Part 21

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.

IV

In due time Congress adjourned, but Maxwell did not go home. He continued to see Anne. Amy was at last driven to her duty by Murray. She could not forbid Maxwell the house. There was nothing to do but talk to Anne.

Having made up her mind she sought Anne's room at once. Anne, in a cheap cotton kimono, was braiding her hair for the night. The sleeves of the kimono were short and showed her thin white arms. Amy had on a blanket wrapper. Her hair was in metal curlers. She looked old and tired, and now and then she coughed.

Anne got into bed and drew the covers up to her chin. "I'm so cold, I believe there are icicles on my eyebrows. Amy, my idea of heaven is a place where it is as hot as--Hades."

"I don't see where you get such ideas. Ethel and I don't talk that way. We don't even think that way, Anne."

"Maybe when I am as old as you---" Anne began, and was startled at the look on Amy's face.

"I'm not old!" Amy said passionately. "Anne, I haven't lived at all, and I'm only thirty."

Anne stared at her. "Oh, my darling, I didn't mean---"

"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."

Anne tilted her chin. "I don't see what he finds in me."

"You're young"--with a tinge of bitterness--"and he says you are beautiful."

Anne threw off the covers and set her bare feet on the floor. "Beautiful!" she scoffed, but went to the mirror. "I'm thin," she meditated, "but I've got nice hair."

"We all have nice hair," said Amy; "but you've got Ethel's complexion and my figure."

"I don't think I want to be loved for my complexion." Anne turned suddenly and faced her sister. "Or my figure. I'd rather be loved for my mind."

"Men don't love women for their minds," said Amy wearily. "You'll learn that when you have lived as long as I have. Get back into bed, Anne. You'll freeze."

But Anne, shivering in the cotton kimono, argued the question hotly: "I should think Murray would want to marry someone with congenial tastes. He hates everything that I like."

"He'll make an excellent husband. You ought to be happy to know that he--cares."

She began to cough--a racking cough that left her exhausted.

Anne, bending over her, said, "Why, Amy, are you sick?"

"I'm--I'm rather wretched, Anne."

"Are you taking anything for your cough?"

"Yes."

"You ought to have a doctor."

"I have had one."

"What did he say?"

Amy put her off. "I'll feel better in the morning, Anne. Don't worry." Again the cough tore her. Anne flew to Ethel.

"See what you can do for her. There is blood on her handkerchief! I am going to call a doctor."

The doctor, arriving, checked the cough. Later he told Anne that Amy must have a change and strengthening food.

"At once. She's in a very serious state. I've told her, but she won't listen."

In the days that followed Anne arraigned herself hotly. "I've been a selfish pig--eating up everything--and Amy needed it."

In this state of mind she fasted--and was famished.

Maxwell, noting her paleness, demanded, "What's the matter? Aren't you well?"

She wanted to cry out, "I'm hungry." But she, too, had her pride.

"Amy's ill."

He got it out of her finally. "The doctor is much worried about her. He says she needs a change."

"You need it too."

She needed food, but she couldn't tell him that. The state of their exchequer was alarming. It had been revealed to her since Amy's illness that there was really nothing coming in until the next quarter.

"Why didn't you let Charlotte go, Ethel?"

"We've always had a maid. What would people think?"

"And because of what people think, Amy is to starve?"

"Anne, how can you?"

"Well, it comes to that. She needs things; and we don't need Charlotte."

But when they spoke to Amy of sending Charlotte away she was feverishly excited. "There's nobody to do the work."

"I can do it," said Anne.

"We Merrymans have never worked," Amy began to cry. "I'd rather die," she said, "than have people think we are--poor."

V

Maxwell was a man of action. When he saw Anne pale he sought a remedy. "Look here, why can't you and your sisters come out to my farm?"

Anne, remembering certain things--broilers and fresh eggs--was thrilled by the invitation. "I'd love it! But Amy won't accept."

"Why not?"

"She's terribly stiff."

He laughed. "Perhaps I can talk her over."

Amy, lying on her couch, very weary, facing a shadowy future, felt his magnetism as he talked to her. It was as if life spoke through his lips. Murray had sat there beside her only an hour before. He had brought her roses but he had brought no hope.

