Mrs. Berkley looked up, trying to mask her surprise.
“Have you, Kit? That’s nice, though it is not likely that you’ll need more than the Carrington inheritance,” she said, in her motherly way.
“I didn’t mean to inflict upon you an item of such limited interest,” said Kit. “I didn’t know I was going to say that; I thought aloud. You know, Mrs. Berkley, that Aunt Anne loves me in a way that may easily unlove me if I ever displease her.”
“Well put, Kit,” said Mrs. Berkley. “But do you think you are likely to displease her? I’d be sorry to have you, not only for your own sake, but because Miss Carrington is such a piteous, denuded person. It is ghastly to think of her bleak horizon!”
“I don’t suppose many people pity Miss Anne Carrington,” said Kit. “But you are right; she is denuded, with a bleak outlook. I don’t know whether or not I’ll ever displease her, nor how hard it would hit her if I did; I mean how much she’d resent what I wouldn’t do. But a fellow can’t go too far, from a sense of duty.”
“Don’t you mean that a fellow can’t go too far, from a mistaken sense of duty, but must go all the way for the sake of actual duty?” suggested Mrs. Berkley. “You are mysterious, Kit, but we’ll always be glad if you come to us when you want to thresh out your bothers.”
“I know!” cried little Anne with one of her flashes of unchildlike perception. “Miss Carrington likes the splendid princess lady, who is one of the proud step-sisters, better’n you do, Kit!”
Kit gasped. “Anne!” he cried. “What under the sun——?”
“Anne doesn’t realize as much as her remarks convey to others,” interpolated the child’s mother. “Children of her sort are sensitive to atmosphere, but they can’t gauge all that it envelops. You haven’t asked what I am making, Kit, and that is a safe subject!”
“I ask now,” said Kit.