Part 83 (2/2)

Dot declared afterwards that the birthday-party had been all she could have desired. Everyone had been nice to everyone, and the baby hadn't been rude to his uncle, a calamity she had greatly feared. Also Nap was improved, hugely improved. Didn't Bertie think so? He seemed to have got so much more human. She couldn't realise there had ever been a time when she had actually disliked him.

”P'r'aps we're more human ourselves,” suggested Bertie; a notion which hadn't occurred to Dot but which she admitted might have something in it.

Anyway, she was sure Nap had improved, and she longed to know if Anne thought so too.

Anne's thoughts upon that subject, however, were known to none, perhaps not even to herself. All she knew was an overwhelming desire for solitude, but when this was hers at last it was not in the consideration of this question that she spent it.

It was in kneeling by her open window with her face to the sky, and in her heart a rapture of gladness that all the birds of June could not utter.

She scarcely slept at all that night, yet when she rose some of the bloom of youth had come back to her, some of its summer splendour was s.h.i.+ning in her eyes. Anne Carfax was more nearly a beautiful woman that day than she had ever been before.

Dimsdale looked at her benignly. Would her ladys.h.i.+p breakfast out-of-doors? She smiled and gave her a.s.sent, and while he was preparing she plucked a spray of rose acacia and pinned it at her throat.

”Dimsdale,” she said, and her cheeks flushed to the soft tint of the blossom as she spoke, ”Mr. Errol is coming over this morning. I expect him to luncheon.”

”Mr. Errol, my lady?”

”Mr. Nap Errol,” said Anne, still intent upon the acacia. ”Show him into the garden when he comes. He is sure to find me somewhere.”

Dimsdale's eyes opened very wide, but he managed his customary ”Very good, my lady,” as he continued his preparations. And so Anne breakfasted amid the tumult of rejoicing June, all the world laughing around her, all the world offering abundant thanksgiving because of the suns.h.i.+ne that flooded it.

When breakfast was over she sat with closed eyes, seeming to hear the very heart of creation throbbing in every sound, yet listening, listening intently for something more. For a long time she sat thus, absorbed in the great orchestra, waiting as it were to take her part in the mighty symphony that swept its perfect harmonies around her.

It was a very little thing at last that told her her turn had come, so small a thing, and yet it sent the blood tingling through every vein, racing and pulsing with headlong impetus like a locked stream suddenly set free. It was no more than the flight of a startled bird from the tree above her.

She opened her eyes, quivering from head to foot. Yesterday she had commanded herself. She had gone to him with outstretched hand and welcoming smile. To-day she sat quite still. She could not move.

He came to her, stooped over her, then knelt beside her; but he did not offer to touch her. The sunlight streamed down upon his upturned face.

His eyes were deep and still and pa.s.sionless.

”You expected me,” he said.

She looked down at him. ”I have been expecting you for a very long time,” she said.

A flicker that was scarcely a smile crossed his face. ”And yet I've come too soon,” he said.

”Why do you say that?” She asked the question almost in spite of herself.

But she had begun to grow calmer. His quietness rea.s.sured her.

”Because, my Queen,” he said, ”the _role_ of jester at court is obsolete, at least so far as I am concerned, and I haven't managed to qualify for another.”

”Do you want another?” she said.

He turned his eyes away from her. ”I want--many things,” he said.

She motioned him to the seat beside her. ”Tell me what you have been doing all this time.”

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