"Don't be silly, Murray."
"Is it silly to say that I love you, Anne?"
They were alone in the old library, with its books and bronzes and
bag-wigged ancestors. And Murray sat down beside Anne and took her hand
in his and said, "I love you, Anne."
It was a proposal which was not to be treated lightly. In spite of
herself, Anne was flattered. Murray had always loomed on her horizon as
something of a bore but none the less a person of importance.
She caught her breath quickly. "Please, Murray"--her blushes were
bewitching--"I'm too young to think about such things. And I'm not in
love with anybody."
Murray raised her hand to his lips. "Keep yourself for me, little Anne."
He rose and stood looking down at her. "You're a very charming child,"
he said. "Do you know it?"
Anne, gazing at herself in the glass later, wondered if it were true. It
was nice of Murray to say it. But she was not in the least in love with
Murray. He was too old. And Maxwell was too old. Anne's dreams of
romance had to do with glorified youth. She wanted a young Romeo
shouting his passion to the stars!
She packed her bag, however, in high anticipation. Maxwell was a
splendid playmate, and she thought of his farm as flowing with milk and
honey!
Maxwell wrote to Winifred that he was coming home and bringing guests.
"Run down and meet them. Anne's a corking kid."
Winifred knew what had happened. Some girl had got hold of Maxwell. It
was always the way with men like that--big men; they were credulous
creatures where women were concerned, and it would make such a
difference to Maxwell's future if he married the wrong woman.
She decided to go down as soon as she could. She felt that she ought to
hurry, but there were things that held her. And so it happened that
before she reached the farm Maxwell had asked Anne to marry him. There
had been a cool evening when the scent of lilacs had washed in great
waves through the open windows. Amy had gone to bed and he and Anne had
dined alone with the flare of candles between them, and the rest of the
room in pleasant shadow. And then their coffee had been served, and Aunt
Mittie, his housekeeper, had asked if there was anything else, and had
withdrawn, and he had risen and had walked round to Anne's place and had
laid his hands on her shoulders.
"Little Anne," he had said, "I should like to see you here always."
"Here?"
"As my wife."
"Oh!"
She had had a rapturous week at the farm. She had never known anything
like it. Aunt Elizabeth, of the Eastern Shore, lived in a sleepy town,
and Anne's other brief vacations had been spent in more or less
fashionable resorts. But here was a paradise of plenty; the big wide
house, the spreading barns, the opulent garden, the rolling fields, the
enchanting creatures who were sheltered by the barns and fed by the
fields, and who in return gave payment of yellow cream and warm white
eggs, and who lowed at night and cackled in the morning, and whose days
were measured by the rising and the setting of the sun.
She loved it all--the purring pussies, the companionable pups, the
steady, faithful older dogs, the lambs in the pasture, the good things
to eat.
She was glowing with gratitude, and Maxwell was asking insistently,
"Won't you, Anne?"
She had never been so happy, and he was the source of her happiness.
Against this background of vivid life the thought of Murray was a pale
memory.
So her wistful eyes met Maxwell's. "It would be lovely--to live
here--always."
Later, when she had started up-stairs with her candle, he had kissed
her, leaning over the rail to watch her as she went up, and Anne had
gone to sleep tremulous with the thought that her future would lie here
in this great house with this fine and kindly man.
Winifred, coming down at last, found that she had come too late. Maxwell
told her as they motored up from the station.
"Wish me happiness, Win. I am going to marry little Anne."
It did not enter his head for a moment that the woman by his side loved
him. He had thought that if she ever married him it would be a sort of
concession on her part, a sacrifice to her interest in his future. He
had a feeling that she would be glad if such a sacrifice were not
demanded.
But Winifred was not glad. "You are sure you are making no mistake,
Max?"
"Wait till you see her."
Winifred waited and saw. "She's not in the least in love with him. She
likes the warm nest she has fallen into. And she'll spoil his future.
He'll settle down here, and he belongs to the world."
He belonged at least to his constituency.
"I've got to make a speech," he told the three women one morning, "in a
town twenty miles away. If you girls would like the ride you can motor
over with me. You needn't listen to my speech if you don't want to."
Amy and Winifred said that of course they wanted to listen. Anne smiled
happily and said nothing. She was, of course, glad to go, but Maxwell's
speeches were to her the abstract things of life; the concrete things at
this moment were the delicious dinner which was before her and the fact
that in the barn, curled up in the hay, was a new family of
kittens--little tabbies like their adoring mother.
"Isn't it a lovely world?" she had said to her lover as she had sat in
the loft with the cuddly cats in her lap.
"Yes."
He knew that it was not all lovely, that somewhere there were lean and
hungry kittens and lean and hungry folks--but why remind her at such a
moment?