She loved Lutie,—and that surprised her more than anything else. She did not know it, but she was absorbing strength of purpose, independence, and sincerity from this staunch little woman who was George's wife. She would have cried out against the charge that Lutie had become an Influence! It was all right for Lutie to have an influence on the character of George, but—the thought of anything nearer home than that never entered her head.
As a peculiar—and not especially commendable—example of her present state of unselfishness, she stopped for luncheon with her pretty little sister-in-law, and either forgot or calmly ignored the fact that she had promised Percy Wintermill and his sister to lunch with them at Sherry's. And later on, when Percy complained over the telephone she apologised with perfect humility,—surprising him even more than she surprised herself. She did not, however, feel called upon to explain to him that she had transferred his orchids to Lutie's living-room. That was another proof of her consideration for others. She knew that Percy's feelings would have been hurt.
Lutie was radiantly happy. Her baby was coming in a fortnight.
"You shall have the very best doctor in New York," said Anne, caressing the fair, tousled head. Her own heart was full.
"We're going to have Braden Thorpe," said Lutie.
Anne started. "But he is not—What you want, Lutie, is a specialist. Braden is—"
"He's good enough for me," said Lutie serenely. Possibly she was astonished by the sudden, impulsive kiss that Anne bestowed upon her, and the more fervent embrace that followed.
That afternoon Anne received many callers. Her home-coming meant a great deal to the friends who had lost sight of her during the period of preparation that began, quite naturally, with her marriage to Templeton Thorpe, and was now to bear its results. She would take her place once more in the set to which she belonged as a Tresslyn.
Alas, for the memory of old Templeton Thorpe, her one-time intimates in society were already speaking of her,—absently, of course,—as Anne Tresslyn. The newspapers might continue to allude to her as the beautiful Mrs. Thorpe, but that was as far as it would go. Polite society would not be deceived. It would not deny her the respectability of marriage, to be sure, but on the other hand, it wouldn't think of her as having been married to old Mr. Thorpe. It might occasionally give a thought or two to the money that had once been Mr. Thorpe's, and it might go so far as to pity Anne because she had been stupid or ill-advised in the matter of a much-discussed ante-nuptial arrangement, but nothing could alter the fact that she had never ceased being a Tresslyn, and that there was infinite justice in the restoration of at least one of the Tresslyns to a state of affluence. It remains to be seen whether Society's estimate of her was right or wrong.
Her mother came in for half an hour, and admitted that the baby would be a good thing for poor George.