“She is there—in black and green. Black hair as well. You need not murmur inarticulate admiration, for we do not love each other.”
“That does not make her the less handsome.”
“To women it does. Where a woman dislikes she cannot admire. Probably you know most of the other people?”
“No. I see Lord Arthur Crosse next Lady Dalrymple.”
Anne let her eyes rest reflectively upon the two persons he named, without answering the remark except by a slight nod. Presently, however, she said—
“Do you think he will marry her? The question interests me more than it should, for you know that we are in a measure bound together. My father ruled that I was to be dependent upon her until I married—or she. I believe our old lawyer got that last clause put in out of sheer good-will to me, for my father had faith in her perpetual tears. He loved me, too, but he tried to see too far. I am not sure that a will is ever a just thing. The dead, should they control the living?” She was unconscious how closely Wareham’s thoughts flew with hers. He said—
“They must, while men have hearts. Made as we are, it is impossible to refuse what the dying ask.”
“What they ask?” repeated Anne, lifting her eyebrows. “I was talking of what they command. The most undecided of men becomes an irrevocable force by the mere act of dying.”
“There are other forces besides that of law,” Wareham persisted. “A wish may bind as tightly as a will.”
He was reminded of an old trick of Anne’s which he had almost forgotten, when she threw him a glance between half-closed lids. But the lady on his other side addressed a remark to him, and Anne took the opportunity to talk to her neighbour. Wareham saw Lady Fanny looking at them with what he supposed to be surprise at the audacity which had changed the order of the dinner, or, rather, the diners; of other thoughts of hers he was unsuspicious. By and by Anne addressed him again.