Anne shrugged impatiently. No smallest change was ever accomplished in the Mitchell household without this background of tragedy. The news of her action in leaving Lowell & Morrison was now being "broken" to Belle and advice asked, exactly as if Anne had absconded with the funds or tried to commit suicide. There were no degrees of tragedy among the Mitchells.
"I don't care, let them talk it over until there isn't a shred of it left. I'm not going to explain. They wouldn't understand if I talked all night."
Anne closed the window, turned on the softly shaded lamp and chose a book from the small bookcase at the foot of the white enameled bed. Settled in the chintz-covered Morris chair, she opened the book and forced herself to follow the lines to the end of the first page. But Roger Barton's angry gray eyes moved between the words and Anne did not even turn the leaf. The book slowly slid to her lap. Across it Anne stared into the future.
The sound of Belle's step coming firmly along the hall drew her back to the present with a physical reaction of having been literally lifted from one spot and deposited in another. And before she had quite achieved equilibrium in the moment, Belle was tapping at the door. This tap of Belle's was not a motion of the fingers, but a denunciation of any pretense of absence you might be intending. It not only declared Belle's certainty that you were there but her knowledge of exactly what you were doing.
"It's me, kidlets; may I come in?"
Anne opened the door and Belle instantly filled the entire room. Closing the door, she smiled down upon Anne, flushed and a little stiff with the force of her decision not to be led into any apologetic explanation of her act.
"Well, you certainly have done it this time. I never saw such gloom, and that's going some. You'd think the sheriff was in the parlor and the morgue wagon at the door. Tell me the whole sad tale."
From an ivory cigarette case, "a remembrance from an officer patient," Belle drew a cigarette and lighted it.
"Come on, 'fess up."
"You've been out there half an hour and have heard the whole thing, more no doubt."