Mr. -Berkley and Antony, and had enjoyed Peter the Second’s exposition of -a plan he had for making an improved ski, a timely subject for a warm -evening.</p> - -<p>Kit had been diverted from his discomfort and the puzzle as to his next -step, but it had closed down upon him on the way home, and he knew that -it was now to become articulate in the person of his aunt. He went into -Miss Carrington’s room: she followed and closed the door behind them.</p> - -<p>“Kit, what have you done to Helen?” Miss Carrington demanded.</p> - -<p>“Nothing, Aunt Anne; I’ve done nothing to Helen,” Kit replied, hoping -that he did not look as much like a small boy called to the teacher’s -desk as he felt.</p> - -<p>Miss Carrington chuckled; her sense of humour was unreliable.</p> - -<p>“I believe that. Not even kissed her!” she said. “But I meant you -to kiss her and be engaged to her, then marry her, in a pretty and -prudent sequence, as you perfectly well know.” She suddenly became -fiercely serious. “See here, Kit, you’re to marry Helen, do you hear -me? I wonder what<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_180"></a>180</span> better you could ask of fate? That quiet little -brown girl, Anne Damask, Darrar, whatever she is, with whom you -fancied yourself in love—oh, dear me, yes; I saw it, but it was utter -tom-foolishness—is going to marry the poet. A good thing all around! -You are to marry Helen. Please make a point of being engaged to her -to-morrow at this time.”</p> - -<p>It was a mistake, of course, but Kit laughed.</p> - -<p>“Sounds like ordering the car, or chops, or something, Aunt Anne!” he -said, his cheerfulness restored. “I shall never marry Helen, and never -make a point of being engaged to her; I’ll make a point of not being! -And to-morrow I’ll get out of her way; go down to New York to see a man -there whom I want to see anyway, and then hang around somewhere till -Helen is gone. In September I’m going into business.”</p> - -<p>“Good heavens, Kit!” gasped Miss Carrington. “And my heart has been -weak lately!”</p> - -<p>She yielded everything so swiftly that Kit was bewildered.</p> - -<p>“Very well, then, don’t marry Helen! It will be you, not I, who loses. -But don’t go away. Stay at home. There won’t be awkwardness; Helen -knows how to break most of the commandments, but she wouldn’t know how -to behave stupidly. Stay here, Kit, at least awhile.”</p> - -<p>“Poor auntie! I am a trial, I know. But you wouldn’t have me be a -regular bounder and marry Helen for her father, now would you? Don’t -answer; it’s bad enough not to be able to handle me without granting -I’m right! I’ll stay on—if I can! Honest, Aunt Anne, I’m not sure I -can,” Kit said.</p> - -<p>“Certainly, you can; nonsense! Good-night, Kit! I’ll try to be grateful -for the concession that keeps you under my roof,” said Miss Carrington, -letting him out softly, as if she wanted to let sleeping dogs lie, and -their kennels were near at hand.</p> - -<p>Miss Carrington had reckoned, if not without her host, yet without her -guest. Helen had been in the cupola star-gazing,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_181"></a>181</span> or so it appeared. -She came down the narrow stairs which led to the cupola of this house, -built after the manner of ambitious houses erected immediately after -the Civil War. She encountered Kit in the hall.</p> - -<p>“Hallo, Kit!” she said, softly, lest Miss Carrington should hear, but -in such an off-hand, nothing-happened manner that Kit had a fleeting -wonderment whether he had been in bed and dreamed the afternoon’s -adventure.</p> - -<p>“Come in here.” Helen opened the door to her room and drew Kit inside. -“No more occupied chambers, thank goodness, except the servants’, and -I’m not going up there!” Kit thought, with a desperate sense upon him -of an endless chain of bedroom interviews, and no small dread of this -one.</p> - -<p>“Nice little Kit-boy,” Helen began, carelessly. “I want to tell you, -for your own sake, because I know you’re unsophisticated enough to -worry over it, that this afternoon I was trying out a wager I had -with myself. I won it, you’ll be pleased to hear; the real me! I was -straight about asking you to fix up a marriage with me. I truly think, -or rather I did think so then, that it would be a good, sensible, -rather all-around nice arrangement. I don’t think so now, Kit, my dear! -You were right and I wrong. I’m not your sort, and, please don’t mind -one last bit of frankness: I’d simply die of you as steady diet! I’m -like Becky Sharp: I don’t like bread and butter! But the rest of the -racket was—what do you boys call it, chucking a bluff?—was chucking -a bluff. I <i>thought</i> your decency was the real thing, but it is a -foible of mine to study people, preferably on pins, like grubs. I don’t -mind what I do with you, so I put you on a pin, and mighty well did you -wriggle, true to the compass. Though I couldn’t be sure you wouldn’t -have kissed me if that nas—nice little girl hadn’t happened along! -I’m not really a vamp, you know, Kits! It was a mean trick for your -old chum to play on you, but you came out fine; a bit<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_182"></a>182</span> crude, not too -clever, but a mighty nice kid, just as you always were! So don’t let -any constraint creep in, Kit! It was a game and you won it—and so did -I! I wanted to get this said before you slept; it’s an error to allow -embarrassment to develop at breakfast; fearfully hard to get rid of it -in daylight! Shake hands, Kit. I won’t squeeze yours! Only please tell -me I did it well! I have every kind of vanity, but I’m especially vain -of my acting!”</p> - -<p>Kit conquered his natural impulse to speak the truth, to set straight -anything distantly resembling a misstatement.</p> - -<p>“You’ve got Bernhardt and them all beaten a mile, Helen,” he said. -“Upon my honour, till you told me, I thought it wasn’t acting! Well -as I’d known you, for so long, too, you fooled me! Go on the boards, -Helen; it was great! But a trifle exhausting. I’m sleepy. Aren’t you? -You’ve earned the right to rest. Good-night, Siddons-Rachel-Bernhardt! -Good-night, Helen of Troy, whose face lighted fires enough, and still -does!”</p> - -<p>Kit left the room quickly. Helen went over to her mirror studying, yet -hardly consciously seeing her face, now hard and not beautiful.</p> - -<p>“Well, at least I’ve helped him to act like a man! He accepted the lie -quite decently, played up better than I thought he would. It’s bye-bye, -Kit! He’s still to be coveted. If I were sentimental, I’d say I was in -love with him, but, since I’m not sentimental, I’ll say, instead, that -I’m going to marry St. George—also his dragon—and be ridiculously -rich and handsome and haughty.”</p> - -<p>Helen turned off the light to undress in the dark; she did not like to -see herself in the mirror just then.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Kit had promised to bring a book from his boyhood’s library, containing -illustrations of Canadian winter sports, to young Peter Barkley on the -following day.</p> - -<p>He found Anne Dallas there, in the deep window seat with<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_183"></a>183</span> little Anne. -The smoothly coiled masses of dark hair bent over the bobbed, bright -ribbon-tied darker hair, as the grown-up Anne fitted a worldly pink -dancing gown on the little Anne’s big doll whose serious-minded name -was Scholastica.</p> - -<p>Kitca, larger and apparently whiter, sat on Anne Dallas’s shoulder, her -round Christmas-card face set off by a complex blue satin ribbon bow -that formed its background from ear to ear. It was a pretty picture, -Kit thought, as he stood for an instant before he was discovered, -looking at it.</p> - -<p>He had so completely given up Anne, even excluding thoughts of her -as honour compelled, that he looked at her quietly with a slight -tightening around his heart, a little quickening of his breath—but -not with the perturbation which the sight of her had aroused when he -was free to allow himself to go out to her. Anne’s smile was sweetly -friendly, her eyes unclouded as she looked up and greeted him.</p> - -<p>“Are you still in Cleavedge?” she asked. “Mr. Latham was wondering the -other day. Are you well? You look tired.”</p> - -<p>Kit blushed. He had not slept well; he could not bear to recall Helen -in this maidenly presence.</p> - -<p>“I’m all right, thanks: perhaps a little sleepy. I’m going to see Mr. -Latham soon. How about the play?” Kit asked.</p> - -<p>“He has done a great deal of the fourth act; almost all of it. There -is a famous manager coming to lunch with Mr. Latham, so I ran away. I -don’t want to meet him, and Mr. Latham admitted that I couldn’t talk to -him,” Anne laughed, and Kit joined her, thinking this were likely to be -true.</p> - -<p>“Will you take this book to Peter, little Anne?” Kit asked. “Tell him -I’ve marked the pages.”</p> - -<p>Little Anne sped away with the book and Kit still stood by the table, -fluttering magazine pages, while Anne still sat in the deep window -seat, fondling Kitca.</p> - -<p>There was nothing to explain it, but with the going of little<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_184"></a>184</span> Anne -something had come. There was between Anne and Kit constraint, -unforeseen, oppressive. Nothing like it had happened before; each was -conscious of it now, each wondered at it, was powerless against it. -They had not been alone together since Anne had promised to marry -Richard. Now they did not look at each other; for a while they could -not. Then Kit raised his eyes and met Anne’s, dilated, marvelling, -suffused with light, fixed on his. They gazed at each other utterly -unconscious of everything, mastered by a feeling that burned in the -blue and the brown eyes, mutually calling and answering.</p> - -<p>“Anne, I love you! I love you! And you love me!” Kit did not know that -he spoke till the words were uttered, never to be unsaid.</p> - -<p>Anne did not speak, except with her eyes, and they were illumined.</p> - -<p>“Anne, think of it! You love me! I love you!” repeated Kit, and crossed -to her.</p> - -<p>Then Anne recovered sufficiently to remember. She clasped her throat -with both hands and fear drove the light from her eyes.</p> - -<p>“No, no, no! Richard!” she whispered.</p> - -<p>Little Anne came back, but she stopped short in the doorway, not -understanding what she saw, but enthralled by it. Neither Anne nor Kit -knew that she was there.</p> - -<p>“Richard—can’t be helped!” said Kit, fiercely. “How did we know this? -You don’t love him; you love me! You didn’t know that; neither did I. -I knew that I loved you, but—well, yes! Once I did feel sure that you -loved me, but when you were going to marry Richard Latham I gave in, -thought I was mistaken. Now you are mine, Anne, Anne!”</p> - -<p>“No, Kit, never,” Anne checked him with a gesture. “Would you blight -Richard’s life? We did not know this awful thing——”</p> - -<p>“Stop!” Kit cried. “You shall not speak so of it! It is a heavenly, a -blessed thing! Out of pity for a blind man, not<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_185"></a>185</span> knowing yourself, you -promised to marry him. Do you think that counts against <i>this</i>? -Would you go on with it, marry a man whom you do not love, when you -love another man? A crime! No less! I myself will go to Latham and -tell him exactly what has happened. Are we to blame? Did we know this -glorious love would leap out of us, leap from one to the other as we -looked at each other? When our lips were silent it tore its way out -through our eyes. It is a miracle, tremendous, no more guilty than the -river hewing its way through the rock of the Grand Cañon! I’ll tell -Latham exactly what has happened to us when we were lying quietly upon -the knees of the gods. He’ll see it; Latham’s a great man; no one knows -that better than I!”</p> - -<p>“Thank you, Kit Carrington, for your praise of my future husband,” said -Anne, tremulous, but fighting for self-control. “You will never tell -him these things. When you’ve had time to consider you will know that -this is false, specious reasoning and cowardly. Neither of us will do -anything selfish or dishonourable. I shall keep my word, Kit, and you -will help me keep it. At any cost we will guard our honour. If Richard -were another man—— But even then, how could we? But he being what he -is, and I being to him what I am—ah, no! He loves me, heaven knows, -but it is not that most. Kit, be true and fine as Richard is, and help -me, for indeed this is cruelly hard! On my honour, I’d no idea you -cared for me, nor did I know that I loved you as I do, oh, as I do!”</p> - -<p>“Say that again, Anne!” Kit implored her, mercilessly. “At least let me -hear it again and yet again! And don’t think this is hard only for you. -Kiss me, sweet, and tell me how you love me. Your eyes said it first! -You’re not any man’s wife. You shall be mine!”</p> - -<p>“No, Kit.” Anne put both her hands, palms outward, between her face and -Kit. “I am not free, but bound. Richard trusts me, he has my word; he -may trust me!”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_186"></a>186</span> -Her deep, quivering voice broke and shrilled. She had reached the end -of her endurance.</p> - -<p>“Go away from me, Kit Carrington, go away! I will never again tell you -how I love you, I love you, oh, how I love you! Shame to make me weak! -Horrible, horrible! Richard, come, come, dear, kind, tender Richard! -Kit is cruel to me. Anne, little Anne, come back quick!”</p> - -<p>Little Anne had obeyed an instinct that sent her, frightened and white, -mystified, yet understanding much, away from the door after she had -heard and seen almost all that had passed, but before the actors in the -scene discovered her.</p> - -<p>Now, when Anne called, she came hastily, young as she was, proving her -ability to play a part, saying as she came:</p> - -<p>“Yes, Miss Anne, dear, did you want me?”</p> - -<p>But little Anne was not equal to the demand made upon her by Anne’s -hysterical weeping. She threw her thin arms around the girl, and drew -her head down into the hollow of her very hollow shoulder, mothering -her and patting her.</p> - -<p>“I’m sure I don’t see how you can bother her, Kit, for you are always -so very dear, but I do certainly think you’d better run right away! -It’ll make her sick to cry so. Just go right home, dear Kit, and you’d -better say a prayer to St. Joseph, ’cause he’s the one for husbands. -There, there, my poor darling, please try to feel better! Don’t cry! -I know it’ll come all right. See how I didn’t die when I was so sick; -often things turn out better’n you’d think! Anne, little Anne, will -take care of you. Good-bye, dear Kit. I’m sorry, but Mother’s out, and -I truly think you’d better go home, just this one time!” she said, -coaxing both of her patients purringly.</p> - -<p>“Oh, little Anne, little Anne, I used to be little Anne, too! Don’t -grow up, child!” sobbed Anne, not lifting her head as Kit went slowly -out of the room.</p> - - - - -<div class="chapter"> -<hr class="divider x-ebookmaker-drop" /> -<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_187"></a>187</span> -</div> - - -<h2 id="xvii">CHAPTER XVII<br /> -<span>Honour</span></h2> - -<p class="noi"><span class="dropcap">L</span>ITTLE Anne expected Anne to recover after a reasonable time. She -had never known a grown person to cry so violently. She had dealt -with no abandon of emotion except her own, and after she had cried -tempestuously she was always done with it. But Anne’s weeping abated -only to begin all over again when little Anne began to hope; despair -of its ever ending seized her. Her arm ached, too, but Anne remembered -that it would and withdrew from it to lie face downward in the window -cushions, which relaxed the muscles of little Anne’s strained body, but -tautened the cords of her heart.</p> - -<p>“Please, please, please, dear!” little Anne repeated constantly, -patting Anne’s shoulder steadily, changing hands that the action in -which she had undefined confidence might not cease.</p> - -<p>Then little Anne, getting desperate, bent over Anne.</p> - -<p>“Wouldn’t you like to see somebody?” she anxiously suggested. “Shall I -call the doctor, or someone?”</p> - -<p>“I think it’s a priest I need, Anne; I’d like to go to confession!” she -sobbed.</p> - -<p>Little Anne was not only relieved by this first coherent speech from -her patient, but she hailed the suggestion as the most fitting thing.</p> - -<p>“Sure you can go!” she cried. “But I guess you’d better go to the -church. They’re not just exactly hearing now, I s’pose, but there’s -a bell and you ring it and one of ’em comes right out. If you get a -chance to choose you’d better go to Father Denny;<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_188"></a>188</span> he’s mine. He’s kind -of old, not very old, but his hair’s gray, but he’s as nice! I’ll take -you, Miss Anne.” To little Anne’s inexpressible relief Anne laughed, a -sorry sound of merriment, but a stride from passionate crying.</p> - -<p>“You dear, funny little enthusiast! I don’t go to confession, I’m not -a Catholic, though ‛almost thou persuadest me’ to be one! I can see -why confession would help. I’d like wise, dispassionate guidance now. -Suppose you call Joan, since your mother is out? Ask Joan if she’s too -busy to come here and let me talk to her?”</p> - -<p>Anne sat erect and dried her eyes. Little Anne ran rejoicing to the -telephone; she knew the symptoms of recovery.</p> - -<p>She was back in a few moments, short of breath, but beaming.</p> - -<p>“Came near missing her! But it wouldn’t have mattered; she was coming -with the baby. She’ll be here quick; going to stop at the grocer’s, she -said, but that’s all,” little Anne announced.</p> - -<p>Little Anne found the interval of waiting for Joan a strain. It was -hard to make conversation after such a scene, and with her active brain -teeming with curiosity. She was quick to perceive that Anne preferred -silence, so little Anne sat mute, hard though it was on her.</p> - -<p>Joan arrived full of sympathy; she knew no more than what little Anne -had told her, that Anne was crying dreadfully. As Barbara’s mother she -felt adequate to cope with any problem, console any grief, though for -the latter office she would have nominated her baby as better able to -fill it than herself.</p> - -<p>“Suppose we go up to Mother’s room, dear,” Joan proposed. “It’s the -nicest room in the house; its walls are soaked with her wisdom and love -for us. I think Barbara will walk soon; only fancy! We’ll take her with -us; she’s darling when you feel blue! Anne, will you ask Peter to get -the baby carriage up on the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_189"></a>189</span> piazza, dear? Anne, Anne Dallas, what has -happened? You look killed!”</p> - -<p>“Yes,” assented Anne, wearily. Then she remembered how good to her -little Anne had been.</p> - -<p>“Don’t mind our leaving you awhile, will you, dear?” she said to the -child. “I’ve got to tell Joan a secret that isn’t my own alone. You’ve -been a dear little soul, such a comfort! I’d love to tell it to you if -only you were as old as Joan.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t mind,” said little Anne without the slightest indication that -she already knew as much about it as she could understand, and that was -all the facts of the case, though not their consequences.</p> - -<p>“I think I’ll stay with Peter after I tell him about the carriage. He’s -out in the backyard, working. He likes me there; he didn’t use to want -me chattering, he said. I think Peter will prob’ly be a priest. He’s so -good to me since I was sick that I’m ’most sure he’s got a vocation.”</p> - -<p>Little Anne betook herself to the backyard, where she found Peter as -she had expected. She helped him with the front wheels of Barbara’s -carriage, lifting it up on the piazza, and then returned with him to -sit in her favourite attitude, elbows on knees, hands supporting her -elfin chin, watching him work. But even to Peter, absorbed though he -was, her interest in skis was plainly distracted.</p> - -<p>“Would you like a pair, Anne?” he asked. “You see I’m trying to fix up -a sort of steering gear, rudder-like attachment. Do you suppose you -could use skis without going on your nose?”</p> - -<p>“Could I!” exclaimed Anne, scornfully. “Funny if I couldn’t. There -isn’t much boys can do I can’t. And those things are only ’cause I’m -rather small. When I’m as old as you I’ll do every single thing you do, -just’s well you do ’em.”</p> - -<p>“That’s no idle dream, either, Anne,” agreed Peter, admiringly. “I’d -back you for a Marathon.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_190"></a>190</span> -“Well, that’s nice of you, Peter,” Anne said with a deep, indrawn -breath, as gratified as if she knew what a Marathon was. “Peter, I’m -cast down and ’flicted in my mind.”</p> - -<p>“Gee!” exclaimed Peter, stopping short to look at little Anne. “That’s -going some, even for you, Miss Berkley! What’s tuned you up on the -Lamentations?”</p> - -<p>“The Lamentations in Tenebræ; I guess I know that!” little Anne rebuked -him. “It isn’t Holy Week in July! Peter, is it perfec’ly awful to love -someone and not be going to marry that one, but another who is truly -glorious?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, my sainted aunt!” cried Peter, sincerely shocked. “Anne, for the -love of Mike! Mother doesn’t let you go to movies, and you don’t read -novels, as far as we know. Would you mind telling me what under the -canopy started you on that?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, Peter, I would,” said little Anne with melancholy dignity. “It’s -not my secret alone; if ’twas my secret alone I wouldn’t mind telling -you. I just asked.”</p> - -<p>Peter lacked the clue to this quotation from Anne Dallas which little -Anne had adopted on hearing it. She had treasured it up to use on -Monica the next time that her most intimate friend wanted to be told -a secret, but it came in so admirably now that she tried it first on -Peter; these bits of beautiful diction fortunately serve more than once.</p> - -<p>It had such an effect upon Peter that little Anne esteemed it more -highly than before.</p> - -<p>“Anne,” he declared, solemnly, “I’ll be darned! I certainly will be -darned! Of all the kids! I hope Mother knows what to make of you!”</p> - -<p>“Oh, she does! But you didn’t tell me, Peter-two,” little Anne reminded -her anxious brother.</p> - -<p>“No, and I’m not going to,” said Peter. “You put your problem-play -plots up to Mother, or Father, or Father Denny, or<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_191"></a>191</span> someone; I shall -not talk to you about such things! Great Scott, what shall we do with -you when you’re in your ’teens?”</p> - -<p>“You needn’t act’s if I was wicked; it’s not a sin, Peter-two! And when -I’m in my ’teens I’ll prob’ly be a Carmelite. The Little Flower went -when she was fifteen, and I’ll be eight in October.”</p> - -<p>“Well, thank goodness, here comes Mother! You certainly have got on a -string to-day, Miss Berkley!” sighed Peter.</p> - -<p>Little Anne rushed to meet her. Though she had been talking calmly to -Peter, at the sight of her mother all her excitement boiled up again. -She threw her arms around Mrs. Berkley’s waist and began to talk as -fast as she could.</p> - -<p>“Mother, my dearest, there’s something dreadful upstairs!” Mrs. Berkley -dropped into a chair.</p> - -<p>“Anne! What?” she gasped.</p> - -<p>“It’s Anne. Not the old Anne, the middle-aged Anne—no, she isn’t, -she’s young, but——”</p> - -<p>“Miss Dallas,” suggested her mother, patiently striving to make little -Anne realize that all her friends were not at the Christian-name age of -equality with her.</p> - -<p>Anne nodded. “She’s cried and cried! I really didn’t know what to do -about it! We had what to do when people faint; in school, you know, but -she didn’t faint. Kit was here and they got to telling each other how -they loved——”</p> - -<p>“Anne! Anne, my dear child!” protested Mrs. Berkley.