She had a nervous feeling that she must keep Murray from talking to her
like that. She rang for hot water, and their one maid, Charlotte,
brought it in a Sheffield jug. Then Ethel and Anne and Molly Winchell
arrived, and once more Murray stood up, tall and self-conscious as he
stole side glances at himself in the mirror.
Maxwell Sears had brought the three women home. He had a fashion of
following up Anne's engagements and putting his car at her disposal.
When Amy had vetoed any more adventures at the Capitol he had conceded
good-naturedly that she was right. After that he had always included Amy
or Ethel in his invitations.
"They are very pretty dragons," he had written to Winifred, "and little
Anne is like a princess shut in a tower."
Winifred, reading the letter, had brooded upon it. "He's falling in
love. A child like that--she'll spoil his future."
Congress was having night sessions. "If I could only have you up there,"
Maxwell had said to Anne as he had driven her home from the matinée,
with old Molly and Ethel on the back seat. "I should steal you if I
dared."
"Please dare."
"Do you mean it?"
"Yes. To-night. Ethel and Amy are going to a Colonial Dames meeting with
Molly Winchell. I never go. I hate ancestors."
"I shouldn't let you do it," he hesitated, "but ghosts walk after dark
in the Capitol corridors."
"I know," she nodded. "Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln."
"Yes. Then you'll come?"
"Of course."
It was the thought of her rendezvous with him that lighted her eyes when
she talked to Murray. But Murray did not know. So he swayed up on his
toes and glanced in the glass and was glad of his thinness and
tallness.
Maxwell came for Anne promptly. "You must get me back by ten," she told
him. "I have a key, and Charlotte's out."
It was a night of nights, never to be forgotten. Maxwell did not take
Anne into the Gallery. He had not brought her there to hear speeches or
to be conspicuous in the glare of lights. He led her through shadowy
corridors--up wide dim stairways.
At one turn he touched her arm. "Look!" he whispered.
"What?"
"Lafayette passed us--on the stairs."
It was a great game! On the east front Columbus spoke to them of ships
that sailed toward the sunset; in the Rotunda they kept a tryst with
William Penn; from the west-front portico they saw a city beautiful--the
streets under the moon were rivers of light--the great monument reached
like the soul of Washington toward the stars!
Out there in the moonlight Maxwell spoke of another great soul, gone of
late to join a glorious company.
"It was he who taught me that life is an adventure."
"Greatheart?"
"Yes."
"You loved him too?"
"Yes."
Anne caught her breath. "To think of him dead--to think of them
all--dead."
Maxwell looked down at her. "They live somewhere. You believe that,
don't you?"
"Yes."
He was silent for a moment; then he laid his hand lightly on her
shoulder. "I feel to-night as if they pressed close."
Oh, it was a rare game to meet great souls in odd corners! They could
scarcely tear themselves away. But he got her home before her sisters
arrived, and Anne went to bed soberly, and lay long awake, thinking it
out. She had never before had such a playmate. In all these years she
had starved for other things than food.