Part 33 (1/2)

”I'm puzzled, too,” I said, ”but probably not so much as you are. I think I know the real cause of the trouble.”

Anthy looked around at me, but I did not turn my head. The evening shadows were falling. I felt again that I was in the presence of high events.

”He seems so preoccupied,” she continued finally.

”Yes, I've wondered what book it is he is reading so industriously.”

”Oh, I saw that,” she said.

”What was it?” I asked eagerly.

”Nicolay and Hay's 'Life of Abraham Lincoln.'”

It struck me all in a heap, and I laughed aloud--and yet I heard of Nort's reading not without a thrill.

”What _is_ the matter?” asked Anthy. ”What does it all mean?”

I had very much the feeling at that moment that I had when I took Anthy's letters from my desk to show to Nort, as though I was about to share a great and precious treasure with Anthy.

So I told her, very quietly, about Nort's visit to me and some of the things he said. She sat very still, her hands lying in her lap, her eyes on some shadowy spot far across the garden. I paused, wondering how much I dared tell.

”I don't know, Anthy, that I was doing right,” I said, ”but I wanted him to know something of you as you really are. So I told him about your letters to Lincoln, and showed him one of them.”

She flushed deeply.

”You _couldn't_, David!”

”Yes, I did--and that may explain why he's reading the life of Lincoln.

Maybe he's trying to imitate Lincoln.”

”Imitate Lincoln----”

The sound of her voice as she said these words I think will never go quite out of my memory: it was so soft and deep, so tremulous.

And then something happened that I cannot fully explain, nor think of without a thrill. Anthy turned quickly toward me, looked at me through s.h.i.+ny tears, and put her head quickly and impulsively down upon my shoulder.

”Oh, David,” she said, ”I love you!”

But I knew well what she meant. It was that great moment in a woman's life when in loving the loved one she loves all the world. She was not thinking that moment of me, dear though I might have been to her as a friend, but of Nort--of Nort.

It was only a moment, and then she leaned quickly back, looking at me with starry eyes and a curious trembling lift of the lips.

”But David,” she said, ”I don't _want_ him like Lincoln.”

The thought must have raised in her mind some vision of the sober-sided Nort of the last few weeks, for she began to laugh again. I cannot describe it, for it was a laughter so compounded of tenderness, joy, sympathy, amus.e.m.e.nt, that it fairly set one's heart to vibrating. There was no part of Anthy--sweet, strong, loving--that was not in that laugh.

”I don't _want_ him like Lincoln,” she said.

”What do you want him like?” I asked.

”Why exactly like himself, like Nort.”