</p> - -<p>“Mother, it’s the truth and nothing else! Isn’t it fearful?” Little -Anne had not been sure how to regard what had happened till she derived -from her mother’s horrified face a sense that it was shocking.</p> - -<p>“Kit wanted her just to kiss him quick, but Anne wouldn’t. She kept -saying she didn’t know a thing about it before, and ‛no, no, no,’ -and ‛Richard!’ She told him to think of Richard—that’s<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_192"></a>192</span> Mr. Latham, -Mother—and how splendid he is, and how well he likes Anne. And Kit -said it was more ’portant about the way they loved each other than Mr. -Latham, but Anne wouldn’t stand for it ’tall. She kind of got going, -you know, Mother! Her nice soft voice that sounds like a sealskin muff -got real high and funny, sort of splitted. And she cried awful! Right -on my shoulder, Mother! And I told Kit he’d better run along for now, -because he made her feel upset, <em>badly</em> upset! So he went. And I -telephoned Joan, not till she’d cried till I thought she’d die, and now -she’s upstairs with Joan, telling her and asking her what she thinks. -She didn’t know I knew all about it, Mother; please don’t tell her; she -might rather not,” wise little Anne ended her story.</p> - -<p>“Oh, dear, oh, dear!” sighed Mrs. Berkley. “What a misfortune! If only -Mr. Latham weren’t all that he is, or Kit so nice! What shall we do?”</p> - -<p>“If you ask me, Mother,” said little Anne. “I’d let me take Anne up a -cup of tea.”</p> - -<p>Mrs. Berkley looked at her small daughter blankly, her mind so fixed on -the insoluble problem given for solution to three people who were dear -to her, that she could not quickly shift it to immediate necessities. -Then she caught little Anne into her arms and kissed her.</p> - -<p>“Small feminine Mr. Dick, who sets us all right!” she cried. “I’ve no -doubt that poor Anne Dallas has the postlude headache. Run and ask -Bibiana to make a small pot of her brightest tea and take it on a tray, -with a plate of biscuits, to—where are they, Anne?”</p> - -<p>“In your room. Make them come down, Mother, ’cause Babs will be so -tired staying up there if she isn’t asleep,” said Anne.</p> - -<p>“Another good suggestion, my dear! Better break up the talk; they’ve -said all that can be said—which is nothing! Ask<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_193"></a>193</span> Bibiana for the tray -in the library and I’ll fetch the girls.” Mrs. Berkley arose and went -upstairs.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Berkley was hailed as a deliverer by Joan and Anne. Rapidly Anne -poured out her tale which varied little from the version which Mrs. -Berkley had already heard from little Anne; she did not betray that it -was not new to her.</p> - -<p>“And no matter what pain it entails, I must keep my word, Mrs. Berkley. -Don’t you see it so? Especially when my word is given to Richard -Latham, of all the world?” Anne ended.</p> - -<p>“And I say, Mother, that Anne can’t imagine what it would mean to her -to be married to a man, even to such a man as Richard Latham, when -she loved another,” Joan took up the burden, shuddering as she spoke. -“Isn’t it a sin, Mother? Do you think it right? Oh, I know that there -are honour, pity, all sorts of arguments in the other column, but when -all is said, how can Anne marry Richard, loving Kit?”</p> - -<p>Joan’s vision was unmistakably fixed upon herself married to someone -else with Antony Paul in the world.</p> - -<p>“It would not be a sin, Joan, that is certain. It would be a supreme -sacrifice for the sake of conscience. It might end in sin were the -woman not our Anne Dallas; I am not afraid that she, or Kit, would -play with danger. The honour that made them fulfil the pledge to -Mr. Latham would make them fight against the memory of each other -after it was done. I certainly do not think that a hard battle, a -tremendous sacrifice, suffering, are to be avoided at the cost of what -our conscience says is wrong. The one point for Anne to establish is -where her duty lies. That established, she must do it. I have faith -to believe that doing it will bring her true happiness. Peace is no -slight good, my dears! I’ve not seen people win greater happiness by -self-indulgence than by doing a hard thing because it was right.” Mrs. -Berkley spoke slowly, her hand on Anne’s head. She was not finding her -verdict easy to render.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_194"></a>194</span> -“Mr. Latham would not let Anne keep her promise if he knew,” said Joan, -convinced, but still rebellious.</p> - -<p>“Of course not. No man would,” said Anne. “But how could he know? I -can play my part. No one would tell him. Kit said he would, but we all -know he’d die first, and if he did tell Richard, then I surely would -not marry Kit. He would not be himself if he could do such a thing as -that. Ah, well, dear Mrs. Berkley and Joan, there’s no way out! And -I am a happy girl, even though I am a little bit unhappy, to have an -opportunity to do what I can do in helping Richard. How often we’ve -said that!”</p> - -<p>“Too much protest implies a doubt, dear child,” said Mrs. Berkley. “But -I’ve no doubt of your happiness; in one way or another it is coming to -you. Little Anne has ordered tea for you. Come and drink it. Let us try -to postpone further thought of our troubles. Don’t you think solutions -come clearer and quicker when we don’t strive too hard for them?”</p> - -<p>While Anne was crying her heart out and making up her mind to say -farewell to the happiness which she desired, Kit walked away from her -on air. There had been a moment of complete dismay, a crushing sense of -defeat, but it had been but a moment. Three and a half blocks it may -have accompanied him on his way, but then he flung it off with a sudden -reaction of mind, recalling to him his youth, his will, the utter -impossibility that his dominating love for Anne should not conquer all -obstacles in its way. To be sure there was Richard Latham and it was -a pity! It was true that Richard was too valuable to the world to be -further crippled, although it was somewhat wearisome to hear everybody -insisting on this truth. It was also true, even truer, that as a man -Latham deserved the best that the world could give him; Anne Dallas was -decidedly the best thing in the world.</p> - -<p>Kit repeated these facts to himself, but in this case it was<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_195"></a>195</span> literally -true that he could not hear himself think. His heartbeats, the blood -racing through his arteries, the tumult of joy that had set up its -pæans in him drowned all comments that he made in his thoughts on -Richard Latham’s claim. He was going to marry Anne! Anne loved him! -He loved Anne and they both knew all about it! What a miraculous -revelation it had been! How completely unaware of its coming they had -been! What a proof it was that love was actually far greater, far -stronger than the lover! It had broken down barriers and leaped forth, -not so much in spite of them, as ignoring them. They had not foreseen -its escape; they had not known of its presence, or had not admitted the -knowledge to their consciousness. What splendour, what glory, what joy -there was in being an instrument in such potent hands!</p> - -<p>And Anne! Of course he had left her crying on little Anne’s shoulder. -Kit laughed aloud, remembering how troubled little Anne had looked, how -she had patted and purred over Anne and had bidden Kit run along, as if -she had been his small grandmother.</p> - -<p>It was hard to think of Anne as suffering. But that was but the first -shock to her sensitive conscience. She would see, probably saw by this -time, how supremely right it was to love him. It was such a compelling -love that it swept from sight gnat-like scruples. He should see her in -a few hours and then—she would not cry!</p> - -<p>By the time he had reached his aunt’s house Kit had decided that Anne -should be married in his mother’s wedding dress, kept sacredly by his -aunt. Miss Carrington had loved her youthful sister-in-law, and had -treasured her memory as she had taken care of the boy whose birth had -cost his mother’s life.</p> - -<p>Kit also decided that for the first year he and Anne would live in -a hired house near New York. He congratulated himself that he had -arranged to go into business with his college friend<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_196"></a>196</span> before he had -known that he should so soon have a wife to support. He wondered what -rentals were now. He had an idea that they were high and houses scarce, -but he knew that he should find one within his limit, because all these -details would arrange themselves. No question of that, when the supreme -fact that they loved each other had so arranged itself!</p> - -<p>Kit came into the house whistling, his face crimson, his hat on the -back of his head, his eyes so queer that Helen, meeting him on the -piazza, actually thought for a moment that he had been drinking.</p> - -<p>“Hallo, Nell!” he cried, jovially, confirming her suspicion. “How nice -you look! Isn’t it a corking day? Maybe it’s a bit too hot, but I like -heat. Are you going out, or coming in? You look mighty nice to-day, -Helen!”</p> - -<p>Helen’s suspicion shifted; this was not wine. And as to the other, the -second exciting influence of that trilogy, which not to love Luther is -said to have warned, left a man a fool his life-long? Helen could not -see how Kit could have fallen under that influence.</p> - -<p>“Mr. Lanbury is coming, Kit,” she said.</p> - -<p>“Is he? Who is he?” asked Kit. “Oh, is that the chap you told me about? -Coming to get you, Helen? Lucky dog! I hope he’s all right? I don’t -suppose I’ve ever had enough sympathy for happy or unhappy lovers. Are -you going to make this Lonsberry happy, Nell?”</p> - -<p>Helen’s eyes narrowed. She looked as though she might slap Kit, but she -did not.</p> - -<p>“Well, at least you’re not a dog in the manger, Kit!” she said, and -Kit came to himself enough to realize that Helen was establishing the -legend that Kit had wanted her, but could not have her. Well, if she -felt better that way! It did not matter. Anne mattered, nothing else, -and he was going to have her!</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_197"></a>197</span> -“Mr. Lanbury is not Lonsberry. Please get his name straight. He’ll -arrive to-night. You’ll see a handsome man, Kit-boy, and a wealthy -one, who uses his money in big ways. I wish I could get him to see -Mr. Latham. He’s interested in the theatre. He may not have time to -go there this visit. I suppose Latham is at home, if he could go?” -inquired Helen.</p> - -<p>“Yes,” said unwary Kit. “He has a famous manager lunching with him -to-day. I suppose it has something to do with the play. The fourth act -is well on toward completion.”</p> - -<p>“What a detailed and up-to-the-minute bulletin!” laughed Helen. “Did -you see the manager? Was it Belasco?”</p> - -<p>“I didn’t ask; no, I didn’t see him; I wasn’t there,” said Kit. “I -met—I went to the Berkleys’ with young Peter’s book, and An—Miss -Dallas was there.”</p> - -<p>“Oh-h! I see!” cried Helen, archly. “When the cat’s not precisely -away, but watching another mouse hole, the mice will play, <i xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">n’est ce -pas</i>? Kit, get that small perambulating catechism you’re so fond of -to teach you the commandments! I’ve a vague recollection of one that -forbids coveting your neighbour’s wife.”</p> - -<p>By this time Kit was awake to his surroundings; Helen’s rapier voice -had pricked his consciousness.</p> - -<p>“So have I, and it’s one I particularly admire, because if you don’t -get thinking things you’ll hardly start doing them. I assure you I -have not a neighbour whose wife I envy him! There’s another nice -commandment, Helen, about bearing false witness against your neighbour, -isn’t there? You’re judging me uncharitably, Helen, the fair! What -shall I give you when you marry this Mr. Longworthy?” Kit smiled -guilelessly.</p> - -<p>“Proof that I’m not worth the trouble to remember his name!” said -Helen, furiously, tears of rage springing to her eyes. “I could hate -you, Christopher Carrington, quite easily, and if ever I do it won’t be -well for you!”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_198"></a>198</span> -“You won’t hate me, Nell; you’re too good a sport,” said Kit. “Why -should you? I’m the same old Kit you’ve known and liked a little bit -for so long!”</p> - -<p>“Heavens above us, Kit, don’t I know that?” cried Helen, and fairly ran -away.</p> - - - - -<div class="chapter"> -<hr class="divider x-ebookmaker-drop" /> -<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_199"></a>199</span> -</div> - - -<h2 id="xviii">CHAPTER XVIII<br /> -<span>Made in Heaven</span></h2> - -<p class="noi"><span class="dropcap"><span class="dropcap2">“</span>M</span>INERVA,” said Miss Carrington, “I am not feeling well. I need -diversion.” Minerva scanned her mistress critically, and said:</p> - -<p>“You may be pale, but you don’t look sick. You are probably bothered.”</p> - -<p>“Do you like him, Minerva?” asked Miss Carrington, peevishly.</p> - -<p>“He would be called handsome by most people, and his clothes are just -about it,” said Minerva, cautiously. “But for what there is about him -which isn’t bought I’m not able to say much. No, Miss Carrington, if -I was to speak freely I would say that I don’t care for him. Miss -Abercrombie’s going to marry him whatever I say, or you, either, so I -put it to you: What’s the use of saying it, or thinking it, for that -matter? I guess you were worrying over it, instead of sleeping as you -might better have done and the result the same, and that’s why you feel -sort of used up. Miss Helen’s made up her mind and you may’s well go -along with it. I’ve noticed the only thing you can do about a marriage -is to order a present for it. What they set out to do, they do for the -most part. She’s none of your responsibility, anyway.”</p> - -<p>“No, that’s true. I shall have her father here in a few days, I hope. -But they’ve gone to ride, and I’m certain they will come back with -everything settled, Minerva,” said Miss Carrington.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_200"></a>200</span> -“’Twas before they started,” returned Minerva with a Gallic shrug that -accorded ill with her most un-Gallic stiffness. “Miss Carrington, Miss -Helen has that horse you got for her, the black one, but Mr. Lanbury -wanted to ride Master—Mr. Kit’s own, and Mr. Kit wouldn’t let him. You -and I know he won’t let any man set astride that horse whose character -and hand on the bridle isn’t known to him, but Mr. Lanbury didn’t know -it, and he took personal offence at getting refused. Miss Helen lifted -her eyebrows at him to signify: ‛What could you expect of a young man -who wanted to ride with her himself?’ and Mr. Lanbury lifted his back -at her to mean: ‛Is that what’s the matter?’ He looked as pleased as -every man does when he’s carried off the girl the other chap wanted. It -was pictured in our illustrated lectures in connection with Sabines. -So Mr. Lanbury’s been given to understand that Mr. Kit’s gnashing his -teeth, when the real truth about his teeth is that he wouldn’t bite.”</p> - -<p>Minerva looked outraged by this perversion of facts affecting the -dignity of the Carringtons. Miss Carrington regarded her with -amusement, realizing that Minerva should not be allowed so much as -implied comment upon her guest, but finding rebuke difficult when -Minerva had for so long ably seconded her own efforts.</p> - -<p>“Well, Minerva, I am bound to acknowledge that I see no symptoms of -Kit’s estimating his own folly properly,” Miss Carrington said instead. -“But I am disturbed. I believe I’d enjoy a call from that amusing -Berkley child. Will you step around to Merton’s and telephone Mrs. -Berkley; ask her if little Anne may come to see me? But before you go, -get me into my kimono and make me comfortable on the couch.”</p> - -<p>Minerva did as she was bidden and departed for the drug store to ask to -borrow little Anne.</p> - -<p>She returned with the message that little Anne would shortly<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_201"></a>201</span> appear, -and, indeed she came sooner than could have been expected, because she -had already been made ready for a call in Latham Street.</p> - -<p>“Be careful, Anne, not to say the smallest word to Miss Carrington of -Miss Dallas’s unhappy morning here. Remember, no one wants that sort of -thing repeated,” warned Mrs. Berkley, smoothing the child’s bobbed hair -before putting on her hat, merely for the pleasure of stroking her head.</p> - -<p>“Oh, Mother, as though I would when she was crying about Kit!” cried -little Anne, reproachfully; and Mrs. Berkley felt helplessly, as she -so often did, that her younger daughter was aware of and equal to the -situation. Minerva, on the watch for little Anne, met her and took her -up to Miss Carrington’s sitting room.</p> - -<p>“Oh, I’m very sorry! I didn’t know you invited me because you were -sick,” said little Anne, her solicitude banishing her shyness as she -entered and saw Miss Carrington on the couch.</p> - -<p>“I am not ill, my dear; only not equal to playing my part. Do you -understand that?” Miss Carrington waited for little Anne’s reply.</p> - -<p>“I think so,” said little Anne, doubtfully. “In school last winter -I was like that. Sister said I must be growing, but it was tonsils. -Afterward they found out they were swollen. I didn’t remember to tell, -but they looked and saw.”</p> - -<p>“My tonsils are all right, and I hardly think I am growing. Do you -suppose it could be that I am grown—grown old, Anne?” suggested Miss -Carrington.</p> - -<p>“Well,” said little Anne, delicately, “I don’t think when a person is -seven—although I’m ’most eight—you can tell so well when people are -old. I don’t believe you are, or anyway, not much. My mother seems -not—not quite so old, but there’s Mr. Allen, the grocer’s father who -carries things when there’s no boy, he’s much, much older! And you are -so quick, Miss<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_202"></a>202</span> Carrington, when you’re not lying down and are feeling -well! Oh, no; I’m sure it isn’t being old! Could I read to you, do you -s’pose? I can read pretty well, much better than I can do arithmetic.”</p> - -<p>“I hardly think that I should enjoy your doing arithmetic half as well -as reading, child,” said Miss Carrington. “I should not care to have -you add up my totals. I am a lonely, disappointed failure, little Anne, -with nothing before me but to die. And I don’t know how to die!”</p> - -<p>Instantly little Anne jumped up and caught Miss Carrington around the -neck. She kissed her cold cheek hard, crying:</p> - -<p>“I know how to die! I know just how; I almost did die. It’s as easy! -I’ll love you and come to see you lots. What shall I read?”</p> - -<p>“Suppose we try ‛Cranford’: I’d like to see you reading it. You are as -appropriate to it as an illustration. It is that red leather book on -the table. Do you think you can get on with it?”</p> - -<p>“If the words are not too long, and if the sense isn’t sort of -underneath,” said little Anne, possessing herself of the book. She -bestowed herself on a straight chair beside Miss Carrington’s couch, -her feet on a stool, fluttering the pages, her dark, short hair falling -forward around her eager face. She made a dear little Reynolds picture, -Miss Carrington thought, feeling that she had been wise to send for -Anne.</p> - -<p>“Don’t you think it’s strange the way meaning of books gets ’way -underneath, when the words on top are quite easy? Sometimes when I -understand all the words I don’t understand the book one bit. Oh, -what very nice pictures!” Little Anne looked appreciatively at Hugh -Thompson’s beruffled ladies and small-waisted gentlemen.</p> - -<p>“Shall I begin at the beginning? I can’t stay to read it all, I’m -afraid, because I’m going to Mr. Latham’s. He called me<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_203"></a>203</span> to the -telephone, me, myself, and told me to come because he had something -splendid to tell me. And I talked to him and told him I’d come, and he -could hear me perfec’ly; he said so. What shall I read, please?”</p> - -<p>“Shut your eyes and open the book, and read wherever it opens,” said -Miss Carrington.</p> - -<p>The reading was but begun when Miss Carrington held up a finger.</p> - -<p>“I hear Miss Abercrombie coming with a friend of hers. We can’t read, -Anne. They are coming up.”</p> - -<p>Miss Carrington seemed disturbed.</p> - -<p>Little Anne let the leather-bound volume drop in a V on her knee like a -red velvet cap, and looked curiously toward the door.</p> - -<p>She saw Miss Abercrombie, in her russet riding clothes, come in and -run swiftly to Miss Carrington’s side, and drop on one knee, her other -russet-leather-booted foot resting on its toe as she laid her radiant -head on the old lady’s hands.</p> - -<p>Behind her followed slowly, halting midway to the couch, a tall man -with dark eyes and hair, perfectly clad, smiling an amused smile beyond -little Anne’s analytic powers, but which she did not like.</p> - -<p>Miss Carrington, looking over Helen at him, knew that he was appraising -the scene with no intention to take part in a comedy.</p> - -<p>“Oh, dearest old friend,” cried Helen, her voice thrilling, “give me -your best wishes and loving sympathy! George and I——”</p> - -<p>She stopped, as if overcome.</p> - -<p>“Congratulations, Mr. Lanbury!” said Miss Carrington, extending her -hand. “I cannot rise. You surely will be the justly envied man of this -year!”</p> - -<p>“Thanks, Miss Carrington. Also of all succeeding years,” said George -Lanbury. “Helen is not merely a jewel; she’s the crown jewels and the -crown. I flatter myself that her wit and<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_204"></a>204</span> beauty, with my wealth and -her father’s position, will be a combination hard to beat. I didn’t -show her the ring, but I brought it along. She wouldn’t give me an -answer in the spring, but she did say she’d send for me if she decided -my way. I rather thought she’d see it as I did. Nice girl all the same, -Helen, to see it! Come and get your ring, my royal princess!”</p> - -<p>With a deprecating and inquiring glance at Miss Carrington, Helen -obediently arose and went over to her betrothed. He produced from his -pocket an immense diamond and a guarding hoop of diamonds. He put them -both on Helen’s finger, kissing her repeatedly, with an ardour that -declared an old woman and a child not to be worth minding.</p> - -<p>Little Anne hastily slid down from her high chair; her eyes were wide -and alarmed.</p> - -<p>“I must go right away, Miss Carrington,” she said. “I’ve got to go now, -thank you; I’ve had a pleasant time.”</p> - -<p>“Who’s the lean squab?” asked George Lanbury.</p> - -<p>“Good-bye, little Anne. I like to have you beside me. Thank you, dear, -and come again,” Miss Carrington quickly interposed.</p> - -<p>“Is it possible that you are joining the cult?” asked Helen. The sight -of Anne Berkley at this moment—recalling where and how she had last -seen her, underscoring the contrast between the great stone flashing -on her hand, the man who had just put it there, and what she had -hoped would be her fate—came upon Helen as an evil omen. “Small dark -banshees seem to bring bad luck,” she added, involuntarily.</p> - -<p>“I tried to find four-leaf clovers for you, Miss Abercrombie, because -you hunted for them so hard that day with Kit, and I wanted you to -have good luck for giving me Kitca, but I couldn’t find one. I’ll try, -though, to get you some.”</p> - -<p>Little Anne ran every step of the way to Latham Street. She was late -and the desire to get there was strong upon her. Something<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_205"></a>205</span> had made -her uncomfortable; she did not know what it was, but she wanted Anne -Dallas and the beloved poet.</p> - -<p>“Well, dear mite, how late you are!” cried Richard Latham as little -Anne came running down the garden to join him and Anne where they sat.