Part 14 (2/2)
”No, Anna, you shall not go out for water a night like this; it's not the work for you to do.” David had sprung forward and caught the bucket from her hand and plunged with it into the storm. Kate's quick eyes caught the expression of David's face--while Mrs. Bartlett only heard his words. She gave Anna a searching look as she said: ”So it is you whom David loves.” At last Kate understood the secret of Anna's distracted face--and at last the mother understood the secret of her boy's moodiness--he loved Anna. And her heart was filled with bitterness and anger at the very thought; she had taken her boy, this stranger, with whom the tongue of scandal was busy. The kindly, gentle, old face lost all its sweetness; jealous anger filled it with ugly lines. Turning to Anna she said:
”It would have been better for all of us if we had not taken you in that day to break up our home with your mischief.”
Anna was cut to the quick. ”Oh, Mrs. Bartlett, please do not say that; I will go away as soon as you like, but it is not with my consent that David has these foolish fancies about me.”
”And do you mean to say that you have never encouraged him,”
indignantly demanded the irate mother, who with true feminine inconsistency would not have her boy's affections go begging, even while she scorned the object of it.
”Encouraged him? I have begged, entreated him to let me alone; I do not want his love.”
An angry sparrow defending her brood could not have been more indignantly demonstrative than this gentle old lady.
”And isn't he good enough for you, Miss?” she asked in a voice that shook with wrath.
”Dear Mrs. Bartlett, would you have me take his love and return it?”
”No, no; that would never do!” and the inconsistent old soul rocked herself to and fro in an agony of despair.
Anna did not resent Mrs. Bartlett's indignation, unjust though it was; she knew how blind good mothers could be when the happiness of their children is at stake. She felt only pity for her and remembered only her kindness. So slipping down on her knees beside the old lady's chair, she took the toil-worn old hands in her own and said:
”Do not think hardly of me, Mrs. Bartlett. You have been so good--and when I am gone, I want you to think of me with affection. I will go away, and all this trouble will straighten itself out, and you will forget that I ever caused you a moment's pain.”
Dave came in with the bucket of water that had caused the little squall and prevented his mother from replying, but the hard lines had relaxed in the good old face. She was again ”mother” whom they all knew and loved. Sanderson followed close after David; he had just come from Boston, he said, and inquired for Kate with a simple directness that left no doubt as to whom he had come to see.
It is an indisputable law of the eternal feminine for all women to flaunt a conquest in the face of the man who had declined their affection. Kate was not in love with her cousin David, but she was devoutly thankful to Providence that there was a Lennox Sanderson to flaunt before him in the capacity of tame cat, and prove that he ”was not the only man in the world,” as she put it to herself.
Therefore when Lennox Sanderson handed her a magnificent bunch of Jacqueminot roses that he had brought her from Boston, Kate was not at all backward in rewarding Sanderson with her graciousness.
”How beautiful they are, Mr. Sanderson; it was so good of you.”
”You make me very happy by taking them,” he answered with a wealth of meaning.
Anna, who had gone to the storeroom for some apples, after her reconciliation with Mrs. Bartlett, returned to find Sanderson talking earnestly to Kate by the window. Kate held up the roses for Anna to smell. ”Aren't they lovely, Anna? There is nothing like roses for taking the edge off a snowstorm.”
Anna was forced to go through the farce of admiring them, while Sanderson looked on with nicely concealed amus.e.m.e.nt.
”Well, what do you think of them, Anna?” said Kate, disappointed that she made no comment.
”The best thing about roses, speaking generally, Miss Kate, is that they fade quickly and do not embarra.s.s one by outliving the little affairs in which they have played a part.” She returned Sanderson's languid glance in a way that made him quail.
”That is quite true,” said Kate, being in the humor for a little cynicism. ”What a pity that love letters can't be constructed on the same principle.”
Sanderson did not feel particularly at ease while these two young women served and returned cynicism; he was accordingly much relieved when Mrs. Bartlett and Anna both left the room, intent on the solemn ceremony of opening a new supply of preserved peaches.
”Kate, did you mean what you just said to that girl?” Sanderson asked when they were alone.
”What did I say? Oh, yes, about the love letters. Well, what difference does it make whether I meant it or not?”
”It makes all the difference in the world to me, Kate.” He read refusal in the big blue eyes, and he made haste to plead his cause before she could say anything.
<script>