Mistress Anne Part 17

"Dear Heart----" He dared not say more, for Pip's envious eyes were upon them.

"When I marry you, Eve, may I hold your hand in public?"

"You may--when I marry you."

"Good. Whenever I lose faith in the bliss of matrimony, I have only to look at Win and Tony to be cheered and sustained by their example."

Nancy, playing the little lovely hostess, agreed. "If they weren't so new-fas.h.i.+oned in every way I should call them an old-fas.h.i.+oned couple."

"Love is never out of fas.h.i.+on, Mrs. Nancy," said Eve; "is it, d.i.c.ky Boy?"

"Ask Pip."

"Love," said Philip solemnly, "is the newest thing in the world and the oldest. Each lover is a Columbus discovering an unknown continent."

In the hall the old clock chimed. "n.o.body is to dress for dinner,"

Richard said, "if we are to ride afterward. I'll telephone for the horses."

He telephoned and rode down later on his big Ben to bring the horses up.

As he came into the yard at Bower's he saw a light in the old stable.

Dismounting, he went to the open door. Anne was with Diogenes. The lantern was set on the step above her, and she was feeding the old drake.

Her body was in the shadow, her face luminous. Yet it was a sober little face, set with tired lines. Looking at her, Richard reached a sudden determination.

He would ask her to ride with them to the ridge.

At the sound of his voice she turned and her face changed. "Did I startle you?" he asked.

"No," she smiled at him. "Only I was thinking about you, and there you were." There was no coquetry in her tone; she stated the fact frankly and simply. "Do you remember how you put Toby in here, and how Diogenes hated it?"

"I remember how you looked under the lantern."

"Oh,"--she had not expected that,--"do you?"

"Yes. But I had seen you before. You were standing on a rock with holly in your arms. I saw you from the train throw something into the river. I have often wondered what it was."

"I didn't want to burn my holly wreaths after Christmas. I hate to burn things that have been alive."

"So do I. Eve would say that we were sentimentalists. But I have never quite been able to see why a sentimentalist isn't quite as worthy of respect as a materialist--however, I am not here to argue that. I want you to ride with me to the ridge. To see the foxes by moonlight," he further elucidated. "Run in and get ready. I am to take some horses up for the others."

She rose and reached for her lantern. "The others?" she looked an inquiry over her shoulder.

"Eve and her crowd. They are still at Crossroads."

She stood irresolute. Then, "I think I'd rather not go."

"Why not?" sharply.

She told him the truth bravely. "I am a little afraid of women like that."

"Of Eve and Winifred? Why?"

"We are people of two worlds, Dr. Brooks--and they feel it."

His conversation with Eve recurring to him, he was not prepared to argue.

But he was prepared to have his own way.

"Isn't your world mine?" he demanded. "And you mustn't mind Eve. She's all right when you know her. Just stiffen your backbone, and remember that you are the granddaughter of Cynthia Warfield."

After that she gave in and came down presently in a shabby little habit with her hair tied with a black bow. "It's a good thing it is dark," she said. "I haven't any up-to-date clothes."

As they went along he asked her to go to the hunt breakfast on Monday.

"I can't. School opens and my work begins."

"By Jove, I had forgotten. I shall be glad to hear the bell. When I am riding over the hills it seems to call--as it called to my grandfather and to be saying the same things; it is a great inspiration to have a background like that to one's life. Do you know what I mean?"

She did know, and they talked about it--these two young and eager souls to whom life spoke of things to be done, and done well.

Eve, standing on the steps at Crossroads, saw them coming. "Oh, I'm not going," she said to Winifred pa.s.sionately.

"Why not?"

"He has that girl with him."

"What girl?"

"Anne Warfield."

Winifred's eyes opened wide. "She's a darling, Eve. I liked her so much last night."

"I don't see why he has to bring her into everything."

"All the men are in love with her; even Tony has eyes for her, and Pip----"

"What makes you defend her, Win? She isn't one of us, and you know it."

"I don't know it. She belongs to older stock than either you or I, Eve.

And if she didn't, don't you know a lady when you see one?"

Eve threw up her hands. "I sometimes think the world is going mad--there aren't any more lines drawn."

"If there were," said Winifred softly, and perhaps a bit maliciously, "I fancy that Anne Warfield might be the one to draw them--and leave us on the wrong side, Eve."

It was Winifred who welcomed Anne, and who rode beside her later, and it was of Winifred that Anne spoke repentantly as she and Richard rode together in the hills. "I want to take back the things I said about Mrs.

Ames. She is just--heavenly sweet."

He smiled. "I knew you would like her," he said. But neither of them mentioned Eve.

For Evelyn's manner had been insufferable. Anne might have been a shadow on the gra.s.s, a cloud across the sky, a stone in the road for all the notice she had taken of her. It was a childish thing to do, but then Eve was childish. And she was having the novel experience of being overlooked for the first time by Richard. She was aware, too, that she had offended him deeply and that the cause of her offending was another woman.