"I think she was the most beautiful lady,That ever was in the West Country——"
"I think she was the most beautiful lady,That ever was in the West Country——"
He was even humming it under his breath, unheard amid the hum and stir of the crowded city street.
The shops on either side of him displayed in their low windows a wealth of tempting things. Rugs with a sheen like the bloom of a peach—alabaster in curved and carved bowls and vases, old prints in dull gilt frames—furniture following the lines of Florentine elaborateness—his eyes took in all the color and glow, though he rarely stopped for a closer view.
In front of one broad window, however, he hesitated. The opening of the door had spilled into the frosty air of this alien city the scent of the Orient—the fragrance of incense—of spicy perfumed woods.
In the window a jade god sat high on a teakwood pedestal. A string of scarlet beads lighted a shadowy corner. On an ancient and priceless lacquered cabinet were enthroned two other gods of gold and ivory. A crystal ball reflected a length of blue brocade. A clump of Chinese bulbs bloomed in an old Ming bowl.
Richard went into the shop. Subconsciously, he went with a purpose. But the purpose was not revealed to him until he came to a case in which wasset forth a certain marvelous collection. He knew then that the old song and the scents had formed an association of ideas which had lured him away from the streets and into the shop, that he might buy for Anne Warfield a sandalwood fan.
He found what he wanted. A sweet and wonderful bit of wood, carved like lace, with green and purple tassels.
It was when he had it safe in his pocket, in a box that was gay with yellow and green and gold, that he was aware of voices in the back of the shop.
There were tables where tea was served to special customers—at the expense of the management. Thus a vulgar bargain became as it were a hospitality—you bought teakwood and had tea; carved ivories, and were rewarded with little cakes.
In that dim space under a low hung lamp, Marie-Louise talked with the fat Armenian.
He was the same Armenian who had told her fortune at Coney. He stood by Marie-Louise's side while she drank her tea, and spoke to her of the poet-king with whom she had walked on the banks of the Nile.
Richard approaching asked, "How did you happen to come here, Marie-Louise?"
"I often come. I like it. It is next to traveling in far countries." She indicated the fat Armenian. "He tells me about things that happened to me—in the ages—when I lived before."
A slender youth in white silk with a crimson sash brought tea for Richard. But he refused it. "I am on my way to lunch, Marie-Louise. Will you go with me?"
She hesitated and glanced at the fat Armenian. "I've some things to buy."
"I'll wait."
She flitted about the shop with the fat Armenian in her train. He showed her treasures shut away from the public eye, and she bought long lengths of heavy silks, embroideries thick with gold, a moonstone bracelet linked with silver.
The fat Armenian, bending over her, seemed to direct and suggest. Richard, watching, hated the man's manner.
Outside in the sunshine, he spoke of it. "I wouldn't go there alone."
"Why not?"
"I don't like to see you among those people—on such terms. They don't understand, and they're—different."
"I like them because they are different," obstinately.
He shifted his ground. "Marie-Louise, will you lunch with me at a cheap little place around the corner?"
"Why a cheap little place?"
"Because I like the good soup, and the clean little German woman, and the quiet and—the memories."
"What memories?"
"I used to go there when I was poor."
She entered eagerly into the adventure, and ordered her car to wait. Then away they fared around the corner!
Within the homely little restaurant, Marie-Louise's elegance was more than ever apparent. Her long coat of gray velvet with its silver fox winked opulently from the back of her chair at the coarse table-cloth and the paper napkins.
But the soup was good, and the German woman smiled at them, and brought them a special dish of hard almond cakes with their coffee.
"I love it," Marie-Louise said. "It is like Hans Andersen and my fairy books. Will you bring me here again, Dr. Richard?"
"I am glad you like it," he told her. "I wanted you to like it."
"I like it because I like you," she said with frankness, "and you seem to belong in the fairy tale. You are so big and strong and young. I don't feel a thousand years old when I am with you. You are such a change from everybody else, Dr. Dicky."
