The Gay Cockade Part 60

"Anne's such a child."

He remembered how he had called her a corking kid. She was more than that to him now. She stood in the doorway in her gray sailor hat and gray cape.

"Anne," he said, "you must have a last bunch of pansies from the garden. Come out and help me pick them."

In the garden he asked, "Are you going to kiss me good-bye?"

"No, Max. Please--"

"Then it's 'G.o.d bless you, dearest.'"

He forgot the pansies and they went back to where the car waited.

VII

Anne's letter, written from the Eastern Sh.o.r.e, was a long and childish screed. "We have always been beggars on horseback," she said. "Of course you couldn't know that, Max. We have gone without bread so that we could be grand and elegant. We have gone without fire so that we could buy our satin gowns for fas.h.i.+onable functions. We went without b.u.t.ter for a year so that Amy could entertain the Strangeways, whom she had met years ago in Europe. I wouldn't dare tell you what that dinner cost us, but we had a cabinet member or two, and the British Amba.s.sador.

"You wondered why I liked d.i.c.kens. Well, I read him so that I could get a good meal by proxy. I used to gloat over the feasts at Wardle's, and Mr. Stiggins' hot toast. And when I met you you gave me--everything.

Murray Flint thinks that because I am thin and pale I am all spirit, and I'm afraid you have the same idea. You didn't dream, did you, that I was pale because I hadn't had enough to eat? And when you told me that you wanted me to be your wife I looked ahead and saw the good food and the roaring fires, and I didn't think of anything else. I honestly didn't think of you for a moment, Max.

"There were days, though, when you meant more to me than just that. When we played at the Capitol--that night when we met Lafayette on the stairs! n.o.body had ever played with me. But after we went to the farm I was smothered in ease. And I loved it. And I didn't love you. You were just--the man who gave me things. Do you see what I mean? And when you kissed me on the stairs it was as if I were being kissed by a nice old Santa Claus.

"Everybody saw it but you. I am sure Amy knew--and Winifred Reed.

You--you ought to marry Winifred, Max. Perhaps you will. You won't want me after you read this letter. And Winifred is splendid.

"It was your speech to the men that waked me. I saw how big you were, and I just--shriveled up.

"And you mustn't worry about me. I am not hungry any more. I feel as if I should never want anything to eat. Perhaps it is because I am older and haven't a growing appet.i.te. And I am not any of the things you thought me. And of course you would be disappointed, and it wouldn't be fair."

Having posted this, Anne had other things to do. She wrote mysterious letters, and finally came into a room where her sisters and Aunt Elizabeth were sewing, with an important-looking paper in her hand.

"I am going to work, Amy."

"To work!"

"Yes."

Amy and Ethel and Aunt Elizabeth wore white frocks, and looked very cool and feminine and high-bred. Aunt Elizabeth had a nose like Amy's and the same look of race.

It was Aunt Elizabeth who said in her commanding voice: "What are you talking about, Anne?"

"I am going to work in the War Risk Bureau, Aunt Elizabeth. I wrote to two senators, and they helped me."

No woman of the Merryman family had ever worked in an office.

Anne faced a storm of disapproval, but she stood there slim and defiant, and stated her reasons.

"We need money. I don't see how we can get through a winter like the last. I can't keep my self-respect if we go on living as we did last winter."

"Haven't you any pride, Anne?"

"I have self-respect."

She left the room a conqueror. After she had gone the three women talked about her. They did not say it openly, but they felt that there was really an ordinary streak in Anne. Otherwise she would not have wanted to work in an office.

There was, however, nothing to be done. Anne was twenty-one. She was to get a hundred dollars a month. In spite of herself, Amy felt a throb of the heart as she thought of what that hundred dollars would mean to them.

Murray Flint was much perturbed when he heard of Anne's decision. He wrote to her that of course she knew that there was no reason why she should go into an office--his home and hearthstone were hers. She wrote back that she should never marry! After that, Murray felt, with Amy and Ethel and Aunt Elizabeth, that there was an ordinary streak in Anne!

When he arrived in August at Aunt Elizabeth's he was astonished at the change in Amy. She looked really very young as she came to meet him, and Aunt Elizabeth's house was a perfect setting for her charms. Murray was very fond of Aunt Elizabeth's house. It was an ancient, stately edifice, and within there were the gold-framed portraits of men and women with noses like Amy's and Aunt Elizabeth's.

Murray had missed Amy very much and he told her so.

"It was a point of honor for me to ask Anne again. But when I thought I was going to lose you I learned that my life would be empty without you."

He really believed what he was telling her. If Amy did not believe it she made no sign. She was getting much more than she expected, and she accepted him graciously and elegantly, as became a daughter of the Merrymans.

It was when he told Anne of his engagement to Amy that Murray again offered her a home. "There will always be a place for Amy's sisters, Anne."

"You are very good, Murray--but I can't."

She had said the same thing to Maxwell, who had come hot-footed to tell her that her letter had made no difference in his feeling for her.

"How could you think it, Anne? My darling, you are making a mountain of a molehill!"

She had been tremulous but firm. "I've got to have my--self-respect, Max."

Because he understood men he understood her. And when he had left her he had said to himself with long-drawn breath, "She's a corking kid."

And this time there had been no laughter in his eyes.

All that winter Anne worked, a little striving creature, with her head held high!

Maxwell was in town, for Congress had convened. But he had not come to see her. Now and then when there was a night session she went up to the House and sat far back in the Gallery, where, unperceived, she could listen to her lover's voice. Then she would steal away, a little ghost, down the shadowy stairway; but there were no games now with Lafayette!

Amy and Murray were to be married in June. They had enjoyed a dignified and leisurely engagement, and Amy had bloomed in the suns.h.i.+ne of Murray's approbation. Anne's salary had helped a great deal in getting the trousseau together. Most of the salary, indeed, had been spent for that. The table was, as usual, meagre, but Anne had not seemed to care.

She was therefore rather white and thin when, on the day that Congress adjourned, Maxwell came out to Georgetown to see her. It had been a long session, and it was spring.

There were white lilacs in a great blue jar in the Merryman library, and through the long window a glimpse of a thin little moon in a faint green sky.

As he looked at Anne, Maxwell felt a lump in his throat. She had given him her hand and had smiled at him. "How are the kittens?" she had asked in an effort to be gay.

He did not answer her question. He went, rather, directly to the point.

"Anne, why wouldn't you kiss me on that last night?"