“The shackles of civilization” is not an empty phrase. Kit foresaw the difficulty with which he should escape the entanglements of courtesy to his aunt and her guest. He knew that he should have all sorts of cobweb footfalls set for him, binding him fast when he would go to catch a glimpse of Anne Dallas. He recognized in himself a desire to see the girl that made it to all intents and purposes a necessity.
“It will be pleasant, Kit, my dear, to have Helen here in the spring,” remarked his aunt. “You will feel that inspiration of the season which Tennyson has embodied for us in lines no less true for being hackneyed. Remember, my boy, that I’ve made my plans for you clear, and that I expect them to be carried out. Helen is a magnificent specimen of the best type of woman that our race has produced; even were she less fortunate in material ways, she would still be a wife upon whom to build a family. There is no reason why you should not be enchanted with the hope of looking at her all your days, and that’s no trifle! It’s a great thing, let me tell you, to know that the person you marry will always be an agreeable object before you at breakfast, as well as at high, hot noon. It is inconceivable that Helen could ever be a careless creature whose hair straggled or whose collars sagged. A boy doesn’t consider these matters which later set a man’s nerves on edge; they do more toward making marriage a failure than the affinity of which novelists talk—though I’m ready to concede that the affinity is likely to attend upon these subtle causes of estrangement. It is as easy to love the right woman as the wrong one, once you set your mind to it, Kit. So set your mind to loving Helen; she is preëminently the right woman for you.”
Kit did not reply. He took his hat and went out of the house in a melancholy mood. He distinctly did not want to marry Helen, and the more his aunt urged the marriage upon him, with the disenchanting hint of her power to punish him for thwarting her, the less he wanted to marry Helen.
“I’m going down to the Berkleys’,” he thought. “They are the happiest, least worldly people I know.”
He found Joan at her mother’s spending the day there with her baby, little Barbara, named for her young grandmother and promising to have Mrs. Berkley’s sunny temperament and unobtrusive philosophy which made her take most things as a point in the game. Mrs. Berkley played her game straight, a generous winner, a good loser.
Kit was so cast down that he was glad to hear Joan’s laugh and her baby’s shout of glee as he entered; they were intensely happy and complete. It was not precisely with regret that he found Anne Dallas with Joan, holding the incense jar while the young mother swung the censer before the leaping, crowing object of their worship. Such wholesome, natural happiness permeated the room that as Kit came into it his spirits rose with a swift reaction from their depression. He said to himself: “I’ll be damned if I will!” with such force that for an instant he feared that he had spoken aloud.
Anne Dallas greeted him pleasantly, without any sign of especial interest in his coming. Joan was more cordial; she liked Kit a great deal, and was so happy that when the baby was on her knee she absent-mindedly caressed all the world, identifying it with Barbara, who was so large a part of it.
Little Anne fell on Kit with vehement welcome. She gave him her hand with such desire in her eyes to give him more that Kit took it, kissing her cheek.
“I’m just as glad as I can be that you came!” declared little Anne. “I’d like to have you come just purp’sly to see me. You didn’t, did you?”
“I came because I was rather down at the heels, in my mind, little Anne, and this is headquarters for getting reshod,” said Kit, smiling on the child, but glancing toward Anne Dallas, “and you’re no small part of the Berkley cheer. I counted on you to brace me up. Some day, if you’ll let me, I’ll come to see you, just you, ask for you, and get shown in to see you. How’s that?”