Richard spoke the next day to Austin of Marie-Louise and the fat Armenian. "She shouldn't be going to such shops alone. She has a romantic streak in her, and they take advantage of it."
"She ought never to go alone," Austin agreed, "and I have told her. But what am I going to do?I can rule a world of patients, Brooks, but I can't rule my woman child," he laughed ruefully. "I've tried having a maid accompany her, but she sends her home."
"I wish she might have gone to the Crossroads school, and have known the Crossroads teacher—Anne Warfield. You remember Cynthia Warfield, sir; this is her granddaughter."
Austin remembered Cynthia, and he wanted to know more of Anne. Richard told him of Anne's saneness and common sense. "I am so glad that she can be with my mother, and that the children have her in the school. She is so wise and good."
He thought more than once in the days that followed of Anne's wisdom and goodness. He decided to send the fan. He expected to go to Crossroads for Christmas, but he was not at all sure that he should see Anne. Something had been said about her going for the holidays to her Uncle Rod.
Was it only a year since he had seen her on the rocks above the river with a wreath in her hand, and in the stable at Bower's, with the lantern shining above her head?
Nancy'splans for Christmas were ambitious. She talked it over with Sulie Tyson. "I'll have Anne and her Uncle Rod. If she goes to him they will eat their Christmas dinner alone. Her cousins are to be out of town."
Cousin Sulie agreed. She was a frail little woman, with gray hair drawn up from her forehead above a high-bred face. She spoke with earnestness on even the most trivial subjects. Now and then she had flashes of humor, but they were rare. Her life had been sad, and she had always been dependent. The traditions of her family had made it impossible for her to indulge in any money-making occupation. Hence she had lived in other people's houses. Usually with one or the other of two brothers, in somewhat large households.
Her days, therefore, with Nancy were rapturous ones.
"There's something in the freedom which two women can have when they are alone," she said, "that is glorious. We are ourselves. When men are around we are always acting."
Nancy was not so subtle. "I am myself with Richard."
"No, you're not, Nancy. You are always trying to please him. You make him feel important. You make him feel that he is the head of the house. You know what I mean."
Nancy did know. But she didn't choose to admit it.
"Well, I like to please him." Then with a sudden burst of longing, "Sulie, I want him here all of the time—to please."
"Oh, my dear," Sulie caught Nancy's hands up in her own, "oh, my dear. How mothers love their sons. I am glad I haven't any. I used to long for children. I don't any more. Nothing can hurt me as Richard hurts you, Nancy."
Nancy refused to talk of it. "We will ask David and Brinsley; that will be four men and three women, Sulie."
"Well, I can take care of David if you'll look after Brinsley and Rodman Warfield. And that will leave your Richard for Anne."
Nancy's candid glance met her cousin's. "That is the way I had hoped it might be—Richard and Anne. At first I thought it might be—and then something happened. He went to New York and that was the—end."
"If you had been more of a match-maker," Sulie said, "you might have managed. But you alwaysthink that such things are on the knees of the gods. Why didn't you bring them together?"
"I tried," Nancy confessed. "But Eve—I hate to say it, Sulie. Eve was determined."
The two old-fashioned women, making mental estimates of this modern feminine product, found themselves indignant. "To think that any girl could——"
It was lunch time, and Anne came in. She had Diogenes under her arm. "He will come across the road to meet me. And I am afraid of the automobiles. When he brings the white duck and all of the little Diogenes with him he obstructs traffic. He stopped a touring car the other day, and the men swore at him, and Diogenes swore back."
She laughed and set the old drake on his feet. "May I have a slice of bread for him, Mother Nancy?"
"Of course, my dear. Two, if you wish."
Diogenes, having been towed by his beloved mistress out-of-doors, was appeased with the slice of bread. He was a patriarch now, with a lovely mate and a line of waddling offspring to claim his devotion. But not an inch did he swerve from his loyalty to Anne. She had brought him with her from Bower's, and he lived in the barn with his family. Twice a day, however, he made a pilgrimage to the Crossroads school. It was these excursions which Anne deprecated.
