The Gay Cockade
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