She lingered awhile on this pleasing fancy, and then began to reach out to wider inferences. “But if—but if—but little Anne—”
At the murmur of the name her eyes filled again. For years now she had barricaded her heart against her daughter’s presence; and here it was, suddenly in possession again, crowding out everything else, yes, effacing even Chris as though he were the thinnest of ghosts, and the cable in her hand a cock-crow. “But perhaps now they’ll let me see her,” the mother thought.
She didn’t even know who “they” were, now that their formidable chieftain, her mother-in-law, was dead. Lawyers, judges, trustees, guardians, she supposed—all the natural enemies of woman. She wrinkled her brows, trying to remember who, at the death of the child’s father, had been appointed the child’s other guardian—old Mrs. Clephane’s overpowering assumption of the office having so completely effaced her associate that it took a few minutes to fish him up out of the far-off past.
“Why, poor old Fred Landers, of course!” She smiled retrospectively. “I don’t believe he’d prevent my seeing the child if he were left to himself. Besides, isn’t she nearly grown up? Why, I do believe she must be.”
The telegram fell from her hands, both of which she now impressed into a complicated finger-reckoning of how old little Anne must be, if Chris were thirty-three, as he certainly was—no, thirty-one, he couldn’t be more than thirty-one, because she, Kate, was only forty-two ... yes, forty-two ... and she’d always acknowledged to herself that there were nine years between them; no, eleven years, if she were really forty-two; yes, but was she? Or, goodness, was she actually forty-five? Well, then, if she was forty-five—just supposing it for a minute—and had married John Clephane at twenty-one, as she knew she had, and little Anne had been born the second summer afterward, then little Anne must be nearly twenty ... why, quite twenty, wasn’t it? But then, how old would that make Chris? Oh, well, he must be older than he looked ... she’d always thought he was. That boyish way of his, she had sometimes fancied, was put on to make her imagine there was a greater difference of age between them than there really was—a device he was perfectly capable of making use of for ulterior purposes. And of course she’d never been that dreadful kind of woman they called a “baby-snatcher”.... But if Chris were thirty-one, and she forty-five, then how old was Anne?
With impatient fingers she began all over again.
The maid’s voice, seeming to come from a long way off, respectfully reminded her that the chocolate would be getting cold. Mrs. Clephane roused herself, looked about the room, and exclaimed: “My looking-glass, please.” She wanted to settle that question of ages.
As Aline approached with the glass there was a knock at the door. The maid went to it, and came back with her small inward smile.
“Another telegram.”
Another? This time Mrs. Clephane sat bolt upright. What could it be, now, but a word from him, a message at last? Oh, but she was ashamed of herself for thinking of such a thing at such a moment. Solitude had demoralized her, she supposed. And then her child was so far away, so invisible, so unknown—and Chris of a sudden had become so near and real again, though it was three whole years and one month since he had left her. And at her age—She opened the second message, trembling. Since Armistice Day her heart had not beat so hard.