Her old-fashioned mood was ruined; so was the moon, and so was her evening. She went home early, and sent her car back to wait for Anne.
VI
SALLIE EALING
IT DID not wait so long as it usually did: Anne came home early, too, at eleven; though the dancing would go on until one, and it was her habit to stay as long as the musicians did. Distant throbbings of dance music from across the links came in at the girl’s open window as she undressed in her pretty room; but she listened without pleasure, for perhaps she felt something unkind in these far-away sounds to-night—something elfish and faintly jeering.
Her mother, coming in, and smiling as she always did when she came for their after-the-party talks, saw that Anne looked serious: her eyes were grave and evasive.
“Did you get tired—or anything, Anne?”
“It wasn’t very exciting—just the same old crowd that you always see there, week after week. I thought I might as well get to bed a little early.”
“That’ll please your father,” Mrs. Cromwell assured her. “I noticed you danced several times with young Hobart Simms. You were dancing with him when I left, I think.”
“Yes?” Anne said, inquiringly, but she did not look toward her mother. She stood facing her dressing-table, apparently preoccupied with it. “I shouldn’t?”
“ ‘Shouldn’t?’ ” Mrs. Cromwell echoed, laughing indulgently. “He’s commonplace, perhaps, but he’s a nice boy, and everybody admires the plucky way he’s behaved about his father’s failure. I only thought——” she hesitated.