Mrs. Langley began to remonstrate peevishly. Anna repeated her demand fiercely.
“O Anna, I couldn’t think of doing that. It would break my heart,” Mrs. Langley almost wailed. Anna turned at the door.
“Very well, then. It’s settled,” she cried, “and you shall never have him, never! I wanted to keep him myself and now I will and there’ll be no more fussing about it. I shall give up my life to him and never marry. And, believe me, I shall never come near this house again!”
“I’m sure, I’m glad to hear that!” retorted Mrs. Langley. “Don’t flatter yourself that it’s any favour to me your coming here and ordering me round and stirring me all up in this fashion. I’ll thank you to pull that curtain down and leave me alone.”
Anna yanked at the blind viciously and down it came, fixture and all, with a sad crash. Startled out of her wrath, the girl was ashamed and confused. She was sick at heart, too, with the significance of it, the drawing down of the blind that had let in light for only a fortnight out of twenty-odd years. But she fled precipitately, pausing only to send Bell in to her mistress. And she believed herself to be leaving the house forever.
CHAPTER XVIII
ON the day following her second meeting with the stranger who called himself John Converse, Alice Lorraine was in a sad state of mind when she reached the lane. She had to see the man again. She told herself that ordinary civility as well as her own desire demanded that. Chance had brought them together and put upon her the duty of aiding him so far as possible in looking up old associations without making himself known in the village of his birth and boyhood. She had somehow lost her head and become involved in a warm dispute. That made it hard for her to act to-day. But she told herself that she was not going back as the girl who had been vehement over—nothing! She was simply going to meet John Converse (for the last time, probably) in the odd little shop, give him such information as she was able, and if he should wish, help him plan his course of action. Then they would part in the polite way of people who have become acquainted in the course of a long railway journey and offered one another kindly civilities.
It would be simple enough, she told herself, if she could only remember that he belonged to an older generation. He didn’t look young and he couldn’t be, with a memory reaching back as far as his did. It was only his sad eyes which could become so merry and the whimsical smile that transformed his gaunt face that had made her feel as if he were a companion of her own years.
As the girl stole around the cottage towards the path leading to the shop, John Converse rose quickly from the step of the back porch and joined her. He held out his hand eagerly and she put hers shyly into it, her face expressing the relief she felt to find that he was not resentful. She realised now that she had feared that if he were about at all he would be stiff and cold.
“I was afraid you wouldn’t come,” he said with a frank smile. “I have had a nasty night, I can tell you. And now I want to explain to you right away what must have seemed to you inexcusable behaviour. Shall we sit down here?”