“My dear—I’m taking you at your own valuation. Haven’t you explained to me exactly the part you intend to play—getting badly wounded and falling down in Robert Black’s path——”
“You’re so intensely literal!” Fanny spoke bitterly. “Heaven knows it will be no acting if I do get wounded. I’m wounded now—to the heart. And if I fall down in his path it’ll be because I can’t stand up. Last Sunday, when he stood there under the colours—who wouldn’t have wanted him? Why, even you—” she turned to look full at Nan, with her reddened eyes searching Nan’s grave face—“it wouldn’t take an awful lot of imagination to put you in the same class with me, in spite of that wonderful grip you always keep on yourself. Honestly, now, can you tell me you wouldn’t marry him, if he asked you?”
Annette Lockhart was not of those who turn scarlet or pale under cross-examination. Moreover, she was the daughter of Samuel Lockhart and had from him the ability to keep close hold of her emotions. She was entirely accustomed to facing down Fanny Fitch when she did not choose to reveal herself to her. Nevertheless, it may have cost her the effort of her life to answer neither too vehemently nor too nonchalantly this highly disconcerting question.
“You certainly must be a little mad to-day, my dear girl. Just because you are so hard hit, don’t go to fancying that the woods are full of the slain. I like Mr. Black very much, but I’m not a case for the stretcher-bearers—nor likely to be. And just now I’m wanting so much to go myself, and know I can’t possibly, because Tom will, and Father and Mother couldn’t face our both going at once.”
Fanny began suddenly to get out of her white apparel. “I’m going round to see Jane Ray,” she announced, with one of the characteristic impulses to whose expression Nan was well used. “It’s best to make friends with the enemy in this case, I think. And possibly I may meet Robert Black—coming out or going in under cover of a man friend. In that case I may receive one casual glance from His Eminence which will complete my undoing for to-day. That will surely be worth while.” She laughed unhappily.
Half an hour afterward she walked into Jane Ray’s shop. Her eyes were red no longer, her colour was charming, her manner was composed. When Jane was at liberty Fanny discussed “pie-crust” tables with her, declaring her intention to present something of the sort to Mrs. Lockhart.
“I’ve made such a terribly long visit,” she explained, “and still they urge me to stay on. Of course it’s wonderful for me—with my mother so far away. But I shall only stay till I can find out where to offer myself—if mother will just say I may go. Poor dear, she has such a horror of war—she may make it difficult for me. Meanwhile—I want to take every possible step, so I can have every argument to meet her with. If I could only go with someone—some other girl—she might feel differently about it.”
“Yes, I should think that might help it,” Jane agreed. Her dark eyes met Fanny’s lustrous blue ones across the group of tables they had been considering. She was very much on her guard now wherever Miss Fitch was concerned. The problem of the friendship between Nan Lockhart, whom Jane couldn’t help liking and thoroughly trusting, and Fanny Fitch, whom she could somehow neither like nor trust, was one which she had as yet found no means of solving. Also, Cary’s sudden and intense interest in Fanny had set his sister to studying the girl with new acuteness. Thus far she seemed to Jane all actress; it was becoming increasingly difficult not to suspect her constantly of being other than she seemed.
“And yet we all act, more or less,” Jane said to herself honestly. “I’m acting this very minute, myself. I’m playing the part of one who is only politely interested in what she means to do, while I’m really crazily anxious that she shall not do certain things which involve Cary and me.”
“I wonder if you would trust me with any of your own plans,” Fanny said, engagingly. “I can’t help knowing that you mean to go, and I’m sure you must have much real knowledge that I’m ignorant of. Is nursing the only thing a girl can do? You’re not trained for that, are you? Forgive me—I’m not just curious, you know—I’m tremendously serious.”