The Gay Cockade Part 56

"I shouldn't let you do it," he hesitated, "but ghosts walk after dark in the Capitol corridors."

"I know," she nodded. "Was.h.i.+ngton, Jefferson, Lincoln."

"Yes. Then you'll come?"

"Of course."

It was the thought of her rendezvous with him that lighted her eyes when she talked to Murray. But Murray did not know. So he swayed up on his toes and glanced in the gla.s.s and was glad of his thinness and tallness.

Maxwell came for Anne promptly. "You must get me back by ten," she told him. "I have a key, and Charlotte's out."

It was a night of nights, never to be forgotten. Maxwell did not take Anne into the Gallery. He had not brought her there to hear speeches or to be conspicuous in the glare of lights. He led her through shadowy corridors--up wide dim stairways.

At one turn he touched her arm. "Look!" he whispered.

"What?"

"Lafayette pa.s.sed us--on the stairs."

It was a great game! On the east front Columbus spoke to them of s.h.i.+ps that sailed toward the sunset; in the Rotunda they kept a tryst with William Penn; from the west-front portico they saw a city beautiful--the streets under the moon were rivers of light--the great monument reached like the soul of Was.h.i.+ngton toward the stars!

Out there in the moonlight Maxwell spoke of another great soul, gone of late to join a glorious company.

"It was he who taught me that life is an adventure."

"Greatheart?"

"Yes."

"You loved him too?"

"Yes."

Anne caught her breath. "To think of him dead--to think of them all--dead."

Maxwell looked down at her. "They live somewhere. You believe that, don't you?"

"Yes."

He was silent for a moment; then he laid his hand lightly on her shoulder. "I feel to-night as if they pressed close."

Oh, it was a rare game to meet great souls in odd corners! They could scarcely tear themselves away. But he got her home before her sisters arrived, and Anne went to bed soberly, and lay long awake, thinking it out. She had never before had such a playmate. In all these years she had starved for other things than food.

IV

In due time Congress adjourned, but Maxwell did not go home. He continued to see Anne. Amy was at last driven to her duty by Murray. She could not forbid Maxwell the house. There was nothing to do but talk to Anne.

Having made up her mind she sought Anne's room at once. Anne, in a cheap cotton kimono, was braiding her hair for the night. The sleeves of the kimono were short and showed her thin white arms. Amy had on a blanket wrapper. Her hair was in metal curlers. She looked old and tired, and now and then she coughed.

Anne got into bed and drew the covers up to her chin. "I'm so cold, I believe there are icicles on my eyebrows. Amy, my idea of heaven is a place where it is as hot as--Hades."

"I don't see where you get such ideas. Ethel and I don't talk that way.

We don't even think that way, Anne."

"Maybe when I am as old as you---" Anne began, and was startled at the look on Amy's face.

"I'm not old!" Amy said pa.s.sionately. "Anne, I haven't lived at all, and I'm only thirty."

Anne stared at her. "Oh, my darling, I didn't mean---"

"Of course you didn't. And it was silly of me to say such a thing. Anne, I'm cold. I'm going to sit on the foot of your bed and wrap up while I talk to you."

Anne's bed had four pineapple posts and a pink canopy. The governor of a state had slept in that bed for years. He was one of the Merryman grandfathers. Amy could have bought mountains of food for the price of that bed. But she would have starved rather than sell it.

Anne under the pink canopy was like a rose--a white rose with a faint flush. The color in Amy's cheeks was fixed and hard. Yet even with her oldness and tiredness and metal curlers she had the look of race which attracted Murray.

"Anne," she said, "Murray and I had a long talk about you the other day."

"Murray always talks--long." Anne was yawning.

"Please be serious, Anne. He wants to marry you."

"Marry me!" incredulously. "I thought it was you; or Ethel."

"Well, it isn't," wearily. "And it's a great opportunity--for you, Anne."

"Opportunity for what?"

Amy had a sense of the futility of trying to explain.

"There aren't many men like him."

"Fortunately."

"Anne, how can you? He's really paying you a great compliment."

"Why didn't he ask me himself?"

"He didn't want to startle you. You're so young. Murray has extreme fineness of feeling."

Anne tilted her chin. "I don't see what he finds in me."

"You're young"--with a tinge of bitterness--"and he says you are beautiful."

Anne threw off the covers and set her bare feet on the floor.

"Beautiful!" she scoffed, but went to the mirror. "I'm thin," she meditated, "but I've got nice hair."