Mistress Anne Part 60

"It goes very far, and you know it. And you are blus.h.i.+ng."

"I am not."

"You are. Look in the gla.s.s. Mistress Anne, aren't you glad that Eve is married?"

"Yes," honestly, "and that she is happy."

"Pip was made for her. I loved him at Palm Beach, adoring her, didn't you?"

"Yes." Anne's mind went back to it. The marriage had followed immediately upon the announcement of the broken engagement. People had pitied poor young Dr. Brooks. But Anne had not. One does not pity a man who, having been bound, is free.

He had written to her a half dozen times during the winter, friendly letters with news of Crossroads, and now that she was again at Rose Acres, he was coming up.

The spring day was bright. Rich with possibilities. "Marie-Louise, don't stay in bed. n.o.body has a right to be in the house on such a day as this."

But Marie-Louise wouldn't be moved. "I want to finish my verses."

So Anne went out alone into the garden. It was ablaze with spring bloom, the river was blue, and Pan piped on his reeds. Geoffrey waved to her from his balcony. She waved back, then went for a walk alone. She returned to have tea on the terrace. The day seemed interminable. The hour for dinner astonis.h.i.+ngly remote.

At last, however, it was time to dress. The gown that she chose was of pale rose, heavily weighted with silver. It hung straight and slim. Her slippers were of silver, and she still wore her dark hair in the smooth swept-up fas.h.i.+on which so well became her.

Richard, seeing her approach down the length of the big drawing-room where he stood with Austin, was conscious of a sense of shock. It was as if he had expected that she would come to him in her old blue serge, or in the little white gown with the many ruffles. That she came in such elegance made her seem--alien. Like Eve. Oh, where was the Anne of yesterday?

Even when she spoke to him, when her hand was in his, when she walked beside him on the way to the dining-room, he had this sense of strangeness, as if the girl in rose-color was not the girl of whom he had dreamed through all the days since he had known that he was not to marry Eve.

The winter had been a busy one for him, but satisfying in the sense that he was at last in his rightful place. He had come into his own. He had no more doubts that his work was wisely chosen. But his life was as yet unfinished. To complete it, he had felt that he must round out his days with the woman he loved.

But now that he was here, he saw her fitted to her new surroundings as a jewel fitted to a golden setting. And she liked lovely things, she liked excitement, and the nearness of the great metropolis. There were men who had wanted to marry her. Marie-Louise had told him that in a gay little letter which she had sent from the South.

As he reviewed it now disconsolately, he reminded himself that he had never had any real reason to know that Anne cared for him. There had been a flash of the eye, a few grave words, a break in her voice, his answered letters; but a woman might dole out these small favors to a friend.

Thus from caviar to soup, and from soup to roast, he contradicted Marie-Louise's conception of his state of mind. Fear and doubt, discouragement, a touch of despair, these carried him as far as the salad.

And then he heard Austin's voice speaking. "So you are really contented at Crossroads, Brooks?"

"Yes. I wish you would come down and let me show you some of the things I am doing. A bit primitive, perhaps, in the light of your larger experience. But none the less effective, and interesting."

Austin shrugged. "I can't imagine anything but martyrdom in such a life--for me. What do you do with yourself when you are not working--with no theaters--opera--restaurants--excitements?"

"We get along rather well without them--except for an occasional trip to town."

"But you need such things," dogmatically; "a man can't live out of the world and not--degenerate."

"He may live in it, and degenerate." Anne was speaking. Her cheeks were as pink as her gown. She leaned a little forward. "You don't know all that they have at Crossroads, and Dr. Brooks is too polite to tell you how poor New York seems to those of us who--know."

"Poor?" Richard had turned to her, his face illumined.

"Isn't it? Think of the things you have that New York doesn't know of. A singing river--this river doesn't sing, or if it does n.o.body would have time to listen. And Crossroads has a bell on its school that calls to the countryside. City children are not called by a bell--that's why they are all alike--they ride on trolleys and watch the clocks. My little pupils ran across the fields and down the road, and hurried when I rang for them, and came in--rosy."

She was rosy herself as she recounted it.

"Oh, we have a lot of things--the bridge with the lights--and the road up to the Ridge--and Diogenes. Dr. Austin, you should see Diogenes."

She laughed, and they all laughed with her, but back of Richard's laugh there was an emotion which swept him on and up to heights beyond anything that he had ever hoped or dreamed.

After that, he could hardly wait for the ending of the dinner, hardly wait to get away from them all, and out under the stars.

It was when they were at last alone on the steps above the fountain, with the garden pouring all of its fragrance down upon them, that he said, "I should not have dared ask it if you had not said what you said."

"Oh, St. Michael, St. Michael," she whispered, "where was your courage?"

"But in this gown, this lovely gown, you didn't look like anything that I could--have. I am only a country doctor, Anne."

"Only my beloved--Richard."

They clung together, these two who had found Love in the garden. But they had found more than Love. They had found the meaning for all that Richard had done, and for all that Anne would do. And that which they had found they would never give up!

EMERSON HOUGH'S NOVELS

THE COVERED WAGON NORTH OF 36 THE WAY OF A MAN THE STORY OF THE OUTLAW THE SAGEBRUSHER THE GIRL AT THE HALFWAY HOUSE THE WAY OUT THE MAN NEXT DOOR THE MAGNIFICENT ADVENTURE THE BROKEN GATE THE STORY OF THE COWBOY THE WAY TO THE WEST 54-40 OR FIGHT HEART'S DESIRE THE MISSISSIPPI BUBBLE THE PURCHASE PRICE

PETER B. KYNE'S NOVELS

THE PRIDE OF PALOMAR When two strong men clash and the under-dog has Irish blood in his veins--there's a tale that Kyne can tell! And "the girl" is also very much in evidence.

KINDRED OF THE DUST Donald McKay, son of Hector McKay, millionaire lumber king, falls in love with "Nan of the Sawdust Pile," a charming girl who has been ostracized by her townsfolk.

THE VALLEY OF THE GIANTS The fight of the Cardigans, father and son, to hold the Valley of the Giants against treachery. The reader finishes with a sense of having lived with big men and women in a big country.

CAPPY RICKS The story of old Cappy Ricks and of Matt Peasley, the boy he tried to break because he knew the acid test was good for his soul.

WEBSTER: MAN'S MAN In a little Jim Crow Republic in Central America, a man and a woman, hailing from the "States," met up with a revolution and for a while adventures and excitement came so thick and fast that their love affair had to wait for a lull in the game.

CAPTAIN SCRAGGS This sea yarn recounts the adventures of three rapscallion sea-faring men--a Captain Scraggs, owner of the green vegetable freighter Maggie, Gibney the mate and McGuffney the engineer.

THE LONG CHANCE A story fresh from the heart of the West, of San Pasqual, a sun-baked desert town, of Harley P. Hennage, the best gambler, the best and worst man of San Pasqual and of lovely Donna.