Fear had for weeks kept Amy company. Through her nights and days it had stalked, a pale spectre. And now Maxwell was saying: "You'll be well in a month. Of course you'll come! There's room for half a dozen. You three won't half fill the house."

It was decided, however, that Ethel must stay in town. Amy had a nervous feeling that with the house closed Murray might slip away from them.

Old Molly Winchell, summing up the situation, said to Murray: "Of course Anne will marry Maxwell Sears. There's nothing like propinquity."

Murray, startled, admitted the danger. "It would be an awful thing for Anne."

"Why?"

"He's rather a bounder."

Old Molly Winchell hit him on the arm with her fan. Her eyes twinkled maliciously. "He's nothing of the sort, and you know it. You're jealous, Murray."

Murray's jealousy was, quite uniquely, not founded on any great depth of love for Anne. His appropriation of the three sisters had been a pretty and pleasant pastime. When he had finally decided upon Anne as the pivotal center of his universe he had contemplated a future in which the other sisters also figured--especially Amy. He had, indeed, not thought of a world without Amy.

Her illness had troubled him, but not greatly. Things had always come to him as he had wanted them, and he was quite sure that if Anne was to be the flame to light his future, Providence would permit Amy to be, as it were, the keeper of the light.

He felt it necessary to warn Anne: "Don't fall in love with Sears."

"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?

VI

On the way over Anne sat with Winifred. She had insisted that Amy should have the front seat with Max. Amy was much better. Life had begun to flow into her veins like wine. She had written to Murray: "It is as if a miracle had happened."

Winifred, on the back seat, talked to Anne. She had a great deal to say about Maxwell's future. "I am sorry he bought the farm."

"Oh, not really." Anne's attention strayed. She had one of the puppies in her lap. He kept peeping out from between the folds of her cape with his bright eyes. "Isn't he a darling, Winifred?"

"He ought to sell it." Winifred liked dogs, but at this moment she wanted Anne's attention. "He ought to sell the farm. He has a great future before him. Everybody says it. He simply must not settle down."

"Oh, well, he won't," said Anne easily.

"He will if you let him."

"If I let him?"

"If he thinks you like it."

There was a deep flush on Winifred's cheeks. She was really a very handsome girl, with bright brown hair and brown eyes. She wore a small brown hat and a sable collar. The collar was open and showed her strong white throat.

"If he thinks you like it," she repeated, "he will stay; and he belongs to the world; nobody must hold him back. He's the biggest man in his party to-day. There is no limit to his powers."

Anne stared at her. "Of course there isn't." She wondered why Winifred seemed so terribly in earnest about it. She pulled the puppy's ears. "But I should hate to have him sell the farm."

Winifred settled back with a sharp sigh and gazed at the long gray road ahead of her. She gazed indeed into a rather blank future. Her talents would be, she felt, to some extent wasted. If Max rose to greater heights of fame it would be because of his own unaided efforts. This child would be no help to him.

The speech Max made to his constituents was not cool and clear-cut like the speeches which Anne had heard him make to his colleagues in the House. He spoke now with warmth and persuasiveness. Anne, sitting in the big car on the edge of the crowd, found herself listening intently. She was aware, as he went on, of a new Max. The mass of men who had gathered were largely foreigners who knew little of the real meanings of democracy. Max was telling them what it meant to be a good American. He told it simply, but he was in dead earnest. Anne felt that this earnestness was the secret of his power. He wanted men to be good Americans, he wanted them to know the privileges they might enjoy in a free country, and he was telling them how to keep it free-not by violence and mob rule but by remembering their obligations as citizens. He told them that they must be always on the side of law and order, that they must fight injustice not with the bomb and the red flag but with their votes.

"Vote for the man you trust, and not for the man who inflames your passions. Your vote is a sacred thing; when you sell it you dishonor yourself. Respect yourself, and you'll respect the country that has made a man of you."

The response was immediate, the applause tumultuous. After his speech they crowded about him. They knew him for their friend. But they knew him for more than that. He asked nothing of their manhood but the best. He preached honesty and practiced it.

Yet as he climbed into the car Anne had little to say to him. Winifred, leaning forward, was emphatic in her praise:

"You have no right to bury yourself, Max."