</p> - -<p>“I was calling on Miss Carrington; she asked me on the telephone, too, -only it wasn’t her own; she hasn’t one, and I didn’t talk myself this -time. She isn’t ’xactly well; she was lying down. I was going to read -to her, but Miss Abercrombie came in, all in goldeny riding things, and -kneeled down to Miss Carrington. There was a man, too. He called her -over to get it and he gave her the biggest diamond ring ever in all -this world, and another crusty diamond one to put on top of it. And -he—he—he said they would be married, and so did she.”</p> - -<p>Little Anne poured forth her story rapidly, but she could not say that -George Lanbury had kissed Helen.</p> - -<p>“Dear me, Anne, what a fairy tale!” cried Richard.</p> - -<p>“Oh, no; honest it isn’t, Mr. Latham,” protested little Anne, -misunderstanding. “It’s all true, and I didn’t tell quite all.”</p> - -<p>“The man wasn’t Kit!” cried Richard, startled by this hint of something -withheld.</p> - -<p>Little Anne shook her head hard and glanced with a wise little smile at -Anne. Anne hated herself for it, but she laid a warning finger on her -lip. Little Anne shook her head still harder and said:</p> - -<p>“I guess it wasn’t Kit! He’s a big man. When he laughs it doesn’t look -like something funny, but as if you were funny yourself. He’s not like -Kit, dear Kit! He’s named George. That’s what she called him. So I came -here, and I’m glad I did.”</p> - -<p>“So are we,” said Richard Latham. “When I called you up, Miss Anne -Berkley, it was to tell you something that makes me so happy that I had -to ask my best, most intimate lady friend to be told about it.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_206"></a>206</span> -“Me?” cried little Anne, ecstatically striking her breast.</p> - -<p>“You and this other Anne are my very dearest friends,” Richard gravely -assured her. “The other Anne knew all about it; I did not have to tell -her. Little Anne, my play is finished!”</p> - -<p>“Oh, is it?” cried little Anne, clasping her hands fervently as she -always did when moved.</p> - -<p>Though she did not understand precisely the full import of what she had -been told, she realized that Richard Latham had long been at work upon -this play. That it was finished meant something so great that she could -not grasp it. This only proved it the more glorious.</p> - -<p>Anne Dallas with an effort that little Anne could not see, though she -did see how white and worn the girl looked, took up the tale.</p> - -<p>“It is the most beautiful play that ever was, dear little Anne. And it -is done, every word! It is called ‛The Guerdon.’ The great New York -manager, who was here the other day, is going to put the play on in the -autumn, if he can get it ready. It will be acted by the best actors -in the country, and the scenery will be a dream! And on the first -night—what do you suppose? Mr. Latham will have the big box next the -stage, and he is going to invite some people who are dear to him to sit -with him in that box! Mr. Wilberforce, the famous painter, will be one -of them, but who else do you suppose, little Anne?”</p> - -<p>“I don’t know,” little Anne managed to say, huskily, choked by a hope -that she dared not admit.</p> - -<p>“Little Anne Berkley for one!” cried Anne, triumphantly, seizing the -child’s face between her hands to kiss it.</p> - -<p>“Me? At night? In New York? Oh, oh!” Little Anne looked almost faint -from the shock of this overwhelming joy. “Never, never in all my life -have I been once to the theatre, and I have to go to bed at eight, no -matter what! And I’ve only been to New York three times, and once was -to a dentist, and<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_207"></a>207</span> once to the zoo—the other I was a baby. Oh, I’ll -pray my mother will let me go! Mr. Latham, I’d die for you over and -over.”</p> - -<p>“Live for me, little Anne, please!” Richard laughed. “Come here, small -Dynamic, and thank me at closer range.”</p> - -<p>Little Anne ran to him and perched on the arm of his chair. She bent -over and kissed him gently, in spite of her tumultuous delight. Little -Anne always felt that Richard might be hurt if she touched him as -recklessly as she did people who could see.</p> - -<p>“But who else do you think will be in the author’s box, that’s Mr. -Latham’s, you know?” Anne resumed the game.</p> - -<p>“I don’t—Kit?” guessed little Anne.</p> - -<p>“Oh, no!” cried Anne, sharply, taken by surprise. She covered the cry -with a laugh. “Can’t you guess, when Mr. Latham just told you who were -his two best friends?”</p> - -<p>“’Course!” exclaimed little Anne, scornful of herself. “Miss Anne—you!”</p> - -<p>“No, and yes, little Anne!” Anne said. “There will be no Miss Anne -then.”</p> - -<p>“What will you be? Why not?” demanded little Anne.</p> - -<p>“I shall be Anne Latham; the other person in the author’s box will be -the poet’s wife,” said Anne.</p> - -<p>She went over to Richard and leaned on the other arm of his chair. He -put out his hand without speaking and took hers. Anne leant her head -upon his; little Anne saw her lips move.</p> - -<p>“You’d think she was saying a prayer,” thought the child. “Shall you be -married?” she asked aloud. Her voice was awed, her eyes big. “Is that -why you won’t be you?”</p> - -<p>“That is why I shall be I! That is exactly why I shall be I, and no one -else,” Anne murmured. “I might not be myself, but quite another sort of -person if I weren’t married to you then, mightn’t I, dear Richard? We -shall be married when that<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_208"></a>208</span> wonderful night comes around, and you and -I are in the box, little Anne! The play is all done, every word, and -you are to see it on its very first night and I shall see it, too, but -then I shall be our poet’s wife. Tell your mother and Joan what we have -told you, and tell them it is not a secret; they may tell whomever they -choose, and so may you, dearie. Are you proud and glad, little Anne? I -am.”</p> - -<p>Richard, smiling and joyous, got possession of Anne’s other hand. He -knew she was talking excitedly to something within herself rather -than to the child. He felt her tremble, but he set it down to her -sensitiveness. He would have known that Anne would not talk calmly of -her approaching marriage, nor of the great First Night of the play.</p> - -<p>But little Anne held in her small hands and child brain the clue which -Richard lacked. Wonder, dismay, a question crept into her wide eyes as -she stared at Anne. She saw what Richard could not see, the tears that -were gathering in Anne’s eyes and which she feared might fall on the -hands with which Richard held hers so fast that she could not dry the -tears.</p> - -<p>Little Anne slipped down and around to Anne. With the corner of her -handkerchief, bordered with kittens, she painstakingly wiped away -Anne’s tears.</p> - -<p>“I think I’d better go home,” said little Anne, slowly, all her -joyousness gone.</p> - -<p>Then Anne knew that her fear that little Anne might betray her by an -unwelcome allusion to that memorable morning at her home was groundless.</p> - -<p>“Why so soon, little Anne, dear?” asked Richard. “Why must you go?”</p> - -<p>“I was first at Miss Carrington’s, and it took too long,” said little -Anne. “I’ve got to feed Kitca and ask Mother if she thinks I may go to -see the play; I want to know quick. Will it be soon?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_209"></a>209</span> -“October is the earliest we may hope for, dear. There’s no end of time -to wait!” said Richard.</p> - -<p>“I was born in October; maybe I’ll be eight by the time of the play; -then I’ll be something different, too. No, I won’t; you don’t see -anything when you have a birthday. I remember when I was going to be -six I thought I’d change. ’Course not! I didn’t know you’d be married, -Miss Anne, darling! I truly must go home. I’ve got to see Mother -right away! Honest, Mr. Latham, I don’t know’s I can bear it, I’ll be -so happy if I go that night! I’ve got to tell Mother Anne won’t be -Miss Anne then; she hates to have me forget to say that! I’ve had one -engagement and one wedding this afternoon—the news of ’em. It’s a -great deal. I feel a little queer. Good-bye. And I couldn’t thank you -no matter how I tried, so I might as well go now.”</p> - -<p>Little Anne passively allowed herself to be kissed, and beat a rapid -retreat. She had corked up her feelings to the last possible instant. -Though the maturity which she anticipated attaining in October, when -she was eight, was still some weeks distant, something told the child -that Anne was hiding an aching heart.</p> - - - - -<div class="chapter"> -<hr class="divider x-ebookmaker-drop" /> -<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_210"></a>210</span> -</div> - - -<h2 id="xix">CHAPTER XIX<br /> -<span>The End of the Play</span></h2> - -<p class="noi"><span class="dropcap">A</span>LTHOUGH Mrs. Berkley readily consented to little Anne’s seeing the -first performance of Richard Latham’s play, and although this was an -event to dream of by night and by day until its distant date, little -Anne was not completely happy in its anticipation.</p> - -<p>The play was so much one with Anne Dallas that they could not be -recalled separately. It loomed above all else in little Anne’s mind -that when the great night came Anne would be married. Everyone spoke -impressively of being married. Little Anne absorbed the general -attitude toward it and was deeply impressed by the fact that her -dear Anne would be in the same box with her that first night of the -play—she wondered what sort of a box it could possibly be—no longer -her Anne, but married.</p> - -<p>Twice little Anne had come upon Anne weeping her heart out as -tempestuously as she had cried on the child’s shoulder. Anne was not -happy; she was growing so thin and pale that Mrs. Berkley and Joan -discussed it in little Anne’s hearing, though in terms intentionally, -she thought, beyond her complete understanding.</p> - -<p>Little Anne was too loving to be quite happy about the play if Anne -were not happy, too; she had grasped the fact that this unhappiness was -connected with the play and being married; evidently Anne dreaded the -night when she would sit in that mysterious box that held several grown -people, but which did not seem to strike any one as an unusual type of -box.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_211"></a>211</span> -Kit Carrington came often to the Berkley house these days, also -to Joan’s. Little Anne found him in both houses the same; he was -invariably a gloomy, dull Kit, from whom only she could extract -anything like his old smile, and she but rarely.</p> - -<p>Kit looked not only unhappy and ill, but little Anne thought that he -looked chronically “mad,” and surely there could have been nothing less -like her old Kit than “a grouch!” It was Peter who said that Kit had a -steady grouch on, so little Anne knew that she must be right.</p> - -<p>It was a melancholy state of things, and when she was not playing with -Monica, or interested in something else, which was the greater part of -the time, little Anne, like Miniver Cheevy, “thought, and thought and -thought about it.”</p> - -<p>One day Kit came to Joan’s when Anne was there. It was a Sunday -afternoon, so Antony was at home. Kit stalked in with such a desperate -air that little Anne told herself that he looked as if he was going to -do something awful! He nearly kicked Guard, who had grown enormously, -but had not outgrown his first adoration of Kit, and toward whom Kit -held himself as sponsor because he had endorsed the dog in his infancy -and advised his purchase. Kit did not kick the exuberant animal but he -visibly refrained from doing so, and patted him instead. It was wonder -enough for little Anne that he had felt like kicking. He hardly noticed -the child—another alarming symptom.</p> - -<p>Little Anne retired to a corner with Barbara, now capable of being led -there, and played house with the baby in a one-sided fashion. But her -ears were alert to catch a conversation in which she was forgotten.</p> - -<p>“I’ve stood it to the last possible instant!” declared Kit, savagely. -“Anne will not see me. She shall! Have I no rights?”</p> - -<p>“Don’t you think, Kit, dear, she is afraid to see you?” Joan suggested. -“If she will not marry you, isn’t it better to avoid<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_212"></a>212</span> unnecessary pain? -Poor Anne shows that she already has all that she can endure.”</p> - -<p>“Poor Anne has no right to be enduring it,” retorted Kit. “I will see -her; I must! What do you say, Antony?”</p> - -<p>“I say I wouldn’t like to be in your shoes, and I don’t know how I’d -play up if I were, but the right thing is to get out and not torture a -girl who is trying to be square, who loves you all the time, good old -Kit,” said Antony.</p> - -<p>“Well, if you call that being square, I don’t,” declared Kit. “She’s -got it all twisted. I don’t mean to torture her, you know well enough, -except to talk it out once; we’ve got to! I never had a word with her -except that one time when we found out how we both felt, and then what -was it? We were taken off our feet; couldn’t talk! I want to put it up -to her as temperately as I can. Then if she decides against me, all -right; I go. And I mean to listen fairly to her arguments. But I don’t -go till that is done. I realize that it’s hard to judge a question on -which your own happiness hinges, but it doesn’t seem to me right to -Latham for Anne to marry him. Putting me out of it, it doesn’t seem -right to Latham. If he knew that Anne loved me, not him—wanted to -marry me, not him—would he let her keep her promise to him? Of course -he wouldn’t! So it doesn’t seem fair to him to go on with it. Maybe -that’s sophistry; I’m sure I can’t tell! But I do know that I don’t -feel as though I could go on living if Anne marries Latham.”</p> - -<p>Kit’s head went down on his arms with a movement of such despair that -little Anne was frightened.</p> - -<p>So that was it! Anne didn’t want to marry Mr. Latham, not even to sit -in the box! And she did want to marry Kit; and Kit would die if she -married Mr. Latham. And Mr. Latham would not marry Anne if all this -were as clear to him as it had suddenly become to little Anne. Kit -had said that it was not fair to Mr. Latham; evidently someone was -making a blunder. Here little<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_213"></a>213</span> Anne’s thoughts became cloudy. Could -the blunderer be Anne? Well, this fact was clear: two of little Anne’s -dearest friends were miserable, all because Mr. Latham did not know -that they would far prefer to marry each other than to let Anne go to -the play as the poet’s wife. Now that these points were radiantly clear -to the child, it was equally clear that a simple mistake of this kind -could and should be corrected.</p> - -<p>“Do you think Anne will consent to see you, Kit?” Joan was asking when -little Anne’s attention returned to the conversation.</p> - -<p>“She has said that I might see her to-morrow afternoon,” said Kit. “I’m -to go to walk with her; I told her that I must see her where there’d be -no risk of interruption. I know it’s no use.”</p> - -<p>“I’m sure of that, poor Kit!” agreed Joan. “Anne is not to be moved.”</p> - -<p>“And she is dead right!” added Antony. “I’m bound to say I think she’s -dead right, and no end of a trump to stick to her principles. I’m sorry -enough, Kit, and it seems mean in me to be so happy with my little -old lady here when you’re playing in such hard luck, but honour among -thieves can’t be more binding than among honest folk. I took off my -hat to Anne Dallas when the trouble began, and I’m bare-headed yet, -figuratively speaking.”</p> - -<p>“Easy enough to admire a martyrdom when you’re in heaven,” growled Kit.</p> - -<p>Little Anne, so absorbed in the conversation, forgot Barbara, and the -baby, still uncertain in her balance, lost it and struck her chin -against a chair. Her wail aroused Joan to the presence of little Anne. -As she rescued her child, more injured in feelings than in flesh, Joan -glanced sharply at her small sister, wondering what she had heard and -understood. Nothing could have been more blank of other interest than -Barbara’s possible hurt than was the face that Anne turned up to her -sister.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_214"></a>214</span> -“We played house, Joan, and Babs was my child,” she said. “I don’t -think she ’xactly understands, but she played nicely. She sort of -tipped over, but not far. I don’t believe it hurt her badly.”</p> - -<p>“You kept her so quiet that I forgot you both,” said Joan. “Did the -time seem long to you, Anne?”</p> - -<p>“Mercy, no! I was awf’ly interested,” said little Anne, truthfully. -“Maybe I’ll be a Sister of Charity instead of a Carmelite; then I could -have an asylum. Babies are so dear!”</p> - -<p>And Joan dared ask no more lest she should hint what, after all, Anne -might not have heard.</p> - -<p>The next afternoon, strong in her righteous purpose, and, -little-Anne-like, unassailed by doubt when she was convinced of her -facts, little Anne set forth to visit Mr. Latham without taking any -one, even her mother, into her confidence. She passed Anne, looking -white and miserable, but with the light of determination in her eyes, -as she turned into Latham Street.</p> - -<p>“Kit is coming; I saw him ’way down the street,” volunteered little -Anne. Then she ran on, leaving Anne to wonder at her apparent knowledge -of the intended meeting.</p> - -<p>“Well, small Anne!” cried Richard Latham as little Anne came running -down the broad walk through the centre of his garden. “You surely -are Anne, the well-come! I feel precisely like having a comrade of -seven-most-eight! I’m half afraid you are too sedate for me, Miss -Berkley! Do you think you can stoop to play with a poet who has -finished his play and arranged for its production, and with a man who -is too happy to be merely a man? Anne, have I slender, pointed ears? -And do you chance to see pipes sticking out of my pocket?”</p> - -<p>“Your ears are slender, but I think they are round at the top,” said -little Anne, conscientiously examining them as Richard stooped to her. -“And there aren’t any pipes. Don’t you smoke cigars, anyway?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_215"></a>215</span> -“Oh, not smoking pipes! I thought you, of all people, would know! I -mean pipes like Pan’s. The fauns play on the sort I mean. Never mind; -perhaps I am a man. Do you happen to have a string with you? No? Pity! -What I really am is a rose-coloured air-balloon, and I’m liable to sail -over the house-tops unless you tie a string to me and hold me fast. -Have you the string, little Anne?”</p> - -<p>Little Anne was laughing, yet her eyes were gravely puzzled.</p> - -<p>“Must I tie you down?” she asked, not realizing that she had come to do -this and more. “I have no string.”</p> - -<p>“Then let us run a race up and down the broad path, and around the -little paths on the right. Then up and down the middle again, and -around the little paths on the left! I can run faster than you can, -but, on the other hand, I can’t see you and you can see me, so it -will be a fair game. If you catch me I pay a forfeit. I buy you a box -of candy. If I catch you, you pay me a forfeit; you take the box of -candy that I buy for you! I think that’s the best-arranged arrangement -that all the aggregated arrangers ever arranged!” Richard laughed, -triumphantly.</p> - -<p>Little Anne danced up and down.</p> - -<p>“I do think you are the funniest! And nicest!” she cried. “I should -think you would make plays and poetry! I do love Kit dearly; he’s so -nice you have to, but you think of the most things I ever! Why does -Anne, Miss Anne, rather not marry you?”</p> - -<p>Richard Latham’s hand stopped in mid-air on the way to pull down his -hat in preparation for the race.</p> - -<p>“Anne! What are you saying?” he exclaimed.</p> - -<p>“Oh, never mind now; maybe we’d better race first, because we’ll be so -warm we’ll need to sit down; then we could talk,” said little Anne, -comfortably. “I came to tell you about it. Kit said if you knew you -wouldn’t let her; he said it wasn’t fair to<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_216"></a>216</span> you. So I thought I’d tell -you. Anne loves Kit, so does he—I mean they both do.”</p> - -<p>Anne was getting frightened; Richard’s face was ghastly white.</p> - -<p>“How can you, a child, know this?” Richard spoke with difficulty.</p> - -<p>“Why, it was one morning at our house. They kind of looked at each -other and began to say they loved each other such a lot, and Anne -cried: ‛No, no, no. Richard!’ And Kit had to go away. She made him. And -she cried terrible. And Kit says it’s wrong to marry you when she’d -rather not, but she just will, and Antony says she’s a trump, but you -can see Joan’s so sorry she can’t tell what a trump is. And Anne, you -know, looks dreadful, white and thin—— Oh, I forgot!” Little Anne -checked herself, shocked that an allusion to Mr. Latham’s blindness had -escaped her. Of all things she most dreaded to say anything that might -hurt Richard Latham. Richard put out a hand, gropingly. He found little -Anne’s shoulder and held it tight. He swayed slightly as he turned to -go up the garden, slowly, like an old man. He leaned on the frightened -child who walked beside him, looking up at him with dilated eyes.</p> - -<p>“I want to find the bench,” said Richard, whom little Anne had always -seen going confidently about the garden.</p> - -<p>Little Anne led him to the bench and Richard dropped on it heavily.</p> - -<p>“Tell me again. I can’t understand. Anne, my Anne, loves Christopher -Carrington? And he loves her, and they both know this? And she is -marrying me because she thinks she must? It this what you are telling -me? It can’t be true! You are only little Anne. You can’t know!”</p> - -<p>Richard’s voice, faint at first, gathered strength as he spoke; it -ended in a groan. Because this was little Anne, too young<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_217"></a>217</span> to imagine -the story, too clear-brained to distort it, he knew that it was true. -A thousand tiny proofs of it seemed to pierce his memory even as he -denied it.</p> - -<p>“Yes, I do know!” little Anne insisted, nodding her head hard. “I was -there when they found out. They kept saying how s’prised they were. Kit -wants to talk it over; that’s what he’s doing now, but Anne won’t ever -change, Joan said. He couldn’t talk it over, ’cause Anne wouldn’t see -him till now. He said you wouldn’t let her marry you if you knew she’d -rather not; Kit said that. He said it wasn’t fair to you. So I came -around to let you know. Won’t you let her marry you? Can’t she sit in -the box that play night?” Richard Latham started up and fell back with -a cry. His head dropped on the back of the garden bench; he was shaking.</p> - -<p>“Go away, little Anne,” he said. “Go away. Go home. We’ll—we’ll -race—sometime. I’ll remember—the candy. You win, little Anne! Go, -dear, go!”</p> - -<p>“Oh, wasn’t it right to come? Was it a sin to tell you? Was it a sin? I -never did a sin that made any one sick when they were so well before! -Was it a sin?” cried little Anne, terror-stricken by the result of her -mission.</p> - -<p>“It was—just right—little Anne! I’m—delighted—to know. But I’m a -little—a little—surprised, you see. Please, go, dear little Anne!” -Richard managed to say.</p> - -<p>Little Anne went. At the gate she looked back. Richard Latham sat -as she had left him. The garden looked more than usually beautiful, -peaceful. Child as she was she felt the solemnity of the bowed figure -of the blind poet, alone among his flowers.</p> - -<p>In the meantime, Anne had gone on and had met Kit coming toward her -down shady Latham Street. She had not given him her hand; he had turned -and joined her with but the slightest murmur of greeting. They made no -attempt to talk<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_218"></a>218</span> as they went out toward the river. Kit directed their -course away from the spot to which he and Helen had walked on that -recent afternoon. They came to a pretty place where the bank sloped -down under willows, and where there was a bit of white, sandy beach.