"He comes in when I ring for recess and distracts the children. He waddles straight up to my desk—and he is such an old dear."
She laughed, and the two women laughed with her. She was their heart-warming comrade. She brought into their lonely lives something vivid and sparkling, at which they drank for their soul's refreshment.
Nancy spoke of Rodman Warfield. "We want him here for Christmas and the holidays. Do you think he can come?"
Anne flashed her radiance at them. "I don't think. I know. Mother Nancy, you're an angel."
"Richard is coming, of course. It will be just a family party. Not many young people for you, my dear. Just—Richard."
There was holly and crow's-foot up in the hills, and David and Anne hitched big Ben to a cart and went after it. It was a winter of snow, and in the depths of the woods there was a great stillness. David chopped a tall cedar and his blows echoed and reëchoed in the white spaces. The holly berries that dropped from the cut branches were like drops of blood on the shining crust.
Nancy and Sulie made up the wreaths and the ropes of green, and fashioned ornaments for the tree. There was to be a bigger tree at the school for the children, but this was to be a family affair and was to be free from tawdry tinsel and coloredglass. Nancy liked straight little candles and silver stars. "It shall be an old-fashioned tree," she said, "such as I used to have when I was a child."
Sulie's raptures were almost solemn in their intensity. Richard sent money, plenty of it, and Sulie and Nancy went to Baltimore and spent it. "I never expected," Sulie said, "to go into shops and pick out things that I liked. I've always had to choose things that I needed."
Now and then on Saturdays when Anne went with them, they rushed through their shopping, had lunch at the Woman's Exchange and went to a matinée.
Nancy was always glad to get back home, but Sulie revelled in the excitement of it all. Anne made her buy a hat with a flat pink rose which lay enchantingly against her gray hair.
"I feel sometimes as if I had been born again," Sulie said quaintly; "like a flower that had shriveled up and grown brown, and suddenly found itself blooming in the spring."
Thus the days went on, and Christmas was not far away. Anne coming in one afternoon found Nancy by the library fire with a letter in her hand.
"Richard hopes to get here on Friday, Anne, in time for the tree and the children's festival. Something may keep him, however, until Christmas morning. He is very busy—and there are some important operations."
"How proud you are of him," Anne sank down on the rug, and reached up her hand for Nancy, "and how happy you will be with your big son. Could you ever have loved a daughter as much, Mother Nancy?"
"I'm not sure; perhaps," smiling, "if she had been like you. And a daughter would have stayed with me. Men have wandering natures—they must be up and out."
"Women have wandering natures, too," Anne told her. "Do you know that last Christmas I cried and cried because I was tied to the Crossroads school and to Bower's? I wanted to live in the city and have lovely things. You can't imagine how I hated all Eve Chesley's elegance. I seemed so—clumsy and common."
Nancy stared at her in amazement. "But you surely don't feel that way now."
"Yes, I do. But I am not unhappy any more. It was silly to be unhappy when I had so much in my life. But if I were a man, I'd be a rover, a vagabond—I'd take to the open road rather than be tied to one spot."
There was laughter in her eyes, but the words rang true. "I want to see new things in new people. I want to have new experiences—there must be a bigger, broader world than this."
Nancy gazing into the fire pondered. "It's the spirit of the age. Perhaps it is the youth in you.I wanted to go, too. But oh, my dear, how I wanted to come back!"
There was silence between them, then Anne said, "Perhaps if I could have my one little fling I'd be content. Perhaps it wouldn't be all that I expected. But I'd like to try."
On Thursday Anne met the postman as he drove up. There were two parcels for her. One was square and one was long and narrow. There were parcels also for Nancy and Sulie. Anne delivered them, and took her own treasures to her room. She shut and locked her door. Then she stood very still in the middle of the room. Not since she had seen the writing on the long and narrow parcel had her heart ceased to beat madly.
When at last she sat down and untied the string a faint fragrance assailed her nostrils. Then the gay box with its purple and green and gold was revealed!
