"Listen, dear," Alix soothed her. "If they advise it, and especially if Peter advises it when he gets back, we'll fight Anne. And then if we win our fight, I'll always keep the valley house open. And if we don't, why I'm going to visit you and Martin every year, and perhaps I'll have a little apartment some day--I don't intend to board always--"
But she was crying, too. Everything seemed changed, cold and strange; she had suspected that Cherry's was not a successful marriage; she knew it now, and to resign the adored little sister to the unsympathetic atmosphere of Red Creek, and to miss all the old life and the old associations, made her heart ache.
"There's--there's nothing special, Cherry?" she asked after a while.
"With Martin? Oh, no," Cherry answered, her eyes dried, and her packing going on composedly, although her voice trembled now and then. "No, it's just that I get bad moods," she said, bravely. "I was pretty young to marry at all, I guess."
"Martin loves you," Alix suggested timidly.
"He takes me for granted," Cherry said, after a pause. "There doesn't seem to be anything ALIVE in the feeling between us," she added, slowly. "If he says something to me, I make an effort to get his point of view before I answer. If I tell him some plan of mine, I can see that he thinks it sounds crazy! I don't seem very domestic--that's all. I--I try. Really, I do! But--" and Cherry seemed to brace herself in soul and body--"but that's marriage. I'll try again!"
She gave Alix a long kiss in parting, the next day, and clung to her.
"You're the dearest sister a girl ever had, Alix. You're all I have, now!"
"I'll write you about the case, and wire you if you're needed, and see you soon!" Alix said, cheerfully. Then she turned and went back into the empty house, keeping back her tears until the sound of the surrey had quite died away.