"Don't you think you'd better go right straight home, dear?" she
whispered as if Anne had communicated Roger's sudden death.
"Why? There's nothing to do."
"N-o. I don't suppose there is. But--what happened, with the baby and
everything?"
"Nothing special. They don't agree. It's been coming on for some
months. Roger doesn't feel that Mr. Wainwright is sincere and he can't
work with him."
"Well, I must say----"
"And I wouldn't have him stay a minute when he feels like that."
"No, dear, I don't suppose you would," Hilda hastily conciliated Anne's
"condition." "But it does seem too bad that his conscience got worked
up just at this time. A few months more----"
"This is the best possible time," Anne said decidedly. "There's no
extra expense now."
"No. But when a woman's carrying, she likes to feel a good safe road
ahead. It's nature, I suppose, like birds building nests and all that.
If papa had suddenly given up his job when I was in your condition,
like as not you would have been an idiot. I should have worried myself
sick. But you always were a cool little customer."
Anne forced a smile and slipped the gingham over her head.
"If you'll stitch the skirt seams, mamma, I'll baste this collar.
That's the only tricky part in the whole thing. Perhaps we can finish
it to-day."
"We certainly can. We'll stay right with it till it's done."
And they did, stopping only for a cup of tea and some very stale cake,
about one o'clock. At three the dress was finished.
"Now, you go lie down and take a nap and when you wake phone Roger
to come up for dinner. He hasn't been round for ages, not since
Christmas." Having become involved in the exact date, Hilda slipped
over it quickly.
"We will some other time, moms, but I can't to-night."
The long day of sewing and chatting, and constant steering away from
the subject of Roger, had exhausted Anne and she wanted her own quiet
home, which, even if its peace were now disturbed, held its past
security, and a calm, quiet cleanliness that her mother's never had.
"I've got all the things in for a fussy kind of supper and they'd
spoil."
"Then of course you can't." Death itself could not have been a greater
deterrent. "What-all are you going to have?"
"Oh, a fussy pudding, and mayonnaise and things."
Anne was putting on her things in the bedroom and Hilda stood watching,
a little envious of Anne's calmness. Mayonnaise and fussy pudding!
Perhaps, if she had dared, years ago----
"You certainly have learned to be some cook, Anne."
"I like to try new dishes." Her things on, Anne moved from the room and
when she had passed Hilda, said, "but it's the so-called fussy things
that are easiest. Whipped cream and eggs make a great show, but any
fool can beat them up. Lots of things are harder. I don't believe I
could make a decent pot-roast, if I tried. I don't even know what part
of the animal to buy."
"There are different parts. Cross-rib's fine, but chuck's cheapest, and
I like it just as well."
"And it takes hours and hours, doesn't it?" Anne was still moving
toward the stair-head, her back to Hilda.
"No, it doesn't. Lots of people think it does and they make those dry,
leathery roasts. A piece big enough for us never took more than a
couple of hours, going slow, with plenty of suet."
"Chuck, going slow, two hours, plenty of suet," Anne entrenched it in
her memory, and then Hilda was saying:
"You never used to like it, but I'm sure I don't know why. I don't
think there's any gravy like the gravy of a good pot-roast. And there's
always plenty of it."
As usual, she walked down the stairs with Anne and kissed her again at
the front door.
Roger was not in when Anne reached home. She lit the gas-range and put
the pot-roast on before taking off her things. When it was simmering
at the right rate, she shut the kitchen door to keep the odor from the
living-room, changed into a kimono, and lay down on the living-room
couch.
It was dusk, with the first faint stars winking uncertainly in the
deepening twilight, when Roger came running up the stairs. He was out
of breath, cool-skinned and glowing. He came straight to the couch and
kissed her.
"Well, Princess, which is it, Pietro's or the Pheasant? I felt
spaghetti-ish this morning but it's gradually worked round to planked
steak."
Anne sat up and said gayly, "It's neither. It's pot-roast, and it'll be
ready about six."
Roger stared, the sparkle in his eyes receding slowly. Still Anne
smiled gayly at him. "It's the first one I've made and it's going to be
a dandy."
But Roger took her hands in his, and Anne's gayety died. They looked at
each other, and then Roger said:
"Anne, please, never do a thing like this again. Don't you trust me,
dear? We believe in the same things, don't we? We're not afraid of
anything, are we, honey?"
Something in Anne urged her to stand her ground. Something else made
her want to cry and creep close to Roger and be held safe from her
own fears and "common-sense." She was very tired. Her lips trembled.
Roger drew her quickly into his arms. They clung so for a moment, as
if holding fiercely against a force reaching toward them. Then Roger
turned Anne's face to his.
"Princess, let's throw that damned pot-roast out."
Anne smiled faintly. "That would be silly. It's really an awfully good
pot-roast. There, you can smell it. It must be going a little too fast."