The little fan was folded about with many thicknesses of soft paper. But at last she had it out, the dear lovely thing that her love had sent!
In that moment all the barriers which she had built about her thoughts of Richard were beaten down and battered by his remembrance of her. There was not a line from him, not a word. Nothing but the writing on the wrapper, and the memory of their talk together by the big fire at Bower's on the night of Beulah's party when he had said,"You ought to have a little fan—of—sandalwood—with purple and green tassels and smelling sweet."
When she went down her cheeks were red with color. "How pretty you are!" Sulie said, and kissed her.
Anne showed the book which had come in the square parcel. It was Geoffrey Fox's "Three Souls," and it was dedicated to Anne.
She did not show the sandalwood fan. It was hidden in her desk. She had a feeling that Nancy and Sulie would not understand, and that Richard had not meant that she should show it.
Nancy, too, had something which she did not show. One of her letters was from Dr. Austin. He had written without Richard's knowledge. He wished to inquire about Anne Warfield. He had been much impressed by what Richard had said of her. He needed a companion for his daughter Marie-Louise. He wanted a lady, and Cynthia Warfield's grandchild would, of course, be that. He wanted, too, some one who was fearless, and who thought straight. He fancied that from what Richard had said that Anne would be the antidote for his daughter's abnormality. If Nancy would confirm Richard's opinion, he would write at once to Miss Warfield. A woman's estimate in such a matter would, naturally, be more satisfying. He would pay well, and Anne would be treated in every way as one of the family. Marie-Louise might at first bea little difficult. But in the end, no doubt, she would yield to tact and firmness.
And he was always devotedly, her old friend!
It had seemed to Nancy as she read that something gripped at her heart. It was Anne's presence which had kept her from the black despair of loneliness. Sulie was good and true, but she had no power to fill the void made by Richard's absence. If Anne went away, they would be two old women, gazing blankly into an empty future.
Yet it was Anne's opportunity. The opportunity which her soul had craved. "To see new things and new people." And she was young and wanting much to live. It would not be right or fair to hold her back.
She had, however, laid the letter aside. When Richard came she would talk it over with him, and then they could talk to Anne. She tried to forget it in the bustle of preparation, but it lay like a shadow in the back of her mind, dimming the brightness of the days.
Everybody was busy. Milly and Sulie and Nancy seeded and chopped and baked, and polished silver, and got out piles of linen, and made up beds, and were all beautifully ready and swept and garnished when Uncle Rodman arrived from Carroll and Brinsley from Baltimore.
The two old men came on the same train, and David brought them over from Bower's behind big Ben. By the time they reached Crossroads, they haddwelt upon old times and old friends and old loves until they were in the warm and genial state of content which is age's recompense for the loss of youthful ardors.
They were, indeed, three ancient Musketeers, who, untouched now by any flame of great emotion, might adventure safely in a past of sentiment from which they were separated by long years. But there had been a time when passion had burned brightly for them all, even in gentle David, who had loved Cynthia Warfield.
What wonder, then, if to these three Anne typified that past, and all it meant to them, as she ran to meet them with her arms outflung to welcome Uncle Rod.
She had them all presently safe on the hearth with the fire roaring, and with Milly bringing them hot coffee, and Sulie and Nancy smiling in an ecstasy of welcome.
"It is perfect," Anne said, "to have you all here—like this."
Yet deep in her heart she knew that it was not perfect. For youth calls to youth. And Richard was yet to come!
Brinsley had brought hampers of things to eat. He had made epicurean pilgrimages to the Baltimore markets. There were turkeys and ducks and oysters—Smithfield hams, a young pig with an apple in its mouth.
He superintended the unloading of the hampers when Eric brought them over. Uncle Rod shook his head as he saw them opened.
"I can make a jar of honey and a handful of almonds suffice," he said. "I am not keen about butchered birds and beasts."
