Part 11 (1/2)
The spectacles, however, continued to do their work n.o.bly for the professor, not only a.s.sisting him to make his scientific observations on the habits of a potato-bug in captivity, but showing him with far more clearness that Kate Brewster and Lennox Sanderson contrived to spend a great deal of time in each other's society, and that both seemed to enjoy the time thus spent.
The professor went back to his beetles, but they palled. The most gorgeous b.u.t.terfly ever constructed had not one-tenth the charm for him that was contained in a glance of Kate Brewster's eyes, or a glimpse of her golden head as she flitted about the house. And so the autumn waned.
CHAPTER XIII.
THE QUALITY OF MERCY
”Teach me to feel another's woe, To hide the fault I see; That mercy I to others show, That mercy show to me.”--_Pope_.
Sanderson, during his visits to the Bartlett farm--and they became more frequent as time went on--would look at Anna with cold curiosity, not unmixed with contempt, when by chance they happened to be alone for a moment. But the girl never displayed by so much as the quiver of an eye-lash that she had ever seen him before.
Had Lennox Sanderson been capable of fathoming Anna Moore, or even of reading her present marble look or tone, he would have seen that he had little to apprehend from her beyond contempt, a thing he would not in the least have minded; but he was cunning, and like the cunning shallow. So he began to formulate plans for making things even with Anna--in other words, buying her off.
His admiration for Kate deepened in proportion as the square of that young woman's reserve increased. She was not only the first woman who refused to burn incense at his shrine, but also the first who frankly admitted that she found him amusing. She mildly guyed his accent, his manner of talking, his London clothes, his way of looking at things.
Never having lived near a university town, she escaped the traditional hero wors.h.i.+p. It was a new sensation for Sanderson, and eventually he succ.u.mbed to it.
”You know, Miss Kate,” he said one day, ”you are positively the most refres.h.i.+ng girl I have ever met. You don't know how much I love you.”
Kate considered for a moment. There was a hint of patronage, it seemed to her, in his compliment, that she did not care for.
”Oh, consider the debt cancelled, Mr. Sanderson. You have not found my rustic simplicity any more refres.h.i.+ng than I have found your poster waistcoats.”
”Why do you persist is misunderstanding and hurting me?”
”I apologize to your waistcoats, Mr. Sanderson. I have long considered them the subst.i.tute for your better nature.”
”Better natures and that sort of thing have rather gone out of style, haven't they?”
”They are always out of style with people who never had them.”
”Is this quarreling, Kate, or making love?”
”Oh, let's make it quarreling, Mr. Sanderson. And now about that horse you lent me. That's a vile bit you've got on him.” And the conversation turned to other things, as it always did when he tried to be sentimental with Kate. Sometimes he thought it was not the girl, but her resistance, that he admired so much.
Things in the Bartlett household were getting a bit uneasy. The Squire chafed that his cherished project of Kate and Dave's marrying seemed no nearer realization now than it had been two years ago.
Dave's equable temper vanished under the strain and uncertainty regarding Anna Moore's silence and apparent indifference to him. He would have believed her before all the world; her side of the story was the only version for him; but Anna did not see fit to break her silence. When he would approach her on the subject she would only say:
”Mr. David, your father employs me as a servant. I try to do my work faithfully, but my past life concerns no one but myself.”
And Dave, fearing that she might leave them, if he continued to force his attentions on her, held his peace. The thought of losing even the sight of her about the house wrung his heart. He could not bear to contemplate the long winter days uncheered by her gentle presence.
It was nearly Thanksgiving. The first snow had come and covered up everything that was bare and unsightly in the landscape with its beautiful mantle of white, and Anna, sitting by the window, dropped the stocking she was darning to press the bitter tears back to her eyes.
The snow had but one thought for her. She saw it falling, falling soft and feathery on a baby's grave in the Episcopal Cemetery at Somerville.
She s.h.i.+vered; it was as if the flakes were falling on her own warm flesh.