"Oh, yes—that is, I believe so. I didn't know it then, of course."
"I never knew that," Christopher said, thoughtfully.
"Well, I didn't at the time, you know. It was—of course it was sixteen—eighteen years ago," Alice said. And in a whisper she added, "Chris, that girl is eighteen!"
Christopher pursed his lips to whistle, but made no sound, and looked into the fire.
"You see I was only about thirteen or fourteen," Alice said. "I was going to Miss Bennet's school, and we were all living in the Madison Avenue house. Papa had been dead only a year, or less, for I remember that Annie was eighteen, and wasn't going out much, because of mourning. Theodore had been worrying Mama to death, and had left the house then, and Mama was sending him and his wife money, I believe, but of course lots of that was kept from me. Annie was terribly wild and excitable then, always doing reckless things; I can remember when she and Belle Duer dressed up as boys and had their pictures taken, and once they put a matrimonial advertisement in the papers—of course they were just silly—at least that was. But then she began to rave about this man Müller——"
"The acrobat!" Christopher, who was listening intently, supplied.
"No, dearest! He was their riding master—I suppose that isn't much better, really. But he was an extremely handsome man—really stunning. Carry Winchester's mother forbade her taking any more lessons because she was so wild about him, and Annie told me once that that was why Ida Burnett was popped into a boarding school. He was big, and dark, and he had a slight foreign accent, and he was ever so much older than Annie—forty, at least. She began to spend all her time at the riding club; it used to make Mama wild—especially as Annie was so headstrong and saucy about it! Poor Mama, I remember her crying and complaining!"
"And how long did this go on?" Christopher asked.
"Oh, weeks! Well, and then one hot day, just before Easter vacation it was, I remember, I came home early from school with a headache, and when I reached the upper hall I could hear Mama crying, and Annie shouting out loud, and this Kate—this very same Kate Sheridan!—trying to quiet Mama, and everything in an uproar! Finally I heard Annie sobbing—I was frightened to death of course, and I sat down on the stairs that go up to the nursery—and I heard Annie say something about being eighteen—and she was eighteen the very day before; and she ran by me, in her riding clothes, with the derby hat that girls used to wear then, and her hair clubbed on her neck, and she ran downstairs, and I could hear her crying, and saying to herself: 'I'll show them; I'll show them!' And that was the last I saw of her," Alice finished sadly, "for almost two years."
"She went out?" Christopher asked.