"It's--it's a man much older than I am," she went on, "and--and I don't
know that he has ever thought of me--in that way--perhaps if he had, he
might like me--a little----"
I am sure that Charlemagne felt the charm of her youth, as she made
her little confession, and I am just as sure that he was absolutely
innocent that he was the object of it.
"He would undoubtedly love you more than a little," he said heartily.
"Look here, Elizabeth, you won't mind telling me who he is--will
you----?"
Here was an opportunity holding out open arms, and did Elizabeth
embrace it as beseemed an advocate of woman's right to woo?
Not she! She simply gasped in a panic-stricken way and stood up.
"Oh, _no_," she whispered, with her cheeks flaming, "I couldn't--I
couldn't tell any one."
Before Charlemagne could answer, McChesney blundered in.
"Say----" he stopped dead still on the threshold, "I think this is a
case of monopoly. I'm tired of hanging around waiting for the girl I
want. I am going to break the rules, Dabney, and ask Miss Ames to take
me for a walk in the rose garden."
And Elizabeth actually turned to him with an air of relief.
"Oh, yes," she said breathlessly, "I'd love it!"
And away they went. And Charlemagne, turning back into the library, met
Anne Beaumont coming in at the other door.
She wore a thin, trailing white gown, and there were dark shadows under
her eyes. She looked tired and fragile and every day of her thirty-six
years.
"Anne!" Charlemagne said, as if for him all the morning stars sang
together.
Anne dropped into the chair where Elizabeth had been.
"I'm afraid I'm awfully late getting down," she faltered, "but--but my
head ached."
Charlemagne stood behind her chair, and there was a look on his face
that, for the first time, made me ashamed of my eavesdropping. The
other had been comedy, but this was real.
"Poor little Anne," he said.
Anne propped her chin on her hand and gazed out through the open door
with wide eyes.
"Yes," she said slowly, "poor little Anne."
He came around and took the other chair. "I wish--I knew how I might
comfort you," he said.
For a moment Anne looked at him with that wide stare, then, like a
flash, it came. "Oh, Charlie, Charlie boy," she cried, "why don't you
ask me to marry you--I can't ask you, you know----"
Before she had finished, he was on his knees beside her, and then I
shut my eyes and put my fingers in my ears, for the time had come when
I had no right to hear or see.
But as for theories--Oh, who knows _what_ a woman will do? There was
Elizabeth and there was Anne----
But I never would have believed it of Anne!
[Illustration]