BUT there was no trace of gayety in the excited and subdued tones in
which, later, she called him into the hothouse. He found her bending
tense with emotion over the row of plants upon whose flowering such
incalculable things depended. “Look!” she cried, taking his hand and
drawing him down over the green shoots, where his cheek brushed her
hair, where he felt the warm stir of her breathing. “Look! they are in
full bud, to-morrow they will burst open.” She straightened up, his hand
still held in hers, and a shadow fell upon her vivid countenance. “If
his reasoning is wrong, this experiment... like all the others, it will
kill him. They _must_ be white, it would be too cruel, too senseless
not. I am afraid,” she said simply; “nature is so terrible, a
Juggernaut, crushing everything to dust beneath its wheeling centuries.
I am glad that you are here, Anthony.” She drew closer to him; her
breast swelled in a sharp, tempestuous breath.
“I have been lonelier than I--I realized. I am dreadfully worried about
father. They have lied to me; things are worse, I can see that. You
have to dress him like a child; I know how considerate you are; you are
bright, new gold with the clearest ring in the world.
“We must get a real chauffeur; you have never been that... in my
thoughts. You know,” she laughed happily, “I said in the beginning that
you were a miserable affair in details of that kind.”
A feeling of guilt rose swiftly within him, which, unwilling to
acknowledge, he strove to beat down from his thoughts. But, above his
endeavor, grew the clear conviction that he should immediately tell
Annot his purpose in driving Rufus Hardinge's car. He must not victimize
her generosity, nor take profit from the friendship she offered him so
unreservedly. He was dimly conscious that the revelation of his design
would end the pleasant intimacy growing up between them; the mere
mention of Eliza must destroy their happy relations; girls, even Annot,
were like that.
He wondered, suddenly cold, if this spelled disloyalty to Eliza! but he
angrily refuted that whispered insinuation. His love for Eliza was
as un-assailably above all other considerations as she herself shone
starlike over a petty, stumbling humanity. White and withdrawn and fine
she inhabited the skies of his aspirations. He endeavored now to capture
her in his imagination, his memory; and she smiled at him palely, as
from a very great distance. He realized that in the past few days he had
not had that subtle sense of her nearness, he had not been conscious of
that drifting odor of lilacs; and suddenly he felt impoverished, alone.
Annot smiled, warm and near.
“You are awfully kind,” he temporized; “but hadn't we better let the
thing stand as it is? You see--I want money.”
“But you may have that now; whatever you want.”
“No. You are so good, it's hard to explain--I want money that I earn;
real money; I couldn't think of taking any other from you.”
“Anthony, my good bourgeois! I had thought you quite without that
sort of tin pride. Besides, I am not giving it to you; after all it's
father's to use as he likes.”
“But I must give him something for it--”
“Do you suppose you are giving us nothing?” she interrupted him warmly;
“you have brought us your clear, beautiful spirits, absolutely without
price. Why, you can make father laugh; have you any idea how rarely he
did that? When you imitate Margaret absolutely I can see her fat, white
stockings. And your marvellous unworldliness--” she shook her head
mournfully. “I fear that this is mere calculation; surely you must know
the value of your innocent charms.” Anthony stood with a lowered head,
floundering mentally among his warring inclinations; when, almost with
relief, he saw that she had noiselessly vanished.