Anne had promised, her amazement at Belle's ability to do these firm, decided things, mingling with a sense of disloyalty to her mother in recognizing their truth. She herself could never have left the house, nor stopped a contribution, unless she had done it as the final step against pricks that Belle would never have felt at all.
But now, as Anne sat in the cool darkness of her own little room, looking out into the fog-wrapped silence of the empty street, she was not thinking of Belle, nor of Belle's management of "her case." She was thinking again, in spite of her effort not to, of Roger Barton. He had passed out of her life, and yet, in some inexplicable way, he seemed to have suddenly entered it very intimately.
In the six months of his connection with Lowell & Morrison, Anne had seen more of him than of any man in any of the three offices in which she had worked. They had never talked of personal things, but of business details and the generalities into which these seemed inevitably to lead them; discussions, scarcely ever more than a few moments long, of plays and books and Life.
Anne envied Roger his university education and Roger envied Anne the courage which carried her, after a hard day's work, to extension lectures at night. From these she extracted a kind of sensory conviction of the complex and interesting world beyond her experience. A world of clear thinking, in contrast to the muddled and confused mental processes of her own family and of all the people whom she had ever known; of aims higher than the daily grubbing for food and shelter that they called living. In Roger Barton, Anne had encountered the first person who, born into an environment like her own, had forced his way through to this interesting and complex world. Anne often wondered how he had done it, but as he seemed to take his own progress for granted, and had never commented on the achievement, Anne had been too shy to ask him. And now she would probably never see him again. Through the monotony of the working day there would be no moment to look forward to; no memory with which to contrast the dullness of evenings at home.
Out in the great world open to men, Roger Barton would make another place for himself. Before his ability, his courage and his masculinity, everything was possible. He could leave to-morrow for distant countries and the far strange places he expected some day so confidently to see. He could seek beauty and romance, limited only by his own powers of physical endurance. He could work his way in ships about the world, or tramp alone across deserts. He was strong and free.
And she? In a few days she would begin again to look for another place. Perhaps she would better her salary a little, but she would come and go at fixed hours. For the greater part of the waking day she would sell her intelligence and strength to strangers. They would know nothing of the reality beneath, nor would she touch their lives at any vital spot. Her father would get over this spell of depression at his losses and his annoyance with her contradiction, and the house would run smoothly, like a narrow gauge train along a dusty, uninteresting depression between high hills; beyond these she would never see. It was all so flat, so gray, so dead. Anne shivered:
"Anything as ugly as this house and the way we live is WICKED."
Through the silence of the lonely street, Belle's firm step echoed clearly. The signal ring, three quick peals, brought Hilda running to the stair-head. The lever on the landing clicked, far below the door opened and closed with a slam, and Belle came gayly up the stairs, filling every cranny of the house with the force of her cheerful efficiency, just as if a strong breeze had been suddenly admitted.
"Hello, moms. Her Royal Highness decided she was well enough to let me off for an hour, and so I——"
All sound suddenly ceased. Then Belle, with a brisk "Hello, papa," followed her mother down the hall, past the dining-room, and the kitchen door closed behind them.