Mistress Anne Part 36

To see him at his housekeeping was a pleasant sight. He liked it, and gave to it his whole mind. The peeling of the peaches with a silver knife, the selection of a bowl of old English ware to put them in, and making of the coffee in a copper machine, the fresh linen, the roses as a last perfect touch.

Anne carried the tray, for his weak arm could not be depended upon; and by the fish-pond they ate their simple meal.

The old fishes had crumbs and came to the top of the water to get them, and a cow looking over the gate was rewarded by the remaining half of the crusty roll. She walked away presently to give place to a slender youth who had crossed the fields and now stood with his hat off looking in.

"If it isn't Anne," he said, "and Uncle Rod."

Uncle Rod stood up. He did not smile and he did not ask the slender youth to enter. But Anne was more hospitable.

"Come in, Jimmie," she said. "I can't offer you any lunch because we have eaten it all up. But there's some coffee."

Jimmie entered with alacrity. He had come back from New York in a mood of great discontent, to meet the pleasant news that Anne Warfield was in town. He had flown at once to find her. If he had expected the Fatted Calf, he found none. Uncle Rodman left them at once. He had a certain amount of philosophy, but it had never taught him patience with Jimmie Ford.

Jimmie drank a cup of coffee, and talked of his summer.

"Saw your Dr. Richard in New York, out at Austin's."

"Yes."

"He's going to marry Eve."

"Is he?"

"Yes. I don't understand what she sees in him--he isn't good style."

"He doesn't have to be."

"Why not?"

"Men like Richard Brooks mean more to the world than just--clothes, Jimmie."

"I don't see it."

"You wouldn't."

"Why shouldn't I?"

"Well, you look so nice in your clothes--and you need them to look nice in."

He stared at her. He felt dimly that she was making fun of him.

"From the way you put it," he said, with irritation, "from the way you put it any one might think that it was just my clothes----"

"That make you attractive? Oh, _no_, Jimmie. You have nice eyes and--and a way with you."

She was sewing on a sc.r.a.p of fancy work, and her own eyes were on it. She was as demure as possible, but she seemed unusually and disconcertingly self-possessed.

And now Jimmie became plaintive. Plaintiveness had always been his strong suit with Anne. He was eager for sympathy. His affair with Eve had hurt his vanity.

"I have never seen a girl like her. She doesn't care what the world thinks. She doesn't care what any one thinks. She goes right along taking everything that comes her way--and giving nothing."

"Did you want her to give you--anything, Jimmie?"

"Me? Not me. She's a beauty and all that. But I wouldn't marry her if she were as rich as Rockefeller--and she isn't. Her money is her Aunt Maude's."

"Oh, Jimmie--sour grapes."

"Sour nothing. She isn't my kind. She said one day that if she wanted a man she'd ask him to marry her. That it was a woman's right to choose. I can't stand that sort of thing."

"But if she should ask you, Jimmie?"

Again he stared at her. "I jolly well shouldn't give her a chance. Not after the way she treated me."

"What way?"

"Oh, making me think I was the whole thing--and then--throwing me down."

"Oh, so you don't like being thrown down?"

"No. I don't like that kind of a woman. You know the kind of woman I like, Anne."

The caressing note in his voice came to her like an echo of other days.

But now it had no power to move her.

"I am not sure that I do know the kind of woman you like--tell me."

"Oh, I like a woman that is a woman, and makes a man feel that he's the whole thing."

"But mustn't he be the whole thing to make her feel that he is?"

He flung himself out of his chair and stood before her. "Anne," he demanded, "can't you do anything but ask questions? You aren't a bit like you used to be."

She laid down her work and now he could see her eyes. Such steady eyes!

"No, I'm not like myself. You see, Jimmie, I have been away for a year, and one learns such a lot in a year."

He felt a sudden sense of loss. There had always been the old Anne to come back to. The Anne who had believed and had sympathized. Again his voice took on a plaintive note. "Be good to me, girl," he said. Then very low, "Anne, I was half afraid to come to-day."

"Afraid--why?"

"Oh, I suppose you think I acted like a--cad."

"What do _you_ think?"

"Oh, stop asking questions. It was the only thing to do. You were poor and I was poor, and there wasn't anything ahead of me--or of you--surely you can't blame me."

"How can I blame you for what was, after all, my great good fortune?"

"Your what?"