Brinsley laughed. "Don't rob me of the joy of living, Rod," he said. "Nancy is bad enough. I wanted to send up some wine. But she wouldn't have it. Even her mince pies are innocent. Nancy sees the whole world through eyes of anxiety for her boy. I don't believe she'd care a snap for temperance if she wasn't afraid that her Dicky might drink."
"Perhaps it is the individual mother's solicitude for her own particular child which makes the feminine influence a great moral force," Rodman ventured.
"Perhaps," carelessly. "Now Nancy has a set of wine-glasses that it is a shame not to use." He slapped his hands to warm them. "Let's take a long walk, Rod. I exercise to keep the fat down."
"I exercise because it is a good old world to walk in," and Rodman swung his long lean legs into an easy stride.
They picked David up as they passed his little house. They climbed the hill till they came to the edge of the wood where David had cut the tree.
There was a sunset over the frozen river as theyturned to look at it. The river sang no songs to-day. It was as still and silent as their own dead youth. Yet above it was the clear gold of the evening sky.
"The last time we came we were boys," Brinsley said, "and I was in love with Cynthia Warfield. And we were both in love with her, David; do you remember?"
David did remember. "Anne is like her."
Rodman protested. "She is and she isn't. Anne has none of Cynthia's faults."
Brinsley chuckled. "I'll bet you've spoiled her."
"No, I haven't. But Anne has had to work and wait for things, and it hasn't hurt her."
"She's a beauty," Brinsley stated, "and she ought to be a belle."
"She's good," David supplemented; "the children at the little school worship her."
"She's mine," Uncle Rod straightened his shoulders, "and in that knowledge I envy no man anything."
As they sat late that night by Nancy's fire, Anne in a white frock played for them, and sang:
"I think she was the most beautiful ladyThat ever was in the West Country,But beauty vanishes, beauty passes,However rare, rare it be,And when I am gone, who shall rememberThat lady of the West Country?"
"I think she was the most beautiful ladyThat ever was in the West Country,But beauty vanishes, beauty passes,However rare, rare it be,And when I am gone, who shall rememberThat lady of the West Country?"
And when she sang it was of Cynthia Warfield that all of the Old Gentlemen dreamed.
When the last note had died away, she went over and stood behind her uncle. She was little and slim and straight and her soft hair was swept up high from her forehead. Her eyes above Uncle Rod's head met Nancy's eyes. The two women smiled at each other.
"To-morrow," Nancy said, and she seemed to say it straight to Anne, "to-morrow Richard will be here."
Anne caught a quick breath. "To-morrow," she said. "How lovely it will be!"
But Richard did not come on Christmas Eve. A telegram told of imperative demands on him. He would get there in the morning.
"We won't light the tree until he comes," was Nancy's brave decision. "The early train will get him here in time for breakfast."
David drove big Ben down to meet him. Milly cooked a mammoth breakfast. Anne slipped across the road to the Crossroads school to ring the bell for the young master's return. The rest of the household waited in the library. Brinsley was there with a story to tell, but no one listened. Their ears were strained to catch the first sharp sound of big Ben's trot. Sulie was there with a red rose in her hair to match the fires which were warming her old heart. Nancy was there at the window, watching.
Then the telephone rang. Nancy was wanted. Long distance.
It was many minutes before she came back. Yet the message had been short. She had hung up the receiver, and had stood in the hall in a whirling world of darkness.
Richard was not coming.
He had been sorry. Tender. Her own sweet son. Yet he had seemed to think that business was a sufficient excuse for breaking her heart. Surely there were doctors enough in that octopus of a town to take his patients off of his hands. And she was his mother and wanted him.
She had a sense of utter rebellion. She wanted to cry out to the world, "This is my son, for whom I have sacrificed."
And now the bell across the street began to ring its foolish chime—Richard was not coming,ding, dong. She must get through the day without him,ding, dong, she must get through all the years!
When she faced the solicitous group in the library, only her whiteness showed what she was feeling.
"Richard is detained by—an important—operation. And breakfast is—waiting. Sulie, will you call Anne, and light the little tree?"
