“Do you want Mrs. Paul, that was Miss Joan?” asked Bibiana.
“I want Miss Berkley, Miss Anne Berkley, please,” Richard insisted, and Bibiana turned away with a grunt. “Just little Anne! Anne, come and speak to Mr. Latham. He’s calling you,” she added to the child who had fallen into the habit of loitering at hand when the telephone bell rang, in the faint hope of getting a chance to talk over the wire.
“Mr. Latham wants me to come to see him!” cried little Anne after a brief and, on her part, chuckling telephone conversation. “Please, Mother dear, mayn’t I?”
“Why, yes. He must be lonely,” Mrs. Berkley hesitated. “But don’t—well, there’s no use in trying to forestall your speeches, Anne! I suppose you can’t do any more harm—or was it good? Run along, dear, but first show me your hands and let me brush your hair.”
Neat and decorous, little Anne presented herself in the Latham Street house. Richard looked ill, but he smiled at the child, welcoming her warmly.
“It’s only a ceremonial call; we aren’t going to play anything, little Anne,” he said. “Do you mind chatting? I felt the need of you, my dear.”
Quick little Anne caught the note in his voice. She always stood in awe of the poet, rarely was as perfectly at ease with him as with her other adult friends, but now she ran to him and bestowed herself on the arm of his chair and put her arm around his neck, her cheek on his head, as if he were Peter in trouble.
“I think it’s most fun of anything to talk when people will talk sensible and int’resting,” she said.
“I’ll try, Anne,” Richard said, weakly. “Do you think that by any chance Anne in your case stands for Anomaly?”
“No, just Anne,” said little Anne. “When I’m confirmed I shall take some splendid name for my second one. When I was small I used to think I’d take Ursula, but now sometimes I think Emerentiana; it’s so—so—nobody has it.”