"Of course you didn't. And it was silly of me to say such a thing. Anne,
I'm cold. I'm going to sit on the foot of your bed and wrap up while I
talk to you."
Anne's bed had four pineapple posts and a pink canopy. The governor of a
state had slept in that bed for years. He was one of the Merryman
grandfathers. Amy could have bought mountains of food for the price of
that bed. But she would have starved rather than sell it.
Anne under the pink canopy was like a rose--a white rose with a faint
flush. The color in Amy's cheeks was fixed and hard. Yet even with her
oldness and tiredness and metal curlers she had the look of race which
attracted Murray.
"Anne," she said, "Murray and I had a long talk about you the other
day."
"Murray always talks--long." Anne was yawning.
"Please be serious, Anne. He wants to marry you."
"Marry me!" incredulously. "I thought it was you; or Ethel."
"Well, it isn't," wearily. "And it's a great opportunity--for you,
Anne."
"Opportunity for what?"
Amy had a sense of the futility of trying to explain.
"There aren't many men like him."
"Fortunately."
"Anne, how can you? He's really paying you a great compliment."
"Why didn't he ask me himself?"
"He didn't want to startle you. You're so young. Murray has extreme
fineness of feeling."