</p> - -<p>“No use going farther, Anne,” said Kit, peremptorily. “I want to know -what you mean to do about it? I have a right to know.”</p> - -<p>“You already know,” said Anne, as sternly as he. “I have told you all -that there is to say. In less than three months I shall marry Richard -Latham. That sums up all that I could say to you, Kit.”</p> - -<p>“But I love you! You have no idea how I want you, love you!” cried Kit.</p> - -<p>“And that you’re not to say to me!” said Anne with a stern monotony of -voice, with which she bridled her pain as she saw the change in Kit’s -sunny face.</p> - -<p>“It is easy for you. You don’t care, after all! I suppose women can’t -love as a man does,” said Kit.</p> - -<p>An expression of adoring love and pity flitted over Anne’s face. Then -it was gone, and she said:</p> - -<p>“There is no profit in that sort of recrimination, you know. The -instrument for measuring and comparing mental suffering has not been -invented. It is hard enough for me. Be satisfied of that! Do you want -me to be miserable?”</p> - -<p>Suddenly she let herself go, as if she deliberately threw away reserve.</p> - -<p>“Kit,” she began, her voice deep with love and longing, “it is costing -me so much that in simple mercy you must never again add to it by -seeking me. After a while we will be friends—meet as friends. Always -we shall be friends, even before we may safely meet. That is a great -word were we not longing to speak another, greater word, that is -forbidden us. I shall marry<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_219"></a>219</span> Richard and do my best to love him as a -wife should, as any one who knew him would love him, one would think, -best of all! Listen to me, dear: If you were a man who in sober, -sane choice could want me to break my promise to this man, I should -never have loved you. Shall we be selfish, Kit, cruel, false, trying -to justify ourselves with pretty words? Kit, you are so dear to me -that I want to help you to keep your honour bright! I should not have -seen you to-day but that I knew in seeing you I could help you to -see something far greater than I. I can’t cure your grief, Kit, your -lonely longing, nor my own! For a time we must suffer. But I know we -shall win out, because we are doing our best. I came to beg you to -make the renunciation that is the true, manly course. I don’t want you -to do right only because I stand by my word. Say to me—and mean it, -Kit, because in compelling your will to this you will gain peace of -mind—say to me: ‛Anne, keep your word to Richard Latham and God bless -you! I would not have you make me happy by defrauding him.’ Tell me -this, Kit; tell me you see it is right!”</p> - -<p>Kit stood silent beside her, his head bowed, his hands clinching and -relaxing. The tiny waves of the river’s slow flow lapped softly on the -white sand; a sparrow emphasized the stillness with his lovely brief -song.</p> - -<p>“It is right, Anne,” poor Kit said at last.</p> - -<p>“And”—Anne put out her hands to him almost as a mother would put out -her hands to the child who feared to walk—“And I don’t want you to -make me happy by defrauding Richard Latham. Marry him, Anne, Anne, -Anne, my darling, marry him! And God bless and keep you, as He surely -does!”</p> - -<p>Kit threw back his head, holding both her hands crushed in his.</p> - -<p>Anne’s face was alight with triumph; her eyes glowed and warmed Kit’s -heart.</p> - -<p>“I’ll be all right. This is right,” Kit said. “I’ve been<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_220"></a>220</span> crazed, Anne, -but don’t worry over me; I’ll be all right, little Captain!”</p> - -<p>“Oh, you blessed boy!” cried Anne in spite of herself.</p> - -<p>Gently she disengaged her hands.</p> - -<p>“It’s a lot to be able to think of each other in the way we now shall.”</p> - -<p>“I’d better take you back again. Oh, Anne, I was ready with arguments -that you never could have answered, and I haven’t spoken one of them! -Isn’t there another side? Couldn’t you hear me, even yet? I don’t know -what you did to me, but all my arguments seemed answered when you began -to speak.”</p> - -<p>“We’ve settled it, Kit, and I’m too tired to argue. I think you -answered yourself as you went along, only you had not consciously heard -the answers. You are no sophist, dear Kit! So when I spoke of duty it -needed no more than the word. You had argued on the surface of your -mind, but all the time your will stood true! I’m proud of you, dear -Kit, and thankful that I did not love a man less fine than my husband -is. I do love Richard, Kit; we both well may love him. I’m a little -tired. Yes, please take me back,” Anne ended, abruptly.</p> - -<p>“You are deadly white and you’re thinner, Anne,” said Kit, forgetting -his pain in anxiety as he looked at the sweet, weary face beside him.</p> - -<p>“Just tired; that’s all,” said Anne, smiling. “I haven’t slept much -of late. I fancy we both find that night brings the enemy’s hardest -attacks. You are thinner, too. Have you plans?”</p> - -<p>“To go away soon, to New York, and go into business there,” said Kit, -accepting her lead.</p> - -<p>They talked quietly as they returned homeward, till just before they -reached Latham Street, Kit stopped short.</p> - -<p>“It can’t be good-bye so casually, Anne! Am I mad that I give you up -like this, or have you put a spell upon me? I<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_221"></a>221</span> think I’m dreaming and -must awaken. It’s like a nightmare in which you can’t move,” he said, -hoarsely.</p> - -<p>“It’s only good-night, Kit, but good-bye is its foundation. You will -awake, my dear, quite well and strong, for the nightmare is over. -Good-night, Kit, and with all my heart I pray God bless you. When you -get home to think, remind yourself that you spared poor Anne all that -you could, and be thankful that you are her comfort, and not the least, -wee pain to her, as a tiny lack in you would be. Good-night, Kit! -Dearest, good-night, Sir Christopher!”</p> - -<p>Anne forced her drawn lips to smile as she paused for a moment at -Richard’s garden gate.</p> - -<p>Kit looked down on her without an attempt to smile back at her. They -did not touch each other’s hands.</p> - -<p>“Oh, Lord!” he groaned, and turned away.</p> - -<p>Anne stood for an instant, her hand on the top of the gate. Then with a -long, fluttering breath she groped for the latch, lifted it and entered -the garden.</p> - -<p>Before her on the bench, one arm thrown across its back, his head -erect, pale, but quietly smiling toward her as his quick ear heard the -click of the latch, sat Richard Latham waiting for her.</p> - - - - -<div class="chapter"> -<hr class="divider x-ebookmaker-drop" /> -<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_222"></a>222</span> -</div> - - -<h2 id="xx">CHAPTER XX<br /> -<span>Richard</span></h2> - -<p class="noi"><span class="dropcap">A</span>NNE halted, frightened by Richard’s face.</p> - -<p>“Well, dear?” he said, and extended his hand.</p> - -<p>She came on slowly, fear clutching her and a sense of guilt. When she -reached the bench Richard lightly clasped the hand that she laid in his -and drew her down beside him.</p> - -<p>“Did you have a pleasant walk, dear?” he asked. He spoke quietly, but -his voice was strained.</p> - -<p>Anne did not speak and Richard turned toward her.</p> - -<p>“Are you tired, brave little woman? And aren’t you going to tell me all -about it?”</p> - -<p>“Richard, what has happened?” cried Anne. “What can have happened since -I left you so light-hearted, so happy, so boyish? Are you ill? You -aren’t ill?”</p> - -<p>“No, dear, but I grew old,” said Richard. “Tell me about it, Anne; -don’t be afraid to trust me. Do you think I could blame you, sweet, or -want anything but your dearest desire?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, Richard, Richard, who has wounded you, what has happened?” cried -Anne again. “Who has been here?”</p> - -<p>“No one has been here but little Anne,” said Richard.</p> - -<p>“Ah, little Anne!” She caught her breath. “There was nothing for me to -tell you, Richard, dearest, but—what has she told you?”</p> - -<p>“Little Anne’s perception, though limited by lack of full -understanding, is truer than yours, dear. Little Anne had heard it said -that it was not fair to me, so she came to put her<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_223"></a>223</span> knowledge into my -hands, actuated by her extreme conscientiousness and without consulting -her elders. So she acted directly and properly, as children will. It -was true that it was not fair to me, dear Anne! But that little Anne -came to me I might have gone on and made you wretched, you whom of -all the world I most want to make happy! You see, dear girl, this was -not fair to me; little Anne was right. I am not a dragon, devouring -maidens, least of all this dear maid! And now aren’t you ready to tell -me all about it? Tell me as if I were your brother. What did you say to -Kit to-day? Did you promise him to come to me and tell me how dearly -you loved him? He is a fine lad, dear!”</p> - -<p>“Oh, Richard, Richard!” moaned Anne. “Oh, Richard, the lion-hearted!”</p> - -<p>“Come, that’s better than to be a dragon, though the lion’s share is -supposed to be formidable! Anne, dear, you, being you, do not need to -be told that to love means to desire the good of the person beloved. -When is Kit—— Did you promise Kit to tell me what might have been the -sad story, but now is to be a happy one?” asked Richard.</p> - -<p>“I told Kit that I would not see him again till he and I were cured of -this unhappy love. It will be cured, Richard! Trust me; I shall love my -husband and no one else!” Anne cried.</p> - -<p>“Surely. You will not turn from Kit, your husband! Do you imagine that -I think of you as fickle, playing with love, my dear?” said Richard.</p> - -<p>“Not Kit, not Kit my husband; you, you, Richard!” cried Anne, wildly. -“Kit saw it as I did. He couldn’t see it so at first, because he is -undisciplined. It is natural to take what you want if you can snatch -it. But he did see, and he willingly laid down his—no; he had no claim -to lay down—he willingly admitted your claim. And he has said good-bye -to me, Richard, and is gone, wholly, completely gone out of my life. -Don’t say,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_224"></a>224</span> don’t think I deceived you! How could I tell you? I knew -you would send me away. And I want to stay. I’m going to marry you, -Richard, best and most unselfish of men; you, not Kit Carrington; no -one but you, only you!”</p> - -<p>“Dear Anne,” began Richard with an effort that Anne was sobbing too -hard to see, “you cannot marry me, my beloved, because I will not marry -you! See to what shocking lengths you drive me! I am blind, indeed, -for I did not for an instant suspect that you loved Kit. Thank heaven -little Anne healed that form of blindness! I have often felt that you -did not fully love me, dear, but I set down much of your reserve to -your natural reticence, your innate shrinking from a lover’s arms. I -knew that a great love, such as mine was for you, would rise at flood -and break down such barriers, but, though I saw that you did not love -me like that, I thought that you loved me so much that the tide of it -would rise to its flood in you. I loved to think that I should write -my name on this white page indelibly. I did not dream that you loved -someone else. This justifies me, so forgive me, Anne, for the pain I -stupidly caused you.”</p> - -<p>“Richard, kill me if you must, but not with such words!” cried Anne, -turning to hide her face in her hands on the back of the garden bench. -“Will you not listen to me? I want to marry you. I want to marry you! -And you were right; I shall love you best. Just as now I hold you -higher than any one else, so I shall love you best. I have never for an -instant thought of breaking my word to you. I had no more idea of Kit’s -feeling for me than you had. Nor did I realize that I cared for him. -It was a strange revelation of unsuspected feeling on both sides that -overtook us. I have not listened to him, have not dallied with this -madness. And Kit is honourable. He was tempted to take his own good, -but he is a man. When he considered, he knew that it must be you, not -he.<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_225"></a>225</span> He is gone, gone forever. Time will cure him. He has done right -and I’ve no fear but that he will be happy. So let us try to put it out -of our minds; let us pretend that we had an ugly dream. We are awake -now; the dream is over. Richard, dearest Richard, forgive me! Can’t you -forgive me and let the dream go by?”</p> - -<p>“Anne, child, yes; the dream shall go by! But my dream, which was truly -a dream; not your reality,” said Richard, gently taking her hands and -drawing her head on his shoulder. “Cry here, faithful true Anne, for -I am Richard, your brother. But never Richard, your husband! Nothing -this world could offer me, nothing that you could say, would make me -marry you, dearest of all women! Consider for a moment: you who are so -honourable, so eager to uphold the honour of Kit, whom you love, would -you have me marry one whom I knew loved and wanted someone else? Would -you? It is beyond possibility. It is best for us both that we never -again remotely approach to a suggestion that this might be possible. I -tell you again what I have already told you: I am profoundly grateful -to little Anne Berkley for averting the horrible tragedy, the dreadful -mistake I came near making. Sooner or later I should have found you -out, dear, and I’m not sure that I shouldn’t have died of it! So let us -be thankful that I was one of little Anne’s beetles and that she set me -on my feet to run away in time! Now it is all settled, dear one, and we -are tired. I am going into the house. Don’t come just now, Anne.”</p> - -<p>Richard arose unsteadily, at the end of his endurance, exhausted by his -effort.</p> - -<p>Anne looked up at him with the wet eyes of a chastised child.</p> - -<p>“Mayn’t I work for you? Oh, I can’t! Oh, Richard, let me marry you and -work for you!” she begged.</p> - -<p>“The forbidden subject so soon!” Richard held up a rebuking hand. -“There is no work; I shall not work for a long time. The<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_226"></a>226</span> play is done; -your play that you made. Don’t you think we would better send for -Wilberforce?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, yes; surely he must come! Will you send for him, or shall I?” Anne -cried, eagerly.</p> - -<p>“I’ll telegraph him when I go into the house,” said Richard. “Go now, -and try to rest, dear. It has been a cruel afternoon for you. Why not -go to Joan Paul and get her to take you in? You should not be alone in -a boarding-house. And, Anne, one last word! You spoke of forgiving you -a few moments ago; surely you know that there is not the least thing -to forgive? You have been so true, so fine, so kind that all my life -I shall have you before my eyes, the ideal woman who quite simply, at -any cost, does what is right, not what is pleasantest, easiest. That is -rare, my child, in man or woman, and I’m grateful to have known you. -And remember, Anne, the sooner I hear that you are happy, the sooner I -shall throw off my sense of guilt for having been so dull as to accept -your mercy upon a blind man.”</p> - -<p>Richard bent and took Anne’s hands in his, laying them, palms upward, -in his own hands. He kissed first one then the other cold little palm -and closed the fingers over the kisses, as one plays with a child.</p> - -<p>“That is your freedom, in your own hands, dear, and good-bye,” he said.</p> - -<p>He went unsteadily up the path, stooping, then remembered, and -straightened himself, throwing back his head. Anne watched him go, her -hands upon her knees, her fingers still closed tight over the palms in -which Richard had deposited his tender dismissal and farewell. When he -had gone she sat for a few moments with bowed head and closed eyes. -Then she, too, arose and left the lovely garden by its low side gate. -She went miserably to her room on her return to the boarding-house. -She threw herself on her bed and lay staring out of the window,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_227"></a>227</span> -disregarding the summons to dinner. There was but one definite thought -in her mind. Now, whatever happened, she must never marry Kit. When he -learned that Richard had refused to let her fulfil her promise to him, -of course Kit would jubilantly come to carry her off. But Anne felt -that for her and Kit to be happy when Richard was lonely and wretched -would be past bearing. She was not capable of reasoning now; her very -muscles seemed to ache with pity for Richard and with groundless -self-reproach. She had no desire to summon Joan; she was one with -little Anne in a desire to do penance.</p> - -<p>Little Anne, like most children of her type, had a retroactive -conscience; it was especially likely to bother her at night.</p> - -<p>This night as bedtime approached she reflected that she had gone to see -Mr. Latham without consulting her mother, and that she had told him -something that her mother had forbidden her to mention to any one. To -be sure the actuating cause of her going was an addition to the events -of that morning when Anne and Kit had met in her home; the conversation -at Joan’s had seemed to her to free her from the obligation of silence, -had imposed an obligation to speak; but now, at night, the more she -considered, the surer she became that it had been wrong to go to Mr. -Latham to set him right without her mother’s consent. It was done past -mending, to be sure, but little Anne was well-trained in the duty of -confessing her faults. Therefore, as the summer dusk deepened, she -crept into her mother’s arms and with heavy sighs told the story of her -afternoon.</p> - -<p>She had not been prepared for her mother’s extreme perturbation over -the tale. Mrs. Berkley became tense with excitement and asked so many -questions as to the effect of it upon Mr. Latham that after little Anne -had described how gay she had found him; how tired and still he seemed -when she had left him; all that he had said, exactly what little Anne -had said to him, the child was too sleepy to feel properly contrite. -Her<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_228"></a>228</span> mother told her that she had done wrong to take upon herself -interference in older people’s affairs, especially to disobey her -mother, but little Anne went to bed forgiven and made peaceful by her -mother’s kiss. She fell asleep instantly, infolded by the sense of a -world in which everything came right.</p> - -<p>When little Anne was tucked away, Mrs. Berkley hastened to the -telephone.</p> - -<p>“Oh, Joan,” her husband heard her say, “do go right around to find Anne -Dallas! Yes. I don’t know, I’m <em>sure</em>! No, not ill. Well, I’m -afraid so. Anne has been calling this afternoon. Can’t you guess? I’m -afraid to tell you over the wire. Yes, that’s better; she’ll tell you. -That’s right, dearie. Do hurry. Good-night; kiss the baby for me.”</p> - -<p>Mrs. Berkley hung up and turned her perturbed face upon her laughing -husband.</p> - -<p>“<i xml:lang="la" lang="la">Dea ex machina</i> again?” he asked. “Takes some machine to stand -up under our small daughter’s driving, Barbara! It’s my impression that -the machine of this particular goddess is a high-geared racing car!”</p> - -<p>Mr. Berkley’s tone expressed the father’s pride in a clever child, the -father who leaves the guidance of that cleverness to the mother, and as -to his share of it enjoys it as a comedy.</p> - -<p>Joan hurried to Antony.</p> - -<p>“Come, Tony,” she said. “Mother just called up; we’ve got to go around -to Anne Dallas’s boarding place. Mother didn’t like to tell me what -has happened—you know on this party line the receivers are positively -restless when one talks!—but little Anne has been visiting. I’m sure -it was Mr. Latham! I’d be willing to wager anything that she’s told -him about Anne and Kit—as much as she knows, and no human being -could state how much that was! I haven’t had a moment’s peace—when I -recalled it—since Kit was here and little Anne had baby over in the -corner while we talked. She looked so<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_229"></a>229</span> perfectly unconscious that I’m -sure she was paying strict attention to what we said! Well, come on, -Antony; Anne is in some sort of trouble.”</p> - -<p>“Gracious, what it is to have young friends who are in love and a young -sister who is a busybody!” Antony pretended to grumble, but he went -readily enough.</p> - -<p>Joan left her husband on the boarding-house piazza, where he sat in -awkward silence among observant strangers, with Guard’s head between -his knees, while Joan ran up to Anne’s room.</p> - -<p>“Oh, Joan, how good to see you! Richard told me to call you, but I -couldn’t,” cried Anne, rising on one elbow as Joan dropped down beside -her and took the girl in her arms, instantly overwhelmed with pity as -she saw the misery in Anne’s tear-stained face.</p> - -<p>“That little Anne!” exclaimed Joan. “Tell me what happened. I think I -know: little Anne has told Richard Latham our secret!”</p> - -<p>“And he has been so heavenly good to me; so generous, tender, that -there are no words for it, Joan,” Anne confirmed her. “I saw Kit this -afternoon. We had parted forever, and when I came back from that walk -there was Richard! He will not marry me, Joan! I begged him to marry -me, and truly I could be peacefully content to marry him, but he will -not listen to it. Oh, Joan, he is so lonely and so fine!”</p> - -<p>“He is all of that! I already know it, and some time you will tell me -how he proved it anew this afternoon. He couldn’t marry you, dear! It -would be horrid to accept such a sacrifice, now that he knows. Try -to trust that things will come out better than you fear. Little Anne -is not usually disobedient. Perhaps she has been an instrument of -Providence. Did you have any dinner? Ah, I knew it! You are coming to -make me a visit, so get together what you need for the night. We’ll<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_230"></a>230</span> -come around here in the morning and get what you need for as many weeks -as you’ll stay. Baby will be such a comfort to you! I’ll let her come -into your bed in the morning. She’s the sweetest thing in bed! Antony -is downstairs, waiting for us, with Guard. Come, Anne, hurry! Antony -hates to sit on a piazza, among boarding women! Where’s your kit—— -Oh, Anne, please! I didn’t mean—I mean your bag! And a nightie and -toothbrush, your brush and comb. You’ll be fed at my house.”</p> - -<p>Joan fluttered about gathering up the articles she enumerated. Anne -was swept along, powerless to resist the loving kindness that launched -her out of her swamp of despairing lethargy into a tide of action that -implied hope.</p> - -<p>Antony behaved with the utmost decorum, not betraying that he saw -anything unusual in Anne’s disfigured face nor in her unexpected visit. -Guard thrust his nose into Anne’s hand; Joan held tight to her arm, all -the while talking her friendly, inconsequent talk which had in it more -method than was apparent on the surface. Better than any eloquence it -expressed sympathy; what was more, it carried with it the conviction -that life was not wholly sad, nor its troubles irremediable.</p> - -<p>Joan herself got Anne a dainty meal of the sort that can be eaten after -crying has worn out appetite and digestion. The tea was perfectly drawn -and Anne felt better for it.