"Wait," he said. "Let me think. I don't know how to get on with people. They only make me mad."
That put a different face on it. Anne knew what he meant. Here he was, he for whom they had meant to erect arches of welcome, floored in a moment by the perplexities of family life.
"Of course," said Anne. She often said "of course" to show her sympathy. "You tell it your own way."
"Ah!" said Jeffrey, with a breath of gratitude. "Now you're talking. Don't you see——" he faced Anne as the only person present whose emotions weren't likely to get the upper hand——"don't you see I've got to know how father's fixed before I make any plans for myself?"
Anne nodded.
"We live pretty simply," she said, "but we can live. I keep the accounts. I can tell you how much we spend."
The colonel had got hold of himself now.
"I have twelve hundred a year," he said. "We do very well on that. I don't actually know how, except that Anne is such a good manager. She and Lydia have earned quite a little, dancing, but I always insisted on their keeping that for their own use."
Here Jeffrey looked at Anne and found her pinker than she had been. Anne was thinking she rather wished she had not been so free with her offer of accounts.
"Dancing," said he. "Yes. You wrote me. Do you like to dance?"