Marie-louise'sroom at Rose Acres was all in white with two tall candlesticks to light it, and a silver bowl for flowers. It was by means of the flowers in the bowl that Marie-Louise expressed her moods. There were days when scarlet flowers flamed, and other days when pale roses or violets or lilies suggested a less exotic state of mind.
On the day when Anne Warfield arrived, the flowers in the bowl were yellow. Marie-Louise stayed in bed all of the morning. She had ordered the flowers sent up from the hothouse, and, dragging a length of silken dressing-gown behind her, she had arranged them. Then she had had her breakfast on a tray.
Her hair was nicely combed under a lace cap; the dressing-gown was faint blue. In the center of the big bed she looked very small but very elegant, as if a Dresden-China Shepherdess had been put between the covers.
She had told her maid that when Anne arrived she was to be shown up at once. Austin had suggested that Marie-Louise go down-town to meet her. But Marie-Louise had refused.
"I don't want to see her. Why should I?"
"She is very charming, Marie-Louise."
"Who told you?"
"Dr. Brooks. And I knew her grandmother."
"Will Dr. Dicky meet her?"
"Yes. And bring her out. I have given him the day."
"You might have asked me if I wanted her, Dad. I don't want anybody to look after me. I belong to myself."
"I don't know to whom you belong, Marie-Louise. You're a changeling."
"I'm not. I'm your child. But you don't like my horns and hoofs."
He gazed at her aghast. "My dear child!"
She began to sob. "I am not your dear child. But I am your child, and I shall hate to have somebody tagging around."
"Miss Warfield is not to tag. And you'll like her."
"I shall hate her," said Marie-Louise, between her teeth.
It was because of this hatred that she had filled her bowl with yellow flowers. Yellow meant jealousy. And she had shrewdly analyzed her state of mind. She was jealous of Anne because Dad and Dr. Richard and everybody else thought that Anne was going to set her a good example.
It was early in January that Anne came. The whole thing had been hurried. Austin had been peremptory in his demand that she should not delay. So Nancy, very white but smiling, had packed her off. Sulie had cried over her, and Uncle Rod had wished her "Godspeed."
Richard met her at the station in the midst of a raging blizzard, and in a sort of dream she had been whirled with him through the gray streets shut in by the veil of the falling snow. They had stopped for tea at a big hotel, which had seemed as they entered to swim in a sea of golden light. And now here she was at last in this palace of a house!
Therese led her straight to Marie-Louise.
The Dresden-China Shepherdess in bed looked down the length of the shadowed room to the door. The figure that stood on the threshold was somehow different from what she had expected. Smaller. More girlish. Lovelier.
Anne, making her way across a sea of polished floor, became aware of the Shepherdess in bed.
"Oh," she said, "I am sorry you are ill."
"I am not ill," said Marie-Louise. "I didn't want you to come."
Anne smiled. "Oh, but if you knew how much Iwantedto come."
Marie-Louise sat up. "What made you want to come?"
"Because I am a country mouse, and I wanted to see the world."
"Rose Acres isn't the world."
"New York is. To me. There is so much that I haven't seen. It is going to be a great adventure."
The Dresden-China Shepherdess fell down flat. "So that's what you've come for," she said, dully, "adventures—here."
There was a long silence, out of which Anne asked, "How many miles is it to my room?"
"Miles?"
"Yes. You see, I am not used to such great houses."
"It is down the hall in the west wing."
"If I get lost it will be my first adventure."
Marie-Louise turned and took a good look at this girl who made so much out of nothing. Then she said, "Therese will show you. And you can dress at once for dinner. I am not going down."
"Please do. I shall hate going alone."
"Why?"
"Well, there's your father, you know, and your—mother. And I'm a country mouse."
Their eyes met. Marie-Louise had a sudden feeling that there was no gulf between them of years or of authority.
"What shall I call you?" she asked. "I won't say Miss Warfield."
"Geoffrey Fox calls me Mistress Anne."
"Who is Geoffrey Fox?"
"He writes books, and he is going blind. He wrote 'Three Souls.'"