</p> - -<p>Joan let the girl peep at sleeping Barbara before she took her into -the cool, restful guest chamber, and tucked her into bed. She laughed -the while at herself, saying she was like little Anne, and loved to -play house, but none the less she knew precisely what the lonely, -discouraged girl needed. Then she traced a tiny cross on Anne’s -forehead, kissed her, and said:</p> - -<p>“Good-night. God bless you, dear! That’s what Mother<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_231"></a>231</span> always said and -did to us. I always knew that was why I slept so sweetly and so safe. -Go to sleep at once, Anne, dear,” said Joan as she left her.</p> - -<p>An hour later she was gratified to find, when she peeped in, that Anne -was sleeping sweetly under her good-night blessing.</p> - -<p>Antony was removing his collar when Joan come into their room. He -smiled quizzically at her in the glass.</p> - -<p>“Confess!” he said. “You love to have your friends in trouble so you -can cosset them!”</p> - -<p>“Oh, no. Shame on you, Antony Paul! But I do love to cosset them when -they are in trouble, which is not the same thing in the least!” Joan -defended herself. “This is not a little trouble. Mr. Latham must be -desolate. Dear, splendid Mr. Latham! And how Anne can ever bring -herself to be happy with Kit, knowing it, is beyond me.”</p> - -<p>“I grant you all you like on the Latham side of it. He must be hard hit -and it’s a bad matter, that’s sure. But as to Anne and Kit—poppycock, -Madam Sentimentalia! The idea of an old matron like you talking such -nonsense! What shall we give them, silver or glass? And here’s this to -consider, Joan: As a matter of economy of unhappiness, there are two -happy by this arrangement, one unhappy. I’m no end sorry about Latham, -but that seems to economize pain. Perhaps his unhappiness is durable -and deep enough to throw out my arithmetic. Well, however it works, -we’ve no hand in it, though apparently my sister-in-law had!” Antony -laughed, and added: “I’ve got to go back downstairs; I left my watch on -the table.”</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>When Antony was going back for his forgotten watch Minerva was softly -closing the door of Miss Carrington’s room.</p> - -<p>“Miss Carrington, I have news for you,” she announced. “Mr. Latham’s -engagement to Miss Dallas is broken.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_232"></a>232</span> -“Good heavens! Minerva, what makes you think so?” demanded Miss -Carrington, swinging her feet to the floor and sitting erect on her -couch.</p> - -<p>“I <em>know</em> so,” Minerva corrected her. “I have been to the movies -with Mrs. Lumley. This afternoon the Berkley child was there. Mr. -Latham was hoity-toity when she came. He’s been that way lately, Mrs. -Lumley says; tickled to death his play’s done, and happy over being -engaged. Well, when little Anne left he sat alone on the garden bench -for the longest time, looking about killed; just limp and half dead. -Then in comes Miss Dallas and they talked. You could see from the -house it was serious, Mrs. Lumley says. Then Miss Dallas cried on his -shoulder and he treated her like she had a broken bone, or her last, -final sickness on her. At last he kissed her hands; kind of like a -deathbed scene, Mrs. Lumley said it was. She was in the dining room, -but it has those magnesia blinds you can turn, so she saw it all plain. -Then Mr. Latham came into the house, and after a little Miss Dallas -went away. Mrs. Lumley didn’t see her go, because she went back into -the pantry when Mr. Latham came in, and went on with her mayonnaise. -Not that she needed to; he went right on up to his room. He didn’t come -to dinner, nor would he let Stetson take up a tray; nothing but coffee -later on. So it’s surely broken. Mrs. Lumley says there’s no more doubt -of it than of the laws of the needs of Prussians. I thought you’d -better know.”</p> - -<p>“What can have happened? It sounds like a renunciation as you describe -it,” murmured Miss Carrington. “Kit has been strange lately. He walked -about last night for ages. I tapped on his door and begged him to go -to bed, but he only put on slippers and still prowled; it was really -worse, for the padded sound is more annoying than a louder one. -To-night at dinner he was absolutely silent and colourless. I was -going to ask what was wrong, but reflected that a boy hates to have<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_233"></a>233</span> -ill-health noticed. He can’t endure Mr. Lanbury; he was dining here, -but it was more than that. I do wonder——” Miss Carrington stopped.</p> - -<p>“So did I, and so do I, Miss Carrington,” said Minerva. “It sort of -looks—— Yet why? And you see little Anne Berkley comes into it there. -Mr. Latham was gay till she came and what could she——?” Minerva -talked with elisions.</p> - -<p>“Kit goes to the Berkleys’ a great deal, and that child misses -very little that happens, or is said where she is,” commented Miss -Carrington. “Minerva, I hope and pray that engagement is not broken! If -it is—no matter if Helen is lost to him, Kit shall not marry a nobody, -without family, money, beauty—beyond considerable sweet prettiness! He -shall <em>not</em>!”</p> - -<p>“As to that, Miss Carrington, it’s hard to say what will happen in a -world like this where promises mean nothing, and there’s no principle. -Once I, myself, had the promise of a real nice-mannered man, and gave -my own to him, but here I am and have been these twenty years gone! One -thing more Mrs. Lumley told me: She said Mr. Latham had telegraphed Mr. -Wilberforce to come on as quick’s he conveniently could.”</p> - -<p>“Mr. Wilberforce! It was he got that situation for Anne Dallas! It -looks as though she might have seriously displeased Mr. Latham that he -sends for the one responsible for her being there! Well, well, Minerva, -I’m truly afraid that the engagement is broken.”</p> - -<p>Miss Carrington arose with a long sigh to put herself into Minerva’s -hands to be made ready for the night.</p> - -<p>“Oh, there’s no mistake about it, Miss Carrington. Mrs. Lumley is a -good deal of a lump, but when it comes to things like that, when she -looks she sees, whether it’s behind blinds or close by. I thought you’d -find comfort in Mr. Wilberforce’s coming, having the hope that Miss -Dallas had done something<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_234"></a>234</span> she’d better not have done. Otherwise, I’m -free to confess, I think the chance of your holding back Mr. Kit is -pretty slender.”</p> - -<p>Minerva pulled her mistress’s shoulder snaps open viciously as she -spoke. She was troubled by Miss Carrington’s recent failure in health, -but she dearly liked to suggest that Kit might foil her.</p> - - - - -<div class="chapter"> -<hr class="divider x-ebookmaker-drop" /> -<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_235"></a>235</span> -</div> - - -<h2 id="xxi">CHAPTER XXI<br /> -<span>Wilberforce, the Painter</span></h2> - -<p class="noi"><span class="dropcap">B</span>IBIANA, little Anne’s former nurse, answered the telephone call.</p> - -<p>“This is Mr. Latham. May I speak to Miss Berkley?” said the voice at -the other end of the wire.</p> - -<p>“Do you want Mrs. Paul, that was Miss Joan?” asked Bibiana.</p> - -<p>“I want Miss Berkley, Miss Anne Berkley, please,” Richard insisted, -and Bibiana turned away with a grunt. “Just little Anne! Anne, come -and speak to Mr. Latham. He’s calling you,” she added to the child who -had fallen into the habit of loitering at hand when the telephone bell -rang, in the faint hope of getting a chance to talk over the wire.</p> - -<p>“Mr. Latham wants me to come to see him!” cried little Anne after a -brief and, on her part, chuckling telephone conversation. “Please, -Mother dear, mayn’t I?”</p> - -<p>“Why, yes. He must be lonely,” Mrs. Berkley hesitated. “But -don’t—well, there’s no use in trying to forestall your speeches, Anne! -I suppose you can’t do any more harm—or was it good? Run along, dear, -but first show me your hands and let me brush your hair.”</p> - -<p>Neat and decorous, little Anne presented herself in the Latham Street -house. Richard looked ill, but he smiled at the child, welcoming her -warmly.</p> - -<p>“It’s only a ceremonial call; we aren’t going to play anything, little -Anne,” he said. “Do you mind chatting? I felt the need of you, my -dear.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_236"></a>236</span> -Quick little Anne caught the note in his voice. She always stood in awe -of the poet, rarely was as perfectly at ease with him as with her other -adult friends, but now she ran to him and bestowed herself on the arm -of his chair and put her arm around his neck, her cheek on his head, as -if he were Peter in trouble.</p> - -<p>“I think it’s most fun of anything to talk when people will talk -sensible and int’resting,” she said.</p> - -<p>“I’ll try, Anne,” Richard said, weakly. “Do you think that by any -chance Anne in your case stands for Anomaly?”</p> - -<p>“No, just Anne,” said little Anne. “When I’m confirmed I shall take -some splendid name for my second one. When I was small I used to -think I’d take Ursula, but now sometimes I think Emerentiana; it’s -so—so—nobody has it.”</p> - -<p>“Poor Nobody!” said Richard, falling into his habit of playing with -little Anne. “Pretty hard on her to have that name! Where did you get -hold of it?”</p> - -<p>“She was a little girl stoned to death for being a Christian, in the -catacombs,” explained Anne. “They pegged rocks at her, those pagans! -Don’t you think it must have been awful to have lived in those times? -Either you were a Christian and got killed, boiled in oil, and -everything; or else you weren’t, and were terribly wicked. And if you -weren’t a noble character you might wobble when you had to choose.”</p> - -<p>Unexpectedly to himself, Richard laughed.</p> - -<p>“You might, indeed, little Anne! And I was right to invite you to see -me. I thought you’d elevate me in mind and spirits! If you were older -wouldn’t you come here to help me with my work, read to me, and all -that?”</p> - -<p>“Like—like to!” Little Anne corrected herself with no small adroitness -for a person of her age. “Do you suppose I could now? I’ve tried -Peter-two’s typewriter. It doesn’t go fast with one finger, my way, -and the letters get kind of snarled before each other and behind -each other; not the way they ought<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_237"></a>237</span> to stand in the word, but maybe -if I practised lots! I can read ’most anything that isn’t too queer -subjec’s; reading never bothers me dreadfully. Maybe you’d spell the -worst words?”</p> - -<p>“I’ll wait for you, little Anne!” promised Richard. “I’ll have to have -somebody else here while I’m waiting, but when you’re older I’ll toss -her lightly out of the window and open the door for you, bowing deeply -while you enter to take command of my typewriter, my books, my work, -and me.”</p> - -<p>“Well,” sighed little Anne, “I s’pose you have to wait! But I’ll be -eight in a little while and Mother says the older you grow the faster -the years whisk by. After my birthday Christmas is awf’ly long coming, -and it does seem a good while in winter before Easter, and the last -part of school’s kind of slow, but summer goes pretty fast. Maybe it -won’t seem so very, very long before I can help you?”</p> - -<p>“It won’t!” Richard assured her. “Especially if you come here a great -deal in the meantime. Little Anne, is Miss Dallas with your sister?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, she is,” little Anne admitted, hesitantly. “She’s right there.”</p> - -<p>“Is she well?” asked Richard.</p> - -<p>“Not so very exactly,” little Anne said, reluctantly. “But you can’t be -if you cry too much. It makes you feel as used up as anything to cry a -great deal, <em>I</em> think.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, it does! Is Anne crying a great deal, little Anne? Will you tell -her that I beg her to put me entirely out of her mind, and that I am -going on well?” cried Richard.</p> - -<p>“Well, yes, I will,” little Anne said. “But I don’t think it will stop -her worrying over you. I heard her tell Joan that the poem I found just -hunted her—or something; she meant she kept thinking about it.”</p> - -<p>“The poem you found? I don’t know it, little Anne. Where did you find -it? Why does it haunt her?” asked Richard.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_238"></a>238</span> -“Upstairs in your hall, quite long ago; about Fourth of July time. A -poem you’d written yourself. It was sort of hard for Anne to read it. -She thought first she had to copy it; then she didn’t. She made me put -it back just ’xactly where I found it,” little Anne explained.</p> - -<p>Richard gasped and fell back in his chair.</p> - -<p>“That!” he exclaimed. “You found that and showed it to Anne! And it -was not long after that she came to me—— Ah, now I understand, now -I understand! That was how she knew! She tried so hard, dear little -soul, she tried so hard to make me happy! I never quite saw why she -acted as she did till now. Little Anne, little Anne, you have played -an important part in my life. You have endowed me and impoverished me. -I don’t see why it all had to be, but I’ve no doubt that I shall some -day. Now tell me something else: Do you know whether Kit Carrington -knows that Anne is with your sister, and that she will never marry me? -For she never will, little Anne!”</p> - -<p>“Oh, I know that!” cried little Anne. “I don’t know whether Kit does or -not. Want me to tell him?”</p> - -<p>Richard almost smiled; a gleam of amusement went over his unhappy face.</p> - -<p>“Always ready to turn another beetle!” he said. “On the whole, yes, -little Anne. Tell him all that you know. It will be told in a better -way than if it were clearer. Anne will complete the story. And tell Kit -that I asked you to tell him. Tell him that I am anxious to hear that -Anne has stopped crying and is smiling at him. Tell him just that. And -that I send him my blessing—will you, dear?”</p> - -<p>“Yes,” said little Anne. “I’ll tell him to-day. He’s been to our house -’bout twice each day since Anne’s been at Joan’s. Anne won’t let him -come there, nor she won’t send him one word, not even on the telephone -by me. Joan told her she’d shake her, maybe, ’cause what was the use of -being mis’ble<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_239"></a>239</span> every way? I’ll tell Kit, Mr. Latham. And, Mr. Latham, -there’s a quite tall, thin man coming in here. He’s got a bag. Maybe -he’s a Mormon mish’nary; they do come like that. This one doesn’t look -like one, though; he’s much nicer. He’s got a brown moustache, and a -flat, boxy thing, and a bag.”</p> - -<p>“Wilberforce!” cried Richard, starting up so violently that he nearly -upset little Anne.</p> - -<p>That did not halt him. Leaving little Anne to take care of her -equilibrium, he rushed into the hall, seized the newcomer by the lapel -of his coat and cried, joyously:</p> - -<p>“Ted, dear old man, how did you make it so soon?”</p> - -<p>“Message came just in time for me to make the last train that connected -to get me here to-day,” said Ted. “You look like the mischief, Dick! -What has happened that you sent for me in such urgent haste?”</p> - -<p>“I’ll tell you the whole story later. It is Anne and I; that’s enough -for now. We’ve given it all up, Ted, fortunately,” said Richard.</p> - -<p>“Fortunately? Well, you don’t look it! What’s Anne been doing? I know -she never went back on anything in her life. So what have you been -doing? Though that’s as fool a question as the other,” said Edwin -Wilberforce, frowning.</p> - -<p>“Ted, I can’t talk about it now. Anne was only sorry for me, and -I discovered in time the cruel task she had put upon her blessed -little self. That’s all. Have you eaten? Stetson, Stetson, here’s Mr. -Wilberforce already! Order him a lunch, will you?” Richard called out -of the rear door in the hall. Then he brought his friend into his -library, taking his hat and bags, fussing over him with an affection -that eloquently told of the relation between the poet and the painter.</p> - -<p>“Well, of all things! Where did you find the little girl? I never -heard of her,” exclaimed Ted, amazed by the apparition of<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_240"></a>240</span> little Anne -sitting stiffly, her hands clasped in her lap, her feet crossed at the -ankles, on the arm of Richard’s chair.</p> - -<p>“This is Miss Anne Berkley, Mr. Wilberforce,” said Richard with a -gesture of courtly dignity for little Anne’s benefit. “She is an -intimate friend of mine who visits me often, with whom I play happily, -who will some day, she promises, when enough time has passed, come to -be eyes to me and help me to write poems and plays. She is a lady who -has a vocation which she herself discovered, and which proved to be -more significant as a prophecy than she foresaw. Her vocation, she one -day announced to her mother, is setting beetles on their feet when they -lie, helpless, on their backs. I have been one of her beetles, as I’ll -explain by and by. She goes to a convent school, and is in many ways -mediæval. She is one of a delightful family, Catholics of the right -sort. Anne is staying now with this little Anne’s lovable young matron -sister, Mrs. Antony Paul. And that is enough of the History of Queen -Anne the Less, isn’t it, little Anne?”</p> - -<p>“It is quite a lot,” she agreed. “Shall I go home now? I’ll come again.”</p> - -<p>“Would you mind shaking hands, Miss Little-Anne?” asked Edwin -Wilberforce, stooping from his great height to carry out his -suggestion. “I wish you would take me for another friend of yours. I -can play games and the jews’-harp! When you hear me play Wagner on the -jews’-harp you will be proud that you know me.”</p> - -<p>Little Anne looked up at him with dancing eyes. She did not know -Wagner, but she did know the jews’-harp.</p> - -<p>“I can play on blades of grass perfec’ly wonderful,” she said.</p> - -<p>“You’ll do!” shouted Ted Wilberforce. “We’ll have duets. Say, Miss -Little-Anne, I’d like to paint you! Seated in a chair with a high, -carved back, clad in a long, straight green gown falling to your feet, -and having a nice little, tight little white -<ins id="yoke" title="Original has 'yoke-top'">yoke top</ins> -<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_241"></a>241</span> -with a band around your throat; your hair straight and ribbonless on -each side of your thin little face, and in your hands, resting on your -knees, a fine old tooled “Book of Hours” which I own! I’d call the -picture—call it—The Mystic! That’s it! With that face and those eyes, -visions just beyond, eh, Dick?”</p> - -<p>“You’ve got her,” agreed Richard. “Will you sit, little Anne?”</p> - -<p>“Do you paint people?” inquired little Anne. “I thought you put cows in -your pictures. Mr. Latham has a lovely, still field with a cow in it; -he said you painted it.”</p> - -<p>“<em>Still</em> field! Fair for adjectives, eh, Dick?” cried Ted, -delighted. “I assure you, Miss Little-Anne, that I also paint -portraits. Will you sit to me?”</p> - -<p>“I’d perfec’ly love it!” said little Anne. “But I never was pretty; I -was always dark and thin. I thought sitters were pretty. I have a niece -who is the prettiest child in all the world. She’s so fat and pink she -has to dimple. I never was a fas’nating child like Barbara, but if -you’d like to paint my picture I’d be so pleased I couldn’t say it. And -there’s one thing, I can sit as still!”</p> - -<p>“Then that’s settled! And when you sit to me we shall chat all the -time, and possibly we shall let Mr. Latham come to help us talk. -I’m going to stay awhile; we’ll meet often, I hope. Good-bye, Miss -Little-Anne.”</p> - -<p>Ted Wilberforce shook hands again with little Anne; plainly he had -capitulated to her at once.</p> - -<p>Little Anne put her arms around Richard’s neck and kissed him hard.</p> - -<p>“Good-bye, dear; I shall pray for you lots, for you’re really quite -pale,” she whispered.</p> - -<p>“The dear little saintly old lady!” cried Ted, who had caught the -whisper and was watching little Anne away with amusement that was not -wholly amusement.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_242"></a>242</span> -Miss Carrington on this morning had encountered Kit in a mood that -she did not recognize. She had spoken to him of the broken engagement -between Richard Latham and Anne Dallas. She found that Kit was prepared -to announce to her, not the accomplished fact, but his resolution that -his own engagement to Anne Dallas would soon follow this break.</p> - -<p>“Do I know what caused this break between Miss Dallas and Mr. Latham? -Certainly I do, Aunt Anne. Mr. Latham learned that Miss Dallas and I -love each other. We had agreed that she must fulfil her promise to Mr. -Latham, but, naturally, he wouldn’t marry a girl who loved another man! -Like the honourable man that he is he renounced his own happiness for -hers. Anne won’t see me yet; she is miserably unhappy about Latham, but -she will see me, and it won’t be long before I introduce my wife to -you, Aunt Anne,” said Kit.</p> - -<p>“I hope so, but you won’t introduce Anne Dallas to me as your wife,” -Miss Carrington had answered, instantly in a towering rage as she -recognized in Kit a determination that made him at once a man to be -reckoned with. At the same time her own, new physical weakness was more -perceptible as her temper rose.</p> - -<p>“Christopher Carrington, I will not consent to your marriage to that -girl! Nothing against her personally, but she is fortuneless, nameless, -no family, no anything! Never!”</p> - -<p>“Nonsense, Aunt Anne! Please don’t talk foolishly,” said Kit, and left -her almost choking in enraged surprise that Kit had dared to dismiss -her as ridiculous.</p> - -<p>By the afternoon Miss Carrington had regained her self-command, and -with it her usual cunning. It was notorious that love was whetted by -opposition; she must try in some other way to circumvent Kit. She -discussed the situation with Helen Abercrombie, who heartlessly laughed -at her.</p> - -<p>“Try everything you can think of, Miss Carrington! By all<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_243"></a>243</span> means see -Anne Dallas and convey to her the harm she’d do Kit if she married him -against your will; that you can punish him roundly. But it’s my candid -opinion that you would do yourself less harm lying down and reading a -problem novel, and just as much affect Kit’s silly determination. The -conclusion I’ve reached during this visit in regard to Kit is that he -knows his own mind,” Helen said.</p> - -<p>Nevertheless, Miss Carrington summoned Minerva to array her in her -most impressive calling costume, and to order Noble to have the car -around at half-past four that she might solicitously inquire after Anne -Dallas’s welfare, having heard that she was not well.</p> - -<p>“No kind of use in it, Miss Carrington,” Minerva remarked, getting down -to lace her mistress’s shoes. She did not specify what was useless, but -Miss Carrington was depressed by this identity of view on the part of -two such keen women as Helen and Minerva.</p> - -<p>On the way to Antony Paul’s house Miss Carrington met Edwin Wilberforce -walking alone toward the station. She bade Noble stop, and greeted the -artist cordially.</p> - -<p>“Delighted you are here, Mr. Wilberforce! I am anxious about Mr. -Latham. Won’t you get in?” she said.</p> - -<p>“No, thanks. I’m going down to look up some canvases I sent ahead; they -ought to be here. I hope you are well, Miss Carrington?”</p> - -<p>“Not altogether. I am too old to be bothered, and I am bothered.” Miss -Carrington spoke with an effect of involuntary frankness. “My foolish -nephew is troubling me, has fixed his silly will on a poor girl. Mr. -Latham also was attracted by her, and for him she would have been -excellent. He needs just her patient devotion; she is sweet and refined -in manner. But Kit has his name to make; Mr. Latham’s name would cover -his wife’s lack. I believe you recommended this girl to our poet.<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_244"></a>244</span> -She’s a nice little creature, but a penniless, nameless wife would be a -fatal mistake for Kit.”</p> - -<p>Edwin Wilberforce was regarding the old lady with an expression that -she was too engrossed to see. When she paused he laughed and said:</p> - -<p>“Oh, well, I’m prejudiced, but I think Wilberforce is not a bad name.”