“I can imagine it. My telephone is in the hall; Miss Dallas will show you where. And will you call Mrs. Berkley, Miss Dallas, and get her consent to kidnapping her child?” Mr. Latham smiled at little Anne. Little Anne clasped her hands in her own dramatic gesture.
“Oh, dear, dear, dearest Miss Dallas, please let me call Mother myself! I don’t get many chances to telephone, and I love, just love to do it! And I want to tell mother my own self what a great, great thing has happened to me. You said a carriage, didn’t you, Mr. Latham? It’s pretty nearly always a car. I’m not quite, perfec’ly certain I ever’ve rode—roden—I mean ridden in a carriage. I’ve rode—ridden—in the grocer’s wagon, but I can’t remember a carriage. I’d love to tell mother. And with a real poet! Would you mind, Miss Anne Dallas, if I did it myself?”
“Bless your funny little heart, Anne, of course I shouldn’t mind!” cried Anne Dallas. “Come, both guests!”
Richard Latham, left behind, stood quietly waiting, unconsciously listening to the telephone jingle, to Kit’s strong voice, to little Anne’s excited piping.
Suddenly and unreasonably he felt old and alone. He was not old, but he was alone, and around him in the beautiful room that he had made, with its spacious calm, its books, its pictures, was complete darkness.
CHAPTER IV
Anne and Anne
MINERVA came cat-footed up the stairs and knocked at Miss Carrington’s sitting-room door.
Miss Carrington lowered her book, frowning impatiently.
“It’s maddening never to hear you coming, Minerva,” she said. “Luckily my nerves are equable. Now what do you want?”