Her visitor had seated himself in the armchair facing her. The late afternoon light fell on his thick ruddy face, in which the small eyes, between white lids, looked startlingly blue. At her question the blood rose from his cheeks to his forehead, and invaded the thin pepper-and-salt hair carefully brushed over his solidly moulded head.
“Don’t—don’t try to find out, I beg of you; I haven’t,” he stammered.
She felt his blush reflected on her own pale cheek, and the tears rose to her eyes. How was he to help her if he took that tone? He did not give her time to answer, but went on, in a voice laboriously cheerful: “Look forward, not back: that’s the thing to do. Living with young people, isn’t it the natural attitude? And Anne is not the kind to dig and brood: thank goodness, she’s health itself, body and soul. She asks no questions; never has. Why should I have put it into her head that there were any to ask? Her grandmother didn’t. It was her policy ... as it’s been mine. If we didn’t always agree, the old lady and I, we did on that.” He stood up and leaned against the mantel, his gaze embracing the pyramidal bronze clock on which a heavily-draped Muse with an Etruscan necklace rested her lyre. “Anne was simply given to understand that you and her father didn’t agree; that’s all. A girl,” he went on in an embarrassed tone, “can’t grow up nowadays without seeing a good many cases of the kind about her; Lord forgive me, they’re getting to be the rule rather than the exception. Lots of things that you, at her age, might have puzzled over and thought mysterious, she probably takes for granted. At any rate she behaves as if she did.
“Things didn’t always go smoothly between her and her grandmother. The child has talents, you know; developed ’em early. She paints cleverly, and the old lady had her taught; but when she wanted a studio of her own there was a row—I was sent for. Mrs. Clephane had never heard of anybody in the family having a studio; that settled it. Well, Anne’s going to have one now. And so it was with everything. In the end Anne invariably gets what she wants. She knew of course that you and her grandmother were not the best of friends—my idea is that she tried to see you not long after her father died, and was told by the old lady that she must wait till she was of age. They neither of them told me so—but, well, it was in the air. And Anne waited. But now she’s doubly free—and you see the first use she’s made of her freedom.” He had recovered his ease, and sat down again, his hands on his knees, his trouser-hem rather too high above wrinkled socks and solemn square-toed boots. “I may say,” he added smiling, “that she cabled to you without consulting me—without consulting anybody. I heard about it only when she showed me your answer. That ought to tell you,” he concluded gaily, “as much as anything can, about Anne. Only take her for granted, as she will you, and you’ve got your happiest days ahead of you—see if you haven’t.”
As he blinked at her with kindly brotherly eyes she saw in their ingenuous depths the terror of the man who has tried to buy off fate by one optimistic evasion after another, till it has become second nature to hand out his watch and pocket-book whenever reality waylays him.
She exchanged one glance with that lurking fear; then she said: “Yes; you’re right, I suppose. But there’s not only Anne. What do other people know? I ought to be told.”
His face clouded again, though not with irritation. He seemed to understand that the appeal was reasonable, and to want to help her, yet to feel that with every word she was making it more difficult.
“What they know? Why ... why ... what they had to ... merely that....” (“What you yourself forced on them,” his tone seemed to imply.)
“That I went away....”
He nodded.