"No, not very. But this rain is getting on my nerves I think. I can't get out much with Rogie, and I feel all cooped up."
"Couldn't we make some arrangement? Couldn't you get Mrs. Horton to come round for so many hours a day? That would leave you free. It's not right to drop all your interests, even for His Highness."
His voice was so concerned, his eyes so gentle that Anne forced back the statement that His Highness was now the only real interest she had.
"I suppose we could. But I really don't know what I would do. I thought the other day of taking some extension lectures again, afternoon ones. I got the prospectus for French literature and history—but I don't know. It seems finicky and dilettantish somehow."
French literature, when Roger was always talking about the drama and tragedy of life about them! History, when the people round her were engaged in making it!
For a moment Roger thought of suggesting that Anne come for a few hours a day and help out in the loft. They were deluged in work. Merle was getting more and more careless. Some days she never appeared at all. She had been away a week now, no one knew where, unless it was Tom, and he had offered no explanation. Katya had done Merle's work in addition to her own, but even Katya was not so good a stenographer as Anne. While he turned the suggestion about, making sure it hid no pitfall of antagonism, Anne went on:
"I guess that the real reason is I'm too lazy."
"You're certainly not that. You keep Rogie like a prince and this house is a regular jewel-box."
And yet, less than two years ago, he had planned to do high things with Anne. One planned, and something, faint as breath, impalpable as a mist, crept in, and one did not do those things. The burned log fell apart. The rain beat again on the roof as if striving to reach within. In the rising wind the acacia lashed at them. Anne came from her thoughts with a little shrug.
"Perhaps I will. I don't know. In the meantime, let's go to bed. The jewel-box has to be thoroughly overhauled this week and I want to get up early to-morrow."