</p> - -<p>Miss Carrington stared at the irrelevancy of this remark.</p> - -<p>“But surely! Who could doubt it? Not only in itself, but when borne by -a famous artist! However, I really can’t see what that has to do with -Anne Dallas and my troubles.”</p> - -<p>This time Wilberforce stared. Then he laughed, and said:</p> - -<p>“Oh, don’t you? That’s rather good fun, Miss Carrington! But Dallas -is a good name, too, though if your nephew married Miss Dallas the -honourable name of Carrington would engulf it.”</p> - -<p>He raised his hat and walked on, somewhat unceremoniously, leaving the -old lady to puzzle over his queer speech.</p> - -<p>Miss Carrington was met by Joan with Barbara clinging unsteadily to her -skirt.</p> - -<p>“Thank you, Miss Carrington; Miss Dallas is well, rather tired. She is -on the side piazza, in a steamer chair, having a beautiful time reading -and resting. Will you go there? It is cooler to-day than the front -piazza.”</p> - -<p>Anne looked frail and sweet as Joan led Miss Carrington toward her. Her -face and gown were both colourless; her great dark eyes, her masses of -satin-smooth dark hair contrasted sharply with their setting.</p> - -<p>“Oh, Miss Carrington!” Anne exclaimed, springing to her feet; she was -no longer pale.</p> - -<p>“Dear little Miss Dallas, I hope that you are better?” said Miss -Carrington in her cool voice, with its clear-cut, Italian-like -articulation. “I am so extremely sorry about this disaster and<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_245"></a>245</span> for -you, enmeshed in it, that I have come to tell you so. Besides, my dear, -I want to know you better and I truly think it may be well for you to -know me.”</p> - -<p>“I will not dispute the latter clause, Miss Carrington,” said -Anne, pulling forward a chair and motioning Miss Carrington into -her abandoned steamer chair. She smiled as she spoke, and Kit’s -aunt admitted to herself the charm of Anne’s face and manner, -the irresistible attraction of her voice. “You are kind to be so -sympathetic to me. I am unhappy. I am horrified to know that I have -given Mr. Latham pain.”</p> - -<p>“Surely, you would be. It is most unfortunate. Don’t you think that -after a time, perhaps a long time, you will be able to convince him -that there is no obstacle between you?” suggested Miss Carrington. Anne -turned and looked at her intently.</p> - -<p>“Why, no, Miss Carrington,” she said after a brief pause.</p> - -<p>“Dear child, I must be frank with you.” Miss Carrington spoke gently as -if to soften her effect. “You fancy that you are fond of my boy; he is -quite sure that he is fond of you. Doubtless you are both right—for -the time being. But men do not die of love now any more than when -Polonius went to that reversed supper. Kit will get over his fancy, -sweet as you are, and so will you recover from yours, fine as the -boy is. As to that, even my partiality cannot see that Kit surpasses -Richard Latham! Though I sincerely admire you, I will never consent -to your marriage with Kit! He is to make his name in the world, as I -told you when I spoke of him to you several weeks ago. He has allowed -the marriage that I meant him to make to slip through his fingers. You -naughty, pretty child, I wonder what share you had in that? But there -are plenty of opportunities for a personable man like Kit to marry -advantageously. You have no money, no social position. Pardon me, Miss -Dallas, but we must deal with facts. It is my duty to see that Kit -gets one or both of these things in marrying. I applaud your<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_246"></a>246</span> sense in -refusing to see Kit since your engagement to Mr. Latham was broken. -Let me beg you to continue to refuse to see him! I am sure you are too -noble a girl to spoil his life. Whatever nonsense Kit talks about love -as a compensation for more solid, more enduring good, it is perfectly -true that if you married him you would spoil his life. I should alter -my plans for him, and he would have a pittance, whereas, if he pleases, -he will have wealth.”</p> - -<p>Miss Carrington paused for a reply, but Anne, who had made no move to -interrupt her long discourse, still did not speak. She was paler than -she had been when Miss Carrington arrived, and she was at once wishing -that Joan would come to her rescue, and dreading that she might come -and speak her mind to this formidable old lady.</p> - -<p>As Anne remained silent, Miss Carrington spoke again:</p> - -<p>“I met Mr. Latham’s friend, Mr. Wilberforce——”</p> - -<p>“Oh, has he come!” Anne interrupted her with a glad cry.</p> - -<p>“Yes,” Miss Carrington showed surprise. “And knowing that he is Mr. -Latham’s close friend I said to him practically what I’ve said to you. -I think he agreed with my estimate of the value of a family name, for -he—somewhat irrelevantly—said that Wilberforce was a distinguished -name.”</p> - -<p>Unexpectedly Anne laughed, much as Wilberforce had laughed.</p> - -<p>“Did you say all this to him? Yes, the Wilberforces are all reverent to -their family,” she said, her eyes dancing.</p> - -<p>Miss Carrington drew herself up; she did not intend that this young -person should find her amusing.</p> - -<p>“One would infer from that remark your acquaintance with the -Wilberforce family,” she said.</p> - -<p>Again Anne laughed.</p> - -<p>“Yes, I know the Wilberforces rather intimately; my mother was one of -them. She and Edwin Wilberforce’s father were sister and brother,” she -said.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_247"></a>247</span> -“What!” cried Miss Carrington, half rising.</p> - -<p>“Dear Miss Carrington, don’t mind! I don’t, and it will only amuse Ted. -He and I have an indecorous sense of humour. Isn’t it funny, really? I -see dear old Ted coming down the street this minute,” cried Anne.</p> - -<p>Miss Carrington rose fully this time and positively ran away. She was -not often placed, and by herself, at a disadvantage; she was not minded -to face two pairs of dark eyes dancing with that “indecorous sense of -humour.”</p> - -<p>Ted Wilberforce ran up the steps as Miss Carrington drove away.</p> - -<p>He gathered Anne into his arms, crying:</p> - -<p>“Dear little white Nancy, what sort of mischief have you been up to? -Poor kid! Hard luck all around to be so sweet a thing that everyone -loves you! Don’t cry, little Coz! I won’t beat you if you have hit my -best friend hard and broken him all up; you couldn’t help it, Anne, -dear!”</p> - - - - -<div class="chapter"> -<hr class="divider x-ebookmaker-drop" /> -<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_248"></a>248</span> -</div> - - -<h2 id="xxii">CHAPTER XXII<br /> -<span>Exits and Entrances</span></h2> - -<p class="noi"><span class="dropcap">M</span>ISS CARRINGTON’S dignified house was shaken out of its settled -monotony.</p> - -<p>Helen Abercrombie was going home. Her father, the ex-governor, was -coming for her; he was to pass a night under his old friend’s roof, and -them resume his way, taking with him his handsome daughter to entertain -for him guests of political importance. George Lanbury had arranged to -travel with them. He had stayed on at the Cleavedge Arms to receive -formally the ex-governor’s acceptance of him as his future son-in-law.</p> - -<p>Miss Carrington herself was decidedly shaken in health; her nerves were -on edge, her digestion a misnomer, and her heart was acting badly.</p> - -<p>It had been a trial almost beyond bearing that Kit had laughed at her -attempt to control his marriage—had good-humouredly, but decidedly, -flouted her hint of punishment for disobeying her or reward for his -obedience. She had for so long been ensconced behind her pride and -paramount will that it was a disintegrating shock to discover that she -might be regarded merely as one of the many prejudiced elderly women in -the world whose prejudices should be kindly tolerated as long as they -affected nothing in particular, but which were to be put down when they -overflowed this barrier.</p> - -<p>She raged to discover that Kit considered her views silly whims, that -the worst that she could do to him was a featherweight in<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_249"></a>249</span> comparison -with Anne Dallas; most unbearable of all, that her rage accomplished -nothing but to throw her into greater impotence.</p> - -<p>Kit had brought Helen’s father from the station; he went down with -Noble to meet him.</p> - -<p>The ex-governor was a man of soldierly bearing, with keen eyes, a -drooping white moustache, useful in concealing the expression of -his lips, and thick, prematurely white hair. Helen looked like him. -His face was not less that of a citizen of the world than hers, but -something—years or nature—modified in him the hardness that impaired -his daughter’s beauty.</p> - -<p>Kit ushered ex-Governor Abercrombie into the library and went in search -of his aunt. He returned to say:</p> - -<p>“My aunt, as I told you, Mr. Abercrombie, is not well. She begs you to -allow her one more hour of rest before coming down. Helen is driving -with Mr. Lanbury. Shall I take you to your room, or would you rather -sit here? Smoking is not forbidden in my aunt’s house. May I?” Kit -offered Mr. Abercrombie his cigar case.</p> - -<p>“I’ll wait here till Helen comes. I suppose Lanbury will return with -her? I’d like to bless them personally as soon as possible; I have -blessed them by telegraph and mail.”</p> - -<p>The ex-governor took a cigar, cut its tip, and looked at Kit with -humorous eyes as he spoke.</p> - -<p>“I’m told that you didn’t want to marry my girl!” he continued, to -Kit’s chagrin. “Yet she’s a handsome creature and clever. Helen conveys -to me the impression that you understood that she and your aunt -approved of your marrying her, but that you would rather have a certain -pretty little person of whom their estimate is not high. Helen is -emancipated; she would make her opinions clear to you, if I know her! -She surely is a princess, and if you were my son I should have done -everything possible to push your fortunes. What is the reason you<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_250"></a>250</span> were -so obdurate, Master Kit? As it’s settled, you need not answer unless -you wish. I’m simply curious.”</p> - -<p>Kit looked up with a frank laugh and a blush that pleased Helen’s -father.</p> - -<p>“You see I loved Miss Dallas and didn’t love your splendid Helen, Mr. -Abercrombie,” he said. “I suppose it does seem stupid to you, but wait -till you see Miss Dallas! I think a man of your experience would admire -her, and say she’s a girl to love.”</p> - -<p>Mr. Abercrombie smiled down at the tip of his cigar as he knocked off -its ashes with his little finger.</p> - -<p>“I don’t find your attitude blameworthy, Kit,” he said.</p> - -<p>He was silent for a moment, then he looked up with a shadow in his eyes.</p> - -<p>“I had my dream, too, Christopher. I didn’t marry the girl; perhaps -it’s as well, but there’s always a lurking doubt about a lost joy. She -was a mighty sweet, fine girl, with something in her charm I never -saw in any other woman. I suppose that’s common to all first love. I -married well; wisely, don’t you see? It was a comfortable marriage. But -I’m not so sure wise marriages are always wholly wise. I’m not inclined -to condemn you for following your star. In fact, it has delighted me to -find you the man your boyhood promised you’d be. I was greatly pleased -to learn how loyally you stood by your colours. I shall do my best to -talk your aunt over to our side. Helen is the twentieth-century jewel, -fit in every way to hold her own. But if you love your unambitious -girl, go ahead and marry her, and tell the world and the flesh to go to -the devil! I’ll do what I can to help you to business success, so don’t -worry, Kit.”</p> - -<p>Kit had sat listening to this long speech, his extinct cigar forgotten -in his hand, amazement growing at each word. When Mr. Abercrombie ended -Kit cried:</p> - -<p>“Why, Governor Abercrombie, what a trump you are! I’d<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_251"></a>251</span> no idea you’d -be sympathetic! Aunt Anne will listen to you, of course. But I’m going -into business in New York, so I don’t suppose you can help me to get -rich—no end grateful just the same! It’s enough if you can help me -with Aunt Anne.”</p> - -<p>“Political influence reaches out farther than you may think, my boy; -I’ll get at your business in some way, trust me! I’d like to see Miss -Dallas. Think it can be managed?” asked Mr. Abercrombie.</p> - -<p>“She won’t see me,” Kit admitted, cheerfully. “But that’s a temporary -state of things. We shall be married soon, that’s certain. I -wonder—wouldn’t it be a good thing to get Aunt Anne to ask her here? -Her cousin, Edwin Wilberforce, the artist, is staying with his great -friend, Mr. Latham. I wonder if Aunt Anne could be persuaded to ask -Anne and her cousin here together? It’s such a neat way out of a mess -to ignore it with a casual invitation!”</p> - -<p>“Wilberforce, the artist, her cousin?” Mr. Abercrombie looked so -pleased that there could be no question of his sincere desire to smooth -the course of this true love.</p> - -<p>“If your aunt cares about connections there is glory in being Edwin -Wilberforce’s cousin! It seems to me, my boy, that we shall certainly -have Miss Carrington pouring libations to Eros!”</p> - -<p>Mr. Abercrombie found that it was easier to veto a state law than to -alter the unwritten law of a woman’s will. His stay was not long enough -to bring Miss Carrington to the point of striking her colours. She -would not gratify him by admitting the justice of the proposition which -he laid before her.</p> - -<p>Helen’s kindly father left Cleavedge at two o’clock on the following -day. At the informal dinner of the evening of his arrival Mr. -Abercrombie had met and accepted Helen’s future husband. Kit thought -that it was not a wholly agreeable duty; several times he caught Mr. -Abercrombie watching George Lanbury and scrutinizing Helen.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_252"></a>252</span> -Helen was at her best beauty and brilliance. Lanbury was entirely -sure of himself, treated her father with easy assurance and Kit with -condescending amusement. Not only Kit, but also Helen’s father, knew -that he believed himself to have stolen the girl from Kit’s longing -arms and that Kit was suffering in consequence, though he succeeded -in not wearing his heart upon the sleeve of either of these defrauded -limbs.</p> - -<p>“Helen will put it all over him, but he will not always be pleasant,” -thought the astute father. “She was right to want this gallant boy.”</p> - -<p>The next day Miss Carrington was nervously anxious to have the hour of -departure arrive; she was ill enough to want everything that was to -happen to be quickly over and done. She did not attempt to go to the -station, but bade Helen good-bye in her library. Helen lightly kissed -Miss Carrington farewell. She was regal in her gray-green costume with -its small hat, a touch of gold its sole ornament, risking comparison -with her hair and losing by the venture.</p> - -<p>“I’ve had a wonderful visit. You’ve been delightful to me, dear Miss -Carrington,” Helen said. “I hope you’ll rest and regain your strength. -Come to visit me when I’m settled down. That will not be for some time, -but come when I am established. I’ll be married at Christmas, if I can -get things made by then. We may go abroad for the honeymoon; we have -not settled our plans. But they will include a visit from you when I’m -in my own house. Good-bye. Are you going to the station with us, nice -Kit? That’s dear of you! Parting <em>is</em> sweet sorrow, and this one -will lead to a lovers’ meeting, I trust. Tell your brown lass that I -congratulate her, though custom reserves congratulations to the man. -Come, Father, I’m ready.”</p> - -<p>“Good-bye, Miss Carrington. Get strong fast,” said Helen’s father, -looking annoyed. “Think over my prescription. I’ll guarantee your -recovery if you follow it up. Good-bye.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_253"></a>253</span> -Kit handed Helen into the car, put the bags in after Mr. Abercrombie, -then got up beside Noble and they drove away. A good deal had happened -since Helen had arrived. Kit realized that he was not the inexperienced -boy who had greeted her.</p> - -<p>No sooner were they gone than Miss Carrington hastened upstairs, -calling as she reached the top:</p> - -<p>“Minerva, Minerva, make haste!”</p> - -<p>“I do not think that you should go, Miss Carrington,” protested -Minerva, ready with Miss Carrington’s hat, coat, and gloves.</p> - -<p>“Don’t you? Did you order a carriage?” asked her mistress.</p> - -<p>It appeared that Minerva had, though under protest, and Miss Carrington -hurried her dressing. She bade the livery carriage driver to take her -to Latham Street, and to wait.</p> - -<p>Miss Carrington appeared unexpectedly in Richard’s quiet room. -She found him in his favourite chair, peacefully taking part in -conversation with Ted Wilberforce and his sitter.</p> - -<p>The sitter was little Anne, costumed as the artist had planned, in a -soft green silken gown that fell to her ankles. It was touched with -dull gold to relieve it, and it had a white yoke, and a narrow white -band around the slender throat. Her dark hair fell straight against -her cheeks, and her hands, lying on her knees, held a rare old tooled -leather “Book of Hours.” A dark carved chair of mediæval Italian design -was her throne, and her little feet rested on a carved footstool. Her -eyes were shining, for, to call into her face the expression that he -wanted to paint, Ted Wilberforce had talked to her of poetry and of -heavenly things.</p> - -<p>“Good heavens!” exclaimed Miss Carrington, stopping short.</p> - -<p>She knew a great deal about pictures, and she saw that the picture -before her was wonderfully beautiful, from both an artistic and a -literary point of view.</p> - -<p>“Don’t let me interrupt, I beg,” she said, delight shining in<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_254"></a>254</span> her -eyes. “When I lived in Paris I knew many of the artists and rejoiced in -seeing pictures grow. But this one! Wilberforce or Carpaccio? And what -do you call it?”</p> - -<p>“‛The Mystic,’ Miss Carrington,” said Wilberforce, resuming the brush -that he had laid down.</p> - -<p>The picture was well on toward completion; the artist worked rapidly, -with swift, sure instinct and obedient strokes.</p> - -<p>“Exactly!” Miss Carrington’s approval of the name was manifest. “Little -Anne, you are a fortunate child, yet I think you help the artist.”</p> - -<p>“Mr. Wilberforce has been telling me stories about Fra Angelico, -and how he prayed and prayed to be fit to paint Our Lord and his -Blessed Mother. And he told me about Fra Bartolomeo and how he went -to the monastery where they attacked Sav-on-a-ro-la.” Little Anne -pronounced the long name carefully. “And it has been most good for me. -‛<i xml:lang="it" lang="it">Fra</i>’ means ‛brother,’ Miss Carrington. I’m afraid you don’t -know about monks, but I do. Sisters are the same, only ladies, and I go -to their school. I told Mr. Wilberforce and Mr. Latham lots of stories, -too; all about St. Francis and the animals. He called them ‛Brother -Wolf’ and ‛Sister Bird,’ and he loved them dearly! I don’t know what -he’d ever have done if he’d seen Kitca! Or Cricket! Do you think when -they look down, saints can see animals? Don’t you think they must, -because they see me, and I’m always forever hugging Cricket and Kitca?”</p> - -<p>Little Anne leaned forward eagerly, but instantly remembered and -resumed her pose. Her eyes were filled with the vision that her own -question called up, and Ted worked rapidly on the eyes in his picture.</p> - -<p>“My dear little Anne, it seems to me quite as probable——” Miss -Carrington checked herself. How could she insinuate her cavilling doubt -to this child?</p> - -<p>“I am certain that the saints see and love the creatures,” she<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_255"></a>255</span> said -instead, to her own surprise. Then she turned to Richard with a -gentleness that he had never before felt in her.</p> - -<p>“And you, Mr. Latham? Are you well? Shall you stay with us in Cleavedge -next winter?” she asked.</p> - -<p>“I am perfectly well, thank you, Miss Carrington,” Richard said. “No, -not Cleavedge next winter. Ted Wilberforce and I are to foregather -in New York; he has a studio there. He will paint; I shall write. We -expect to have a sort of curtailed Parnassus; two of the Nine dwelling -with us. Ted and I get on together, so the good old boy will take me -in. We may go to Rome, but in the spring we’ll be back here.”</p> - -<p>“I am truly delighted!” cried Miss Carrington, and she looked so. “That -is perfect! Mr. Wilberforce, I want to beg your pardon. I did not know -when I met you the other day that you were related to Miss Dallas. Will -you do me a great favour and prove that I am forgiven? Will you bring -your cousin to see me—to-day?”</p> - -<p>Before Ted Wilberforce could answer, Richard interposed.</p> - -<p>“Miss Carrington,” he said, “permit me. You will admit my right to say -this. I am thankful that you are making this overture. Will you go all -the way and welcome Miss Dallas as your daughter? In all the world -there is no other who would be to you what she would be. I shall be -grateful if you can break down her scruples, make her give Kit his due, -and you, with them, be happy ever after! It’s such a pity to waste a -day of happiness in an uncertain world! Will you ease my mind by giving -me this promise, Miss Carrington?”</p> - -<p>“Yes,” said Miss Carrington, gruffly. “I had already decided that I was -a fool.”</p> - -<p>“Good news!” cried Richard, springing up and seizing her hands. “Ted, -will you carry out your share of this programme, bring Anne to Miss -Carrington—when, Miss Carrington?”</p> - -<p>“Now. I have a carriage waiting. Shall we go to fetch her?<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_256"></a>256</span> Little -Anne may come. No one will see her costume in the carriage,” said Miss -Carrington. Ted Wilberforce hesitated. He loved Anne, was impatient for -her happiness, to see her trouble go, her joy come, but—Richard? He -could not bear to leave him alone while they went on this errand.</p> - -<p>“Why not go alone, Miss Carrington? I’ll stay with Latham. You go to -fetch Anne yourself. Take little Anne, but I stay here. It’s you and I -together now, Dick, so I stay with you to-day,” he said.</p> - -<p>Richard went toward him and the two men met as Ted came forward from -his easel. They put their hands on each other’s shoulders, and Miss -Carrington felt her eyes grow moist. This was a love that passed the -love of women, and it made itself felt as these two friends stood -silent for an instant, giving and taking devotion.</p> - -<p>“All right, old Ted, stay with me,” was all that Richard said.</p> - -<p>“I’ll tell Anne Dallas he is not desolate, though she must know through -her cousin,” thought Miss Carrington, profoundly thankful that Richard -had this friend.</p> - -<p>Little Anne had looked on this scene and listened to what had been said -with intense though puzzled interest. It was clear to her that she was -to go with Miss Carrington in a carriage, to see Anne, but nothing else -was clear to her.</p> - -<p>“Do I stop sitting, Mr. Wilberforce?” she asked.</p> - -<p>“For to-day. There needs but few more sittings, little Anne. The -picture will be done in four or five more, I’m sure. Then it will -be exhibited in New York, and people will wonder who is Edwin -Wilberforce’s dark little Mystic! And only a few of us will be let -into the secret that it is the smallest Anne!” Ted offered his hand to -little Anne to help her down from the chair.</p> - -<p>She seized it and kissed it.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_257"></a>257</span> -“Doesn’t God send me the dearest people!” she sighed.