"Why?" Raven ventured.
If Nan was in a mood to unveil her dear mind, he wanted her voice to rush on and on in that sweet staccato. And her answer was in itself surprising:
"Aunt Anne."
Raven sat looking at her, a slow smile dawning. There she was, "prim as a dish," Charlotte would say, her two braids down her back, her hands clasped about her knees. He had never, the undercurrent in his mind still reminded him, been so alone with her since the days when they had, with an unspoken sense of lawlessness, slipped away together for a day's fishing or a breathless orchid hunt in the woods. The adventures had been less and less frequent as time ran on and it had begun to dawn on Raven that they were entirely contrary to Aunt Anne's sense of New England decencies. After each occasion Nan would be mysteriously absent for a half day, at least, and when she reappeared she was a little shyer of him, more silent toward Aunt Anne. Had she been put to bed, or shut up with tasks, to pay the tax on her stolen pleasures? He never knew. He did know, however, that when he proposed taking her off to wild delights that made her eyes glow with anticipation she always refused, unless he acceded to her plea to slip away: always to slip away, not to tell. Could it be she had known by a child's hard road to knowledge—of observation, silence, unaided conclusion—that Aunt Anne would never allow them to run away to play? Curious, pathetic, abnormal even, to have been jealous of a child! Then he pulled himself up with the shocked sense, now become recurrent, that he had never allowed himself to attack Anne's fair dignity with the weapon of unsuppressed guesswork about her inner motives. He had assumed, he had felt obliged to assume, they were as fine as her white hands. All the more reason for not assailing them now when she was withdrawn into her strange distance. Yet one source of wonder might be allowed him to explore unhindered: the presence of Nan here at his hearth, inviting him to know her to the last corner of her honest mind. She was even eager in this loving hospitality. He would hardly have seen how to define the closeness of their relation. She had turned her eyes from the fire to meet his.
"Well?" she said. "What?"
"I was thinking how queer it is," said Raven, "we never've been alone together very much—'all told' as Charlotte would say—and here we sit as if we were going to be here forever and talk out all the things."
"What things?" asked Nan.
She was not looking at him now, but back into the fire and she had a defensive air, as if she expected to find herself on her guard.
"Lots of 'em," said Raven. "The money." His voice sounded to her as if he cursed it, and again he pulled himself up. "What are we going to do with it?"
"Aunt Anne's," she said, not as a question but a confirmation.