“No,” said Miss Amory, “he is going now.”
He was going. Baird had released his hand and he was looking in a gloomy, awkward way at Annie, as if he did not know how to make his adieux. But Annie, who was a simple child creature, solved the difficulty for him with happy readiness. She flung both her small arms about his ungainly body and held up her face.
“Kiss me three times,” she said; “three times.”
Latimer started and flushed. He looked down at her and then glanced rather timidly at Baird.
“Kiss her,” said Baird, “it will please her—and it will please me.”
Latimer bent himself to the child’s height and kissed her. The act was without grace, and when he stood upright he was more awkward and embarrassed than ever. But the caress was not a cold or rough one, and when he turned and strode away the flush was still on his sallow cheek.
CHAPTER XIII
The Stornaway parlours were very brilliant that evening in a Willowfield sense. Not a Burton, a Larkin, or a Downing was missing, even Miss Amory Starkweather being present. Miss Amory Starkweather was greatly respected by the Stornaways, the Downings, the Larkins, and the Burtons, the Starkweathers having landed upon Plymouth Rock so early and with such a distinguished sense of their own importance as to lead to the impression in weak minds that they had not only founded that monumental corner-stone of ancestry, but were personally responsible for the Mayflower. This gentlewoman represented to the humorous something more of the element of comedy than she represented to herself. She had been born into a world too narrow and provincial for the development of the powers born with her. She had been an ugly girl and an ugly woman, marked by the hopeless ugliness of a long, ill-proportioned face, small eyes, and a nose too large and high—that ugliness which even love’s eyes can scarcely ameliorate into good drawing.