"My dear girl, I'm not dead yet." He was a bit impatient. He had hoped for a word from Anne. But she sat silent, pulling the puppy's ears.

"He's asleep," she said finally as she caught the inquiry in her lover's eyes. "He's tired out, poor darling."

She seemed indifferent, but she was not. She had been much stirred. She had a strange feeling that something had happened to her while she had listened to Maxwell's speech. Some string had broken and her romance was out of tune.

She lay awake for a long time that night, thinking it over. She grew hot with the thought of the limitations of her previous conception of her lover. She had considered him a sort of background for the pleasant things he could do for her. She had fitted him to the measure of the boxes of candy that he had brought her, the luncheons in the House restaurant, the bountiful hospitality of the farm. How lightly she had looked down on him as he had stood below her on the stairs with her candle in his hand. How casually she had accepted his kiss. She had a sudden feeling that she must not let him kiss her again!

Early in the morning she went into Amy's room. "Amy," she said, "how soon do you think we can go to Aunt Elizabeth's?"

"Aunt Elizabeth's? Why, Anne?"

"I want to leave here."

"To leave here?" Amy sat up. Even in the bright light of the morning her face looked young. Good food and fresh air had done much for her. It had been quite heavenly, too, to let care slip away, to have no thought of what she should eat or what she should drink or what she should wear. "To leave here? I thought you loved it, Anne."

"I've got to get away. I'm not going to marry Maxwell, Amy."

"Anne! What made you change your mind?"

"I can't tell you. Please don't ask me. But I wish you would write to Aunt Elizabeth."

"I had a letter from her yesterday. She says we can come at any time. But--have you told Max?"

"Not yet."

"Has he done anything?"

"No. It's just--that I can't marry him. Don't ask me, Amy." She broke down in a storm of tears.

Amy, soothing her, wondered if after all Anne cared for Murray Flint. It was, she felt, the only solution possible. Surely a girl would not throw away a chance to marry a man like Maxwell Sears for nothing.

For Amy had learned in the days that she had spent at the farm that Maxwell Sears was a man to reckon with. She was very grateful for what he had done for her, and she had been glad of Anne's engagement. Murray would perhaps be disappointed, but there would still be herself and Ethel.

It was not easy to explain things to Maxwell.

"Why are you going now?" he demanded, and was impatient when they told him that Aunt Elizabeth expected them. "I don't understand it at all. It upsets all of my plans for you, Anne."

That night when he brought Anne's candle she was not on the stairs. Winifred and Amy had gone up.

"Anne! Anne!" he called softly.

She came to the top rail and leaned over. "I'm going to bed in the dark. There's a wonderful moon."

"Come down--for a minute."

"No."

"Then I'll come up," masterfully.

He mounted the stairs two at a time; but when he reached the landing the door was shut!

In the morning he asked her about it. "Why, dearest?"

"Max dear, I can't marry you."

"Nonsense!" His voice was sharp. He laid his hands heavily on her shoulders. "Why not? Look at me, Anne. Why not?"

"I'm not going to marry--anybody."

That was all he could get out of her. He pleaded, raged, and grew at last white and still with anger. "You might at least tell me your reasons."

She said that she would write. Perhaps she could say it better on paper. And she was very, very sorry, but she couldn't.

Winifred knew that something was up, but made no comment. Amy, carrying out their program of departure, had a sense of regret.

After all, it had been a lovely life, and there were worse things than being a sister to Maxwell Sears. Her voice broke a little as she tried to thank him on their last morning.

He wrung her hand. "Say a good word for me with Anne. I don't know what's the matter with her."

Neither did Amy. And if she was Maxwell's advocate how could she be Murray's? She flushed a little.

"Anne's such a child."

He remembered how he had called her a corking kid. She was more than that to him now. She stood in the doorway in her gray sailor hat and gray cape.

"Anne," he said, "you must have a last bunch of pansies from the garden. Come out and help me pick them."

In the garden he asked, "Are you going to kiss me good-bye?"

"No, Max. Please--"

"Then it's 'God bless you, dearest.'"

He forgot the pansies and they went back to where the car waited.

VII