</p> - -<p>Miss Carrington bore the child off with her, Ted seeing them to the -carriage. He returned to Richard and to the putting away of his easel, -brushes, and colours, and stood the wet canvas carefully against the -wall on one of the bookcases.</p> - -<p>Neither man was inclined to talk. This was definitely the end of -Richard’s short dream of joy. But he was not alone; and both men were -gratefully aware of the value of their friendship now.</p> - -<p>Joan looked up in surprise when she saw little Anne in costume; she was -more surprised when Miss Carrington followed her from the carriage.</p> - -<p>“I can’t touch your glove, Miss Carrington; I’ve been washing bluing -from every inch of the baby’s surface—she had got the bottle! But -please come in! I’ll repeat the operation on myself. Anne is upstairs. -Do you want her?” Joan asked.</p> - -<p>“Yes, Mrs. Paul; I want her,” said Miss Carrington.</p> - -<p>Joan caught the emphasis.</p> - -<p>“Anne, Anne,” she said in a stage whisper, as she hurried into Anne’s -room. “Come, quick! Our aunt has capitulated; the stage is set for your -entrance! She gave me the clue! Miss Carrington is downstairs!”</p> - -<p>Anne went down trembling. Miss Carrington stood awaiting her, and came -to meet her.</p> - -<p>“Please forgive me, my dear, forgive my old attitude toward you. I -think you will, later. Come home with me. I have just left your cousin. -He was coming here with me, but at the last moment decided to stay -with Mr. Latham. Come home with me, dear Anne, and forgive me for not -yielding sooner to what I thought a mistake of Kit’s. Now I want you to -make him happy,” she said.</p> - -<p>“Oh, how can I? Home with you? But—that would be—does Kit know?” -stammered Anne.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_258"></a>258</span> -“It would be coming to us for good and all? Surely! I hope so! How can -you? How can you not? Hasn’t there been enough time wasted, enough -sighs sighed and tears shed, not to delay longer? Kit does not know; it -is to surprise him. Don’t hesitate, Anne! You’ve played a noble rôle, -nobly. Be big enough now to throw aside pride and accept your part. -Come to Kit, my child, and forgive me.”</p> - -<p>Miss Carrington spoke eagerly; she swayed slightly, and her weakness -moved Anne’s pity. After all she was, as the girl had long known, a -sad, impoverished old woman, whose cleverness had led nowhere, whose -aims had been insignificant.</p> - -<p>Before she could gather herself together to meet this demand upon her -Anne felt little Anne’s arms clinging around her waist, and looked down -into the shining eyes of the child, lifted to hers above her quaint -gown.</p> - -<p>“I don’t quite know what it is, Anne, dearest,” little Anne whispered, -“only Miss Carrington says forgive her, and we have to, or it would -be a dreadful sin! You’ve got to forgive people, sorry ones, because -you’re so often a sorry one yourself—I mean all of us!”</p> - -<p>The elder and the younger Anne smiled at each other over the head of -the youngest Anne; the smile seemed to clear up the difficulty, to -simplify and make natural the next step.</p> - -<p>“You see you have the authority of the saints for it, Anne Dallas!” -said Miss Carrington.</p> - -<p>“I’ll go with you, Miss Carrington,” said Anne.</p> - -<p>Kit had come in before them and had gone to his room.</p> - -<p>Minerva followed her mistress and Anne up to Miss Carrington’s sitting -room; she helped Miss Carrington off with her outdoor garments, -meantime scanning Anne surreptitiously and reaching a favourable -verdict upon her.</p> - -<p>“Handsomer and grander Helen Abercrombie may be, but<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_259"></a>259</span> this sweet, good -kind for me! I’m glad Master Kit has the sense!” thought Minerva.</p> - -<p>“Better ask Mr. Christopher to come down, Minerva,” said Miss -Carrington when Minerva’s task was done, and Miss Carrington had taken -the teaspoonful of aromatic ammonia in water made necessary by the -exhausting nature of her afternoon’s mission.</p> - -<p>“Go behind that curtain, my dear, if you please. We may as well set our -little drama to the best of our ability, and get out of it every iota -of its flavour! I want to surprise the boy.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, no; oh, no; I can’t!” cried Anne.</p> - -<p>Nevertheless, she obediently hid behind the heavy portière that hung -ready to shut off draughts from the door.</p> - -<p>Kit came in whistling softly through his teeth.</p> - -<p>“Want me, Aunt Anne?” he asked, checking his sibilant tune.</p> - -<p>“Yes, my dear. I wanted—wanted—to show you a—a statuette I have. -It’s behind the portière. Please go over and get it,” said Miss -Carrington, struggling to speak naturally.</p> - -<p>Unsuspecting Kit went. He pulled the portière, but it was held. He went -at it again more vigorously, and, suddenly, it swung loose, as fingers -clasping it relaxed.</p> - -<p>There, shrinking back against the wall, her face flushed, with colour -that came and went, her eyes shining with joy, yet afraid, her lips -tremulous and infinitely sweet, stood Anne.</p> - -<p>“Good heavens! Anne!” cried Kit, stunned for a moment.</p> - -<p>But only for a moment. Then he had her in his arms, lifted her off her -feet, and kissed her all over the flushed, frightened, happy face.</p> - -<p>“You little goose! Why were you so long?” he cried.</p> - -<p>Then, as he realized what must have happened to bring her there, he -turned to his aunt.</p> - -<p>“Aunt Anne! Well, Aunt Anne! You’re the greatest Anne of the three!” he -cried.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_260"></a>260</span> -Anne swiftly ran past Kit and dropped on her knees before the oldest -Anne’s chair, her head on Miss Carrington’s lap.</p> - -<p>“Oh, I will be good! I will repay you! Please love me!” she cried.</p> - -<p>“Nonsense. I do!” declared the oldest Anne.</p> - - - - -<div class="chapter"> -<hr class="divider x-ebookmaker-drop" /> -<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_261"></a>261</span> -</div> - - -<h2 id="xxiii">CHAPTER XXIII<br /> -<span>The Fall of the Curtain</span></h2> - -<p class="noi"><span class="dropcap">T</span>HERE are many tests of youthfulness, the mirror the least accurate.</p> - -<p>“A man is as young as he feels,” we are told, but this is misleading. A -bad cold, a bill, an ill-cooked dinner, a few hours over-work, and the -youthful man of the morning may feel decrepit by night. Thoreau hits it -more nearly when he makes the thrill with which spring is hailed the -test of age; we are not old, he tells us, if the blood in our veins -runs swifter with the mounting sap; if we echo the joyousness of the -bluebird’s annunciatory warble.</p> - -<p>Akin to this under urban conditions is the expectant thrill with which -we await the curtain’s rise upon the drama. Both are anticipatory; both -mean youth’s impatience for the play. Each summer is heralded by vague -anticipation of delight; each play which we wait to see for the first -time hints of unknown pleasures. No one is jaded, no one really old, -who is eager for a new joy.</p> - -<p>By this test there was a youthful audience gathered in the Stratford -Theatre on a night of late November. Great things were said to be in -store for that audience. This was the first night of the first play by -Richard Latham, the poet.</p> - -<p>Those who had ways of knowing something of the play said that it was -“great!” Those who had no clue to what they were to see said that -Richard Latham never allowed anything to go forth over his name that -was unworthy of his growing fame.<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_262"></a>262</span> Obviously, when it was not a matter -of a poem in a magazine, but a play on the boards, he would be no less -exacting with himself. Consequently, there was a literary and dramatic -treat awaiting these first nighters.</p> - -<p>The orchestra was playing a Schumann overture to which it was -competent; the Stratford, under a renowned management, was deficient -in no department. In the stage box on the right sat ex-Governor -Abercrombie; with him his magnificently handsome daughter in a golden -gown and brilliant jewels; her husband-elect, his battered good looks -still striking, and a dark young woman in white who made an excellent -foil for the golden Helen, and who might have been George Lanbury’s -sister.</p> - -<p>Miss Carrington was in the next box, decidedly the elegant old-type -gentlewoman in shining silvery silk, point lace, and a few fine -diamonds. With her was her nephew, Christopher Carrington, tall and -straight, his face youthfully clear, radiating happiness.</p> - -<p>A girl as sweet as a flower in pale, rose-coloured crêpe, shrank -somewhat into the shadow of Miss Carrington’s shoulder. It was hard for -Anne to feel that Richard would not see her and lose something from -his hour of triumph. But though Richard knew precisely where Anne sat, -and had made Ted Wilberforce describe to him what she wore and how she -looked, it did not disturb him. He always wanted Anne, never forgot -that he was denied her; this was the established condition of his days; -to-night the play must be the thing.</p> - -<p>In the box next to the author’s were Mr. and Mrs. Berkley, Joan and -Antony, with Peter back of them, ready to stand if his view were -impeded, striving to act as though he had spent years going to first -nights in theatre boxes, devoutly hoping that his unaccustomedness -to plays was not perceptible to the eyes of the audience, which he -imagined were upon him. Joan alone<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_263"></a>263</span> had a divided mind. She had been -persuaded to leave her baby with Bibiana. Bibiana had been a devoted -nurse to little Anne, but when it came to a baby like Barbara, provided -you ever could come to a baby like Barbara, the risk of leaving her was -too great to get it out of mind. Joan eagerly waited for the curtain to -go up, but at the same time she was wondering if the nursery window was -down.</p> - -<p>The author’s box was the stage box on the left. The audience swayed -in an effort to see Latham better, but Richard sat in the shadow of -the drapery, additionally screened by a tall man whom those versed in -the affairs of the town recognized as Edwin Wilberforce, the painter, -Richard Latham’s devoted friend.</p> - -<p>In the front of the author’s box, leaning absorbed over its edge, -utterly unconscious that people noticed her and speculated on whom she -was, why she was chosen to be with Latham on this first presentation of -his play, sat a little girl. She was dark, thin, not precisely pretty, -but there was a ceaseless play of expression upon her eager little -face that placed her beyond mere childish prettiness. She was dressed -in filmy white material that threatened to be destroyed by her rapid -motions. There were many in the audience who had seen the exhibition -of American painters in the last week of October and the first week of -November, who recognized this child as the original of “The Mystic,” -Wilberforce’s picture, the finest picture of the exhibition, the one -most discussed, oftenest printed in sepia-tinted Sunday supplements.</p> - -<p>Little Anne turned at last from her absorbed yet horrified -contemplation of shoulder blades and spines in the parquette below, -the elevation of the box giving her ample opportunity for her study of -anatomy and ethics. She looked up at Ted Wilberforce with shocked eyes -and spoke to him with bated breath; Mr. Latham was lucky to be blind, -after all, she felt.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_264"></a>264</span> -“Do you s’pose, do you really, truly s’pose, they <em>all</em> thought -there wouldn’t be anybody here but just themselves?” little Anne asked.</p> - -<p>“Poor little Anne!” exclaimed Ted Wilberforce.</p> - -<p>He pitied the child’s pang at her first dash with the world in which at -least one of the inimical triumvirate runs at large. “It’s the custom -just now, dear; they don’t see it as we do—in a two-fold sense!”</p> - -<p>“I’m going to say a prayer for ’em. It’s awful!” groaned little Anne -with a shudder.</p> - -<p>Then she proved that everywhere she behaved as the same little Anne, by -closing her eyes, clasping her hands, and moving her lips fast, seated -in the front of the stage box.</p> - -<p>Having thrown the responsibility of rescuing these unfortunates, who -were perfectly self-satisfied, upon their Maker, little Anne turned -with zest to the stage.</p> - -<p>The curtain was slowly rising upon a peaceful river, flowing between -its banks under a marvellous effect of sunrise. The scene struck little -Anne as familiar.</p> - -<p>“It looks just like Cleavedge river, only I’m never out at sunrise,” -she said.</p> - -<p>“Mr. Wilberforce made the sketch; it is our river, Anne,” said Richard.</p> - -<p>He forgot his misfortune and leaned forward as if he might see the -heroine’s entrance. She emerged from the rosy mists that enveloped her, -a beautiful, effective entrance for the character that was to embody -youth, purity, and self-forgetful love.</p> - -<p>The audience applauded, but was quickly silent, for the girl was -speaking the lovely opening lines which embodied the aim of the play. -From this moment there was complete quiet over the house, the absence -of those fidgeting movements which reveal a lack of interest; the -silence was far higher praise than applause<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_265"></a>265</span> could be. Yet applause -followed on the first curtain fall, calling it up again and yet again, -and cries of “Author!” began to arise here and there, though the time -for them had not come.</p> - -<p>Visiting set in when the plaudits ceased. People streamed out into the -lobby, men came and hung over the orchestra chairs in which sat the -ladies who had so afflicted little Anne.</p> - -<p>Richard Latham’s box was besieged by acquaintances and newspaper men -in search of first-hand information as to how he had come to write -“The Guerdon,” what his idea was in producing a play so unlike the -usual thing, what he should write next, and all the other big-little -facts demanded by the public, which rightly sees biography as supremely -important.</p> - -<p>Ted Wilberforce had carried little Anne out to walk in the lobby, -lifting her over the crowd.</p> - -<p>“I’m afraid,” she said, seriously, as he set her down, “that people -will not know that I was eight last month. It makes you look even -less’n seven to be carried. But I thank you just the same, Mr. -Wilberforce, and it’s nice to walk the kinks out, and a box is quite -warm, though, of course, it sounds so.”</p> - -<p>The curtain rose on the second act with everyone back in his seat. That -alone proved how the play was taking.</p> - -<p>This act closed on a peculiarly silent house. There were handkerchiefs -fluttering against eyes which were not accustomed to moisten over -sentiment so simple, so denuded of all but a direct appeal to the -finest human ideals. “The Guerdon” voiced this appeal without much -supplementary stage craft. The acting was perfect. This time with calls -for the author came calls for the three principal actors.</p> - -<p>“Oh, if I could see them! They speak the lines as if they were -inspired!” sighed Richard, permitting himself to bemoan his blindness. -But he did not respond to the calls for a speech from him.</p> - -<p>“The third act is the test; I’ll try to say something after it, if<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_266"></a>266</span> it -pleases them,” Richard told the delighted manager who made his impeded -way into the poet’s box.</p> - -<p>When the curtain fell on the third act, after a moment’s hush the -applause was tempestuous, and this time there was no resisting the -enthusiastic shouts of “Author! Speech! Author!”</p> - -<p>Richard had not intended to resist his audience if it wanted him to -talk after this act. He arose and patted little Anne’s shoulder in -farewell.</p> - -<p>“Where are you going?” she asked.</p> - -<p>“I’m going on the stage, little Anne, and it might be as well to pray -for me to say the right thing as to pray for the ladies of the shoulder -blades,” said Richard, smiling.</p> - -<p>Little Anne at once closed her eyes, and obeyed him literally.</p> - -<p>Richard came forth from the side of the curtain, the same calm, gentle -Richard that little Anne knew at home, and she heard Ted Wilberforce -draw in his breath sharply.</p> - -<p>Richard stood bowing from left to right for a few minutes while the -audience frantically welcomed him. The pathos of his blindness had -never been more poignant.</p> - -<p>Then silence fell, the impressive silence of a concourse of people.</p> - -<p>“My friends,” Richard’s quiet, thrilling voice broke the silence, “it -is not custom that makes me call you my friends. It seems to me that in -your reception of my play there is a quality that means friendship for -the man that wrote it. Or is it that I like to think so? I am deeply -grateful to you. Having said that, I might stop talking, for what can -I add? Truly, indeed, I thank you! The first night of his first play -means a great deal to an author. It means pretty much what it must have -meant to Wendy, John, and little Michael to be taken by Peter Pan into -the Never Never Land. It means one’s dreams come true.</p> - -<p>“For three years I carried ‛The Guerdon’ around with me in vague, -mist-encircled thoughts of it, a waking dream. Gradually<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_267"></a>267</span> the -characters in it emerged farther and farther out of the mist, taking -shape as the events of that period of their lives with which the play -deals evolved and developed them. I knew what happened to these people -because I knew the people, and, again, I knew the people because of -what happened to them.</p> - -<p>“Perhaps we do not realize how much of us the events of our lives -reveal. There are certain things that cannot befall people of a certain -type, and the reverse is equally true: there are events almost sure to -befall a certain type of people. The law of attraction, it seems to me, -holds in all combinations, in all orders of creation. Circumstances -develop from within outward. Though we are acted upon extraneously it -is because we call forth and yield ourselves to the action.</p> - -<p>“Thus I came to know the people in this play through what happened to -them, and I understood what they must be to receive the particular -guerdon that you are seeing come to them. Nor has it seemed to me -that I caused these events of the play, nor created the people. It -is an unending marvel to us who write how wilful our puppets become, -how we stand aside and watch them make or mar their lives in spite -of us, precisely as do our other friends who are clothed in flesh. I -have had help in writing this play for which I shall be grateful all -my life. It grew in a quiet room in Cleavedge, and its writing was a -never-to-be-forgotten joy; a present joy that abides is mine, though -the play is done. Whatever comes to me later, I can never write another -first play, nor lose the happiness this one brought to me, crowned -to-night by your great kindness to it.</p> - -<p>“You have shown me that I have not quite failed to share the dream with -you. You approve ‛The Guerdon.’ With all my heart I thank you. That is -my guerdon. I am a happy man to-night. I am grateful to the men and -women who have embodied the people in the play as I knew them, but as -you could<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_268"></a>268</span> not know them but for this acting, since outside my brain -and that quiet room in Cleavedge these play-people had never ventured. -Out of a grateful heart I thank you all.”</p> - -<p>Anne shrank farther back as she listened to Richard talking here as -simply, as quietly as he had talked to her in that quiet room. His -allusion to it brought it before her so vividly that the theatre, the -audience were blotted out. She was back in that room, the bees humming -in the beautiful garden, their hum and the scent of the flowers they -were rifling coming in through the windows, open to the light breeze. -She knew that Richard was speaking to <em>her</em>, telling <em>her</em> -not to grieve, to remember that he was sincerely glad to carry with -him the memory of the days that had left him only memory. Kit, seeing -Anne’s face, came forward to take her chair and give her his place, a -little back of his aunt.</p> - -<p>“Don’t look like that, honey!” he whispered. “People will notice, and -hang and quarter me! There’s always someone about who knows too much! -I don’t care if Latham did write ‛The Guerdon!’ ‛But notta Carlotta! I -gotta Carlotta!’ However you pity him, you can’t marry us both, dear! -Latham is happy! That’s true. Look at him!”</p> - -<p>Richard was acknowledging the applause of his modest speech; his smile -was bright, his face shining. Ted Wilberforce was clapping with all his -might over little Anne’s head, and little Anne was waving both arms -over the rail of the box, leaning out of it dangerously, and shouting -shrilly:</p> - -<p>“You dear, you dear, you dear!” to the delight of everyone within range -of her clear, childish voice.</p> - -<p>Miss Carrington fell back in her chair after her emphatic applause of -Richard. She looked at Kit proudly, amusement and satisfaction in her -eyes.</p> - -<p>“Fancy being the power behind the throne, the victorious rival in a -scene like this, Master Kit! I’ve always thought<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_269"></a>269</span> you a nice lad, -Christopher, but I never expected to see you before the public, which -does not suspect your glory, the scorner of such a creature as yonder -splendid Helen; the victor over the winner of the laurels which muses -and men bestow! Is it possible that I ever bought you copper-toed -boots, and ordered mutton tallow on your properly scornful nose!” she -said.</p> - -<p>The fourth act followed, a worthy climax to the play, and when the -final curtain was rung down on “The Guerdon” Richard’s triumph was -complete. His box was full of flowers, masses of roses and orchids -bearing bits of cardboard, each with a well-known name engraved on it.</p> - -<p>“Too bad this isn’t a church!” observed little Anne, to whom flowers -and altars were synonymous.</p> - -<p>“I’ll send them all to the nearest church in your name, little Anne!” -declared Richard. “Now you and Ted come with me to the manager’s room. -I’m going to bid you good-bye there. Kit and Miss Dallas are coming. -They will not come to my supper of celebration, and you’re too small to -sup with me. So we’ll part, to meet again in Cleavedge in the spring.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, me!” sighed little Anne. “Nothing keeps right on. Heaven is best. -I don’t want you to go!”</p> - -<p>Richard and Ted Wilberforce, with little Anne, went to the manager’s -room.</p> - -<p>Anne and Kit were waiting there.</p> - -<p>Richard took Kit’s outstretched hand in both of his and held it. They -talked earnestly for a few minutes, while Ted talked to his cousin. -Anne was nervously fighting back her tears and Ted was evidently -reassuring her.</p> - -<p>Richard turned from Kit and crossed over to her.</p> - -<p>“We are the only ones who know how much of ‛The Guerdon’ is yours, -patient little collaborator!” he said. “I shall not see you till -spring. Ted and I have decided upon Rome in February. Then Cleavedge -for us both! Will you make a room for me in<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_270"></a>270</span> the new home which you’re -to begin at Easter? Kit says ‛Yes!’ Will Kit’s wife also welcome me?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, dear Richard, who so beloved or so welcome?” Anne cried.</p> - -<p>“Good-bye, then, for a time. I am content. What a night! And how much -of it due to you! I’m a lucky poet! Good-bye, dearest of women.” -Richard took Anne’s hand, held it for a moment, then relinquished it, -laying it down amid the folds of her skirt with a tiny smile. But his -lips had grown white, and the movement was like laying down a dead, not -a living hand. The three adults watching him knew that he then bade -farewell forever to Anne Dallas, whom he should always love.