Before the burning self-consciousness in Anne's eyes, Bab stepped back.
"Will—will—you open the door? Yes, I know him. It's Mr. Barton. He—used to be in the same office."
Barbara's sallow cheeks flushed and her eyes scorned Anne's insincerity. For five nights Anne had let her go on, in the dark intimacy of the same room, piling up the mass of her small perplexities, the annoying efforts at adjustment between herself and Janet and her mother. And all the time Anne had harbored a romance. Anne was not the small, shy cousin, so different from Belle, so like themselves in spite of her daily contact with the great world of business. Anne knew men. When deprived for a few days of her society they came long distances to see her.
"Very well, I'll open the door. But don't be long, please. Janet's cleaning out the chicken house and looks like a fright. My other waist isn't ironed and mother's asleep."
She went. Anne heard her open the door and lead Roger down the creaking hall to the dining-room, a bare, dilapidated room, with sagging floor beyond the skill of the manless household to repair, and woodwork painted streakily by Bab and Janet.
Anne tried to hurry, but her cold fingers fumbled. And even when, at last, the hooks were hooked, the hairpins all in place, and Anne stood with her hand on the knob, it seemed impossible to turn it.
Why had he come?
Was Belle right? How had she known?
Roger Barton looked up as the rear door unexpectedly opened and Anne came toward him, with just the degree of welcome to express her surprise, and the exact amount of pleasure at the sight of a friend. Her greeting angered and disappointed him. Anne thought she did it very well.
"Hunting?" She tossed the word off lightly, as if she had many male friends all deeply interested in the sport.