Somewhere in the distance the telephone rang, and a maid came in to say
that Dr. Dunbar was wanted. "Don't wait for me," he said, "I'll follow
you."
Jeanette Ware hated the night air, and took her book to the lamp on the
screened porch, and so it happened that Anne and Christopher came alone
to the grove where the white bodies of the birches shone like slender
nymphs through the dusk. A little wind shook their leaves.
"No wonder," said Christopher, looking down at Anne, "that you wanted
this--but tell me precisely why."
She tried to tell him, but found it difficult. "I seem to find something
here that I thought I had lost."
"What things?"
"Well--guardian angels--do you believe in them?" She spoke lightly, as
if it were not in the least serious, but he felt that it was serious.
"I believe in all beautiful things--"
"I used to think when I was a little girl that they were around me when
I was asleep--
'Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John--
Bless the bed that I lie on--'"
her laugh was a bit breathless--"but I don't believe in them any more.
Ridgeley doesn't, you know. And it does seem silly--"
"Oh, no, it isn't--"
"Ridgeley feels that it is a bit morbid--and perhaps he is right. He
says that we must eat and drink and--be merry," she flung out her hands
with a little gesture of protest, "but he really isn't merry--"
"I see. He just eats and drinks?" He smiled at her.
"And works. And his work is--wonderful."
They sat down on a stone bench which had been hewn out of solid gray
rock. "I wish Ridgeley had time to play," Anne said; "it would be nice
for both of us--"
The amethyst light had gone, and the dusk descended. Anne's gray dress
was merged into the gray of the rock. She seemed just voice, and phantom
outline, and faint rose fragrance. Christopher recognized the scent. He
had sent her a precious vial in a sandalwood box. Nothing had seemed too
good for the wife of his old friend Dunbar.
"Life for you and Ridgeley," he told her, "should be something more than
work or play--it should be infinite adventure."
"Yes. But Ridgeley hasn't time for adventure."
"Oh, he thinks he hasn't--"
As Christopher talked after that, Anne was not sure that he was in
earnest. He complained that romance had fallen into disrepute. "With all
the modern stories--you know the formula--an ounce of sordidness, a
flavor of sensationalism, a dash of sex--" One had to look back for the
real thing--Aucassin and Nicolette, and all the rest. "That's why I
haven't married."
"Well, I have often wondered."
"If I loved a woman, I should want to make her life all glow and
color--and mine--with her--"
Anne's eyes were shining. What a big pleasant boy he was. He seemed so
young. He had a way of running his fingers up through his hair. She was
aware of the gesture in the dark. Yes, she liked him. And she felt
suddenly gay and light-hearted, as she had felt in the days when she
first met Ridgeley.
They talked until the stars shone in the tips of the birch trees.
Ridgeley did not come, and when they went back to the house, they found
that he had been called to New York on an urgent case. He would not
return until the following Friday.
Anne and Christopher were thus left together for a week to get
acquainted. With only old Jeanette Ware to play propriety.