“Is that all it means to you?”
And yet we had spoken very softly. But Anita had eyes that ate up every
movement in a room, and her small pretty ears never seemed to miss a
significant word though ten people were talking. I had seen her glance
uneasily at us and again at the two in the other room. I knew
Great-aunt’s mutter was too low even for her, and Kent Rehan only nodded
now and then, but even that annoyed her. She lifted her own voice to be
sure that they should hear all that she said, as if afraid lest, even
for a moment, she should be left out of their thoughts.
“Oh!” she said loudly and contemptuously, “I tell you what _I_ see.”
She succeeded, if that pleased her. Kent Rehan raised his head and
stared across at her with that impersonal expression of attention that,
I was beginning to realize, could always anger her on any face. She had
said a little while ago that she only cared for Miss Grey as an artist,
and I believe that she believed it. But I don’t think—I shall never
think it true. I think Anita depended—depends, on other people more than
she dreams. Poor Anita! I can see her now, her whole personality
challenging those dark abstracted eyes. But she spoke to the Baxter
girl—
“When Madala Grey chose _Eden Walls_ for her title—when she flung it in
the public face——”
I saw him give a shrug of fatigue or distaste—I couldn’t tell which.
Great-aunt, who had been sitting, her head on one side, with her sharp
poll-parrot expression, crooked her finger at me. I went across to her
and behind me I heard the Baxter girl—
“You talk as if she were in a passion——”