Marie-Louise stared. "Oh, do you know him? I loved his book."
"Would you like to know how he came to write it?"
"Yes. Tell me."
"Not now. I must go and dress."
Some instinct told Marie-Louise that argument would be useless.
"I'll dress, too, and come down. Is Dr. Dicky going to be at dinner?"
"No. He had to go back at once. He is very busy."
Marie-Louise slipped out of bed. "Therese," she called, "come and dress me, after you have shown Miss Warfield the way."
Anne never forgot the moment of entrance into the great dining-room. There were just four of them. Dr. Austin and his wife, herself and Marie-Louise. But for these four there was a formality transcending anything in Anne's experience. Carved marble, tapestry, liveried servants, a massive table with fruit piled high in a Sheffield basket.
The people were dwarfed by the room. It was as if the house had been built for giants, and had been divorced from its original purpose. Anne, walking with Marie-Louise, wondered whimsically if therewere any ceilings or whether the roof touched the stars.
Mrs. Austin was supported by her husband. She was a little woman with gray hair. She wore pearls and silver. Anne was in white. Marie-Louise in a quaint frock of gold brocade. There seemed to be no color in the room except the gold of the fire on the great hearth, the gold of the oranges on the table, and the gold of Marie-Louise's gown.
Mrs. Austin was pale and silent. But she had attentive eyes. Anne was uncomfortably possessed with the idea that the little lady listened and criticized, or at least that she held her opinion in reserve.
Marie-Louise spoke of Geoffrey Fox. "Miss Warfield knows him. She knows how he came to write his book."
Anne told them how he came to write it. Of Peggy ill at Bower's, of the gray plush pussy cat, and of how, coming up the hall with the bowl of soup in her hand, she had found Fox in a despairing mood and had suggested the plot.
Austin, watching her, decided that she was most unusual. She was beautiful, but there was something more than beauty. It was as if she was lighted from within by a fire which gave warmth not only to herself but to those about her.
He was glad that he had brought her here to be with Marie-Louise. For the moment even his wife's pale beauty seemed cold.
"We'll have Fox up," he said, when she finished her story.
Anne was sure that he would be glad to come. She blushed a little as she said it.
Later, when they were having coffee in the little drawing-room, Marie-Louise taxed her with the blush. "Is he in love with you?"
Anne felt it best to be frank. "He thought he was."
"Don't you love him?"
"No, Marie-Louise. And we mustn't talk about it. Love is a sacred thing."
"I like to talk about it. In summer I talk to Pan. But he's out now in the snow and his pipes are frozen."
The little drawing-room seemed to Anne anything but little until she learned that there was a larger one across the hall. Austin and his wife went up-stairs as soon as the coffee had been served, and Marie-Louise led Anne through the shadowy vastness of the great drawing-room to a window which overlooked the river. "You can't see the river, but the light over the doorway shines on my old Pan's head. You can see him grinning out of the snow."
The effect of that white head peering from the blackness was uncanny. The shaft of light struck straight across the peaked chin and twisted mouth. The snow had made him a cap which covered hishorns and which gave him the look of a rakish old tipster.
"Oh, Marie-Louise, do you talk to him of love?"
"Yes. Wait till you see him in the spring with the pink roses back of him. He seems to get younger in the spring."
Anne, going to bed that night in a suite of rooms which might have belonged to a princess, wondered if she should wake in the morning and find herself dreaming. To have her own bath, a silk canopy over her head, to know that breakfast would be served when she rang for it, and that her mail and newspapers would be brought—these were unbelievable things. She had a feeling that if she told Uncle Rod he would shake his head over it. He had a theory that luxury tended to cramp the soul.
Yet her last thought was not of Uncle Rod but of Richard. She had come intending to give him a sharp opinion of his neglect of Nancy. But he had been so glad to see her, and had given her such a good time. Yet she had spoken of Nancy's loneliness.
"I hated to leave her," she said, "but it seemed as if I had to come."