</p> - -<p>Then he turned to little Anne.</p> - -<p>“And good-bye to you, little Anne, darling, but only for a half year!” -he said.</p> - -<p>He stooped to kiss her, but little Anne threw her arms around him with -such a tempestuous embrace that he raised her, clinging to his neck, to -his breast.</p> - -<p>“If only nothing ever changed!” she sobbed.</p> - -<p>“What shall I bring you from Rome, dear child? I’ll be back when May -comes to Cleavedge.”</p> - -<p>Little Anne traced a tiny cross on his forehead with her thumbnail.</p> - -<p>“Only you. Take care of yourself and bring me you,” she said. “I shall -study hard’s I can to be ready to help you when you come home. I’m -going to learn to write on a typewriter and make squiggles so you can -tell me your works like Anne! But if you have time I’d just love to -have you pray for me in the catacombs!”</p> - -<p>“How I wish I could take you with me! It would be worth anything to -show you St. Peter’s, little Anne!” said Richard.</p> - -<p>“Oh, yes!” little Anne breathlessly agreed.</p> - -<p>Then she added, with one of her exalted moods suddenly<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_271"></a>271</span> sweeping her -beyond the grief of parting and the desire for Rome:</p> - -<p>“But every place is the same, if you’ve got God!”</p> - -<p>“What a valedictory to a theatrical triumph!” exclaimed Richard.</p> - -<p>Anne and Kit took little Anne’s cold hands and went away. Ted -Wilberforce followed them down the corridor to say good-bye to the -child and a last word to his cousin.</p> - -<p>“Good-bye, little Anne! Remember to love me with Richard. And go to -sleep in a trice, for this is dissipation, you know!” said Ted.</p> - -<p>Little Anne warmly returned his farewell kiss.</p> - -<p>“I’ve had a wonderful time, and I don’t truly think I could go to -sleep,” she said. “I’d just as lief as not sit up hours and hours to -talk about it to Mother and Father and Joan and Peter and everyone! -It’s rather wasteful to go to bed when you feel wide awake, ’way -through, don’t you think so? But good-bye, dear Mr. Wilberforce. I do -love you, too!”</p> - -<p>Ted returned to Richard to go with him to the supper that he was giving -to celebrate “The Guerdon.” Anne and Kit took little Anne with them -to the hotel where they all were to spend the night, and return to -Cleavedge in the morning.</p> - -<p>“It’s all over!” said Anne.</p> - -<p>“It’s all beginning, little wife!” Kit corrected her.</p> - -<p>“Isn’t something always like that, all over and just beginning?” asked -wise little Anne.</p> - - -<p class="center mt3">THE END</p> - - -<div class="section"> -<hr class="divider x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="figcenter width180" id="country-press"> - <img src="images/country-press.png" width="180" height="182" alt="colophon" /> -</div> - -<p class="center">THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS<br /> -GARDEN CITY, N. Y.</p> -</div> - - -<div class="section"> -<hr class="divider x-ebookmaker-drop" /> -<div class="tn"> -<p class="noi">Transcriber’s Note:</p> - -<p class="noi">Punctuation has been standardised. Spelling and hyphenation have been -retained as printed in the original publication except as follows:</p> - -<ul> -<li>Page 27<br /> -dropped back into his chiar <i>changed to</i><br /> -dropped back into his <a href="#chair">chair</a></li> - -<li>Page 67<br /> -lighty kissing Miss Carrington’s <i>changed to</i><br /> -<a href="#lightly">lightly</a> kissing Miss Carrington’s</li> - -<li>Page 76<br /> -Sister something-or-Other <i>changed to</i><br /> -Sister <a href="#Something">Something-or-Other</a></li> - -<li>Page 84<br /> -went so far as to to try <i>changed to</i><br /> -went so far as <a href="#to">to</a> try</li> - -<li>Page 149<br /> -the pity whth which <i>changed to</i><br /> -the pity <a href="#with">with</a> which</li> - -<li>Page 158<br /> -I’m sure I don’t knew <i>changed to</i><br /> -I’m sure I don’t <a href="#know">know</a></li> - -<li>Page 173<br /> -interpretating Kit’s unconsidered <i>changed to</i><br /> -<a href="#interpreting">interpreting</a> Kit’s unconsidered</li> - -<li>Page 240<br /> -tight little white yoke-top <i>changed to</i><br /> -tight little white <a href="#yoke">yoke top</a></li> -</ul> -</div> -</div> - -<hr class="divider2 x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ANNES ***</div> -<div style='text-align:left'> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will -be renamed. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part -of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project -Gutenberg™ electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG™ -concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark, -and may not be used if you charge for an eBook, except by following -the terms of the trademark license, including paying royalties for use -of the Project Gutenberg trademark. If you do not charge anything for -copies of this eBook, complying with the trademark license is very -easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose such as creation -of derivative works, reports, performances and research. Project -Gutenberg eBooks may be modified and printed and given away--you may -do practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks not protected -by U.S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject to the trademark -license, especially commercial redistribution. -</div> - -<div style='margin:0.83em 0; font-size:1.1em; text-align:center'>START: FULL LICENSE<br /> -<span style='font-size:smaller'>THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE<br /> -PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK</span> -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -To protect the Project Gutenberg™ mission of promoting the free -distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work -(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase “Project -Gutenberg”), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full -Project Gutenberg™ License available with this file or online at -www.gutenberg.org/license. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; font-size:1.1em; margin:1em 0; font-weight:bold'> -Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg™ electronic works -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg™ -electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to -and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property -(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all -the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or -destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works in your -possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a -Project Gutenberg™ electronic work and you do not agree to be bound -by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person -or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -1.B. “Project Gutenberg” is a registered trademark. It may only be -used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who -agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few -things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg™ electronic works -even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See -paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project -Gutenberg™ electronic works if you follow the terms of this -agreement and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg™ -electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation (“the -Foundation” or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection -of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works. Nearly all the individual -works in the collection are in the public domain in the United -States. If an individual work is unprotected by copyright law in the -United States and you are located in the United States, we do not -claim a right to prevent you from copying, distributing, performing, -displaying or creating derivative works based on the work as long as -all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Of course, we hope -that you will support the Project Gutenberg™ mission of promoting -free access to electronic works by freely sharing Project Gutenberg™ -works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for keeping the -Project Gutenberg™ name associated with the work. You can easily -comply with the terms of this agreement by keeping this work in the -same format with its attached full Project Gutenberg™ License when -you share it without charge with others. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern -what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are -in a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, -check the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this -agreement before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, -distributing or creating derivative works based on this work or any -other Project Gutenberg™ work. The Foundation makes no -representations concerning the copyright status of any work in any -country other than the United States. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other -immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg™ License must appear -prominently whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg™ work (any work -on which the phrase “Project Gutenberg” appears, or with which the -phrase “Project Gutenberg” is associated) is accessed, displayed, -performed, viewed, copied or distributed: -</div> - -<blockquote> - <div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> - This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most - other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions - whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms - of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online - at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you - are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws - of the country where you are located before using this eBook. - </div> -</blockquote> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg™ electronic work is -derived from texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (does not -contain a notice indicating that it is posted with permission of the -copyright holder), the work can be copied and distributed to anyone in -the United States without paying any fees or charges. If you are -redistributing or providing access to a work with the phrase “Project -Gutenberg” associated with or appearing on the work, you must comply -either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 or -obtain permission for the use of the work and the Project Gutenberg™ -trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg™ electronic work is posted -with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution -must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any -additional terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms -will be linked to the Project Gutenberg™ License for all works -posted with the permission of the copyright holder found at the -beginning of this work. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg™ -License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this -work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg™. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this -electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without -prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with -active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project -Gutenberg™ License. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, -compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including -any word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access -to or distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg™ work in a format -other than “Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other format used in the official -version posted on the official Project Gutenberg™ website -(www.gutenberg.org), you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense -to the user, provide a copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means -of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original “Plain -Vanilla ASCII” or other form. Any alternate format must include the -full Project Gutenberg™ License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, -performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg™ works -unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing -access to or distributing Project Gutenberg™ electronic works -provided that: -</div> - -<div style='margin-left:0.7em;'> - <div style='text-indent:-0.7em'> - • You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from - the use of Project Gutenberg™ works calculated using the method - you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed - to the owner of the Project Gutenberg™ trademark, but he has - agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the Project - Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments must be paid - within 60 days following each date on which you prepare (or are - legally required to prepare) your periodic tax returns. Royalty - payments should be clearly marked as such and sent to the Project - Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the address specified in - Section 4, “Information about donations to the Project Gutenberg - Literary Archive Foundation.” - </div> - - <div style='text-indent:-0.7em'> - • You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies - you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he - does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg™ - License. You must require such a user to return or destroy all - copies of the works possessed in a physical medium and discontinue - all use of and all access to other copies of Project Gutenberg™ - works. - </div> - - <div style='text-indent:-0.7em'> - • You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of - any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the - electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of - receipt of the work. - </div> - - <div style='text-indent:-0.7em'> - • You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free - distribution of Project Gutenberg™ works. - </div> -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project -Gutenberg™ electronic work or group of works on different terms than -are set forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing -from the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the manager of -the Project Gutenberg™ trademark. Contact the Foundation as set -forth in Section 3 below. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -1.F. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable -effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread -works not protected by U.S. copyright law in creating the Project -Gutenberg™ collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg™ -electronic works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may -contain “Defects,” such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate -or corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other -intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or -other medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that damage or -cannot be read by your equipment. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the “Right -of Replacement or Refund” described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project -Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project -Gutenberg™ trademark, and any other party distributing a Project -Gutenberg™ electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all -liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal -fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT -LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE -PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE -TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE -LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR -INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH -DAMAGE. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a -defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can -receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a -written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you -received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium -with your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you -with the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in -lieu of a refund. If you received the work electronically, the person -or entity providing it to you may choose to give you a second -opportunity to receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If -the second copy is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing -without further opportunities to fix the problem. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth -in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you ‘AS-IS’, WITH NO -OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT -LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied -warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of -damages. If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement -violates the law of the state applicable to this agreement, the -agreement shall be interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or -limitation permitted by the applicable state law. The invalidity or -unenforceability of any provision of this agreement shall not void the -remaining provisions. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the -trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone -providing copies of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works in -accordance with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the -production, promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg™ -electronic works, harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, -including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of -the following which you do or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this -or any Project Gutenberg™ work, (b) alteration, modification, or -additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg™ work, and (c) any -Defect you cause. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; font-size:1.1em; margin:1em 0; font-weight:bold'> -Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg™ -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Project Gutenberg™ is synonymous with the free distribution of -electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of -computers including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It -exists because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations -from people in all walks of life. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the -assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg™’s -goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg™ collection will -remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project -Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure -and permanent future for Project Gutenberg™ and future -generations. To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation and how your efforts and donations can help, see -Sections 3 and 4 and the Foundation information page at www.gutenberg.org. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; font-size:1.1em; margin:1em 0; font-weight:bold'> -Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non-profit -501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the -state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal -Revenue Service. The Foundation’s EIN or federal tax identification -number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent permitted by -U.S. federal laws and your state’s laws. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -The Foundation’s business office is located at 809 North 1500 West, -Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email contact links and up -to date contact information can be found at the Foundation’s website -and official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact -</div> - -<div style='display:block; font-size:1.1em; margin:1em 0; font-weight:bold'> -Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Project Gutenberg™ depends upon and cannot survive without widespread -public support and donations to carry out its mission of -increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be -freely distributed in machine-readable form accessible by the widest -array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations -($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt -status with the IRS. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating -charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United -States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a -considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up -with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations -where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To SEND -DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any particular state -visit <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/donate/">www.gutenberg.org/donate</a>. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we -have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition -against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who -approach us with offers to donate. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make -any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from -outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Please check the Project Gutenberg web pages for current donation -methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other -ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. To -donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate -</div> - -<div style='display:block; font-size:1.1em; margin:1em 0; font-weight:bold'> -Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg™ electronic works -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project -Gutenberg™ concept of a library of electronic works that could be -freely shared with anyone. For forty years, he produced and -distributed Project Gutenberg™ eBooks with only a loose network of -volunteer support. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Project Gutenberg™ eBooks are often created from several printed -editions, all of which are confirmed as not protected by copyright in -the U.S. unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not -necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper -edition. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Most people start at our website which has the main PG search -facility: <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -This website includes information about Project Gutenberg™, -including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to -subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. -</div> - -</div> -</body> -</html> diff --git a/old/65784-h/images/colophon.png b/old/65784-h/images/colophon.png Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index 79d82fe..0000000 --- a/old/65784-h/images/colophon.png +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/65784-h/images/country-press.png b/old/65784-h/images/country-press.png Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index c6274a1..0000000 --- a/old/65784-h/images/country-press.png +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/65784-h/images/cover.jpg b/old/65784-h/images/cover.jpg Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index c0ed374..0000000 --- a/old/65784-h/images/cover.jpg +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/65784-h/images/cover2.jpg b/old/65784-h/images/cover2.jpg Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index bee16f8..0000000 --- a/old/65784-h/images/cover2.jpg +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/65784-h/images/i004.jpg b/old/65784-h/images/i004.jpg Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index 279301e..0000000 --- a/old/65784-h/images/i004.jpg +++ /dev/null |
