When little Anne was tucked away, Mrs. Berkley hastened to the telephone.
“Oh, Joan,” her husband heard her say, “do go right around to find Anne Dallas! Yes. I don’t know, I’m sure! No, not ill. Well, I’m afraid so. Anne has been calling this afternoon. Can’t you guess? I’m afraid to tell you over the wire. Yes, that’s better; she’ll tell you. That’s right, dearie. Do hurry. Good-night; kiss the baby for me.”
Mrs. Berkley hung up and turned her perturbed face upon her laughing husband.
“Dea ex machina again?” he asked. “Takes some machine to stand up under our small daughter’s driving, Barbara! It’s my impression that the machine of this particular goddess is a high-geared racing car!”
Mr. Berkley’s tone expressed the father’s pride in a clever child, the father who leaves the guidance of that cleverness to the mother, and as to his share of it enjoys it as a comedy.
Joan hurried to Antony.
“Come, Tony,” she said. “Mother just called up; we’ve got to go around to Anne Dallas’s boarding place. Mother didn’t like to tell me what has happened—you know on this party line the receivers are positively restless when one talks!—but little Anne has been visiting. I’m sure it was Mr. Latham! I’d be willing to wager anything that she’s told him about Anne and Kit—as much as she knows, and no human being could state how much that was! I haven’t had a moment’s peace—when I recalled it—since Kit was here and little Anne had baby over in the corner while we talked. She looked so perfectly unconscious that I’m sure she was paying strict attention to what we said! Well, come on, Antony; Anne is in some sort of trouble.”
“Gracious, what it is to have young friends who are in love and a young sister who is a busybody!” Antony pretended to grumble, but he went readily enough.
Joan left her husband on the boarding-house piazza, where he sat in awkward silence among observant strangers, with Guard’s head between his knees, while Joan ran up to Anne’s room.
“Oh, Joan, how good to see you! Richard told me to call you, but I couldn’t,” cried Anne, rising on one elbow as Joan dropped down beside her and took the girl in her arms, instantly overwhelmed with pity as she saw the misery in Anne’s tear-stained face.