"Of course," he agreed, with his eyes on her glowing face, "and anyhow, she has Sulie."
Marie-Louise, in the days that followed, found interest and occupation in showing the Country Mouse the sights of the city.
"If you want to see such things," she said rather grandly, "I shall be glad to go with you."
Anne insisted that they should not be driven in state and style. "People make pilgrimages on foot," she told Marie-Louise gravely, but with a twinkle in her eye. "I don't want to whirl up to Grant's tomb, or to the door of Trinity. And I like the subway and the elevated and the surface cars."
If now and then they compromised on a taxi, it was because distances were too great at times, and other means of transportation too slow. But in the main they stuck to their original plan, and Marie-Louise entered a new world.
"Oh, I love you for it," she said to Anne one night when they came home from the Battery after a day in which they had gazed down into the pit of the Stock Exchange, had lunched at Faunce's Tavern, had circled the great Aquarium, and ended with a ride on top of a Fifth Avenue 'bus in the twilight.
It was from the top of the 'bus that Anne for the first time since she had come to New York saw Evelyn Chesley.
She was coming out of a shop with Richard. It was a great shop with a world-famous name over the door. One bought furniture there of a rare kind and draperies of a rare kind and now and then a picture.
"They are getting things for their apartment," Marie-Louise explained, and her words struck coldagainst Anne's heart. "Eve is paying for them with Aunt Maude's money."
"When will they be married?"
"Next October. But Eve is buying things as she sees them. I don't want her to marry Dr. Dicky."
"Why not, Marie-Louise?"
"He isn't her kind. He ought to have fallen in love with you."
"Marie-Louise, I told you not to talk of love."
"I shall talk of anything I please."
"Then you'll talk to the empty air. I won't listen. I'll go up there and sit with that fat man in front."
Marie-Louise laughed. "You're such an old dear. Do you know how nice you look in those furs?"
"I feel so elegant that I am ashamed of myself. I've peeped into every mirror. They cost a whole month's salary, Marie-Louise. I feel horribly extravagant—and happy."
They laughed together, and it was then that Marie-Louise said, "I love it."
"Love what?"
"Going with you and being young."
In the days that followed Anne found herself revelling in the elegances of her life, in the excitements. It was something of an experience to meet Evelyn Chesley on equal grounds in the little drawing-room. Anne always took Mrs. Austin's placewhen there were gatherings of young folks. Marie-Louise refused to be tied, and came and went as the spirit moved her. So it was Anne who in something shimmering and silken moved among the tea guests, and danced later in slippers as shining as anything Eve had ever worn.
It was on this day that Geoffrey Fox came and met Marie-Louise for the first time.
"I can't dance," he told her; "my eyes are bad, and things seem to whirl."
"If you'll talk," she said, "I'll sit at your feet and listen."
She did it literally, perched on a small gold stool.
"Tell me about your book," she said, looking up at him. "Anne Warfield says that you wrote it at Bower's."
"I wrote it because she helped me to write it. But she did more for me than that." His eyes were following the shining figure.
"What did she do?"
"She gave me a soul. She taught me that there was something in me that was not—the flesh and the—devil."
The girl on the footstool understood. "She believes in things, and makes you believe."
"Yes."
"I hated to have her come," Marie-Louise confessed, "and now I should hate to have her go away. She calls herself a country mouse, and I amshowing her the sights—we go to corking places—on pilgrimages. We went to Grant's tomb, and she made me carry a wreath. And we ride in the subway and drink hot chocolate in drug stores.
"She says I haven't learned the big lessons of democracy," Marie-Louise pursued, "that I've looked out over the world, but that I have never been a part of it. That I've sat on a tower in a garden and have peered through a telescope."
She told him of the play that she had written, and of the verses that she had read to the piping Pan.
Later she pointed out Pan to him from the window of the big drawing-room. The snow had melted in the last mild days, and there was an icicle on his nose, and the sun from across the river reddened his cheeks.
"And there, everlastingly, he makes music," Geoffrey said, "'on the reed which he tore from the river.'"