"I--don't know. I don't know enough about it."
"I don't know much myself, not the technical details. But it seems to
me it's the only thing that isn't trying to patch a rotten piece of
cloth. It wants to weave a new one, from what I understand."
"Some job," Anne said and lit the single cigarette she ever smoked, the
after-dinner cigarette that Roger had taught her to take soon after
their marriage, when they had done all things together.
"It certainly is. But a worth-while one. Anne, suppose we frankly join
some radical group and begin weaving, too."
Anne puffed, flicked the ash into the tiny lacquer tray, and said with
more calmness than she felt:
"I don't think I will, Roger. Not till I know more about it. I don't
believe in jumping in and out of things."
Roger looked away. He felt that he had again been caught in the cloud
of dust. Anne smoked her cigarette and lit a second. Only by this
extraordinary act could she bring herself to the point she had decided
upon that afternoon. When it was smoked quite through, she said calmly:
"Why don't you go and see Tom O'Connell?"
"What?" he echoed stupidly.
"Why not? Your sympathies are with him."
Now that Anne had worded it, Roger recognized the longing he had been
stifling for weeks. To do something he believed in with his whole soul.
His eyes softened and coming quickly about the table he knelt beside
her.
"Princess," he whispered, "you're the most wonderful thing in the
world."
Anne looked down into Roger's eyes and wondered. Why did he think it
wonderful for her to suggest this thing that she had felt in him for
weeks? Had he been waiting for her to do so? Why? What would he have
done if she had not?
Before her quiet, searching look, Roger's eyes fell.
"Forgive me, honey," he whispered.
Roger had mistrusted. His plea for forgiveness proved it. Something
deep in Anne hardened, but she patted his cheek and said cheerfully:
"Why don't you look him up to-night? It's early yet."
"Do you want to get rid of me?" Roger teased with a look in his eyes
that had not been there for a long time.
"No--of course I don't," Anne said, and he kissed her.