“I can’t put you out of my life,” she said, shaking her head, “and if you are unhappy—all the more reason for me to stay in yours.”
“Anne, it is not fair to you, to what your life may be.”
“Let me be the judge of that, David,” she said soberly, her hand on my arm. “Have I the right to know this? Is it—the other—still quite hopeless?”
“Quite,” I said gloomily.
“David, my heart goes out to you. If I could only help. No, no—Wait a moment, I can’t go back yet.”
“All right now?”
“All right, David.”
And when we went back, there was Letty, her arm through Molly’s, as pretty and as enticing as could be, coquetting with Mr. Brinsmade. From her face one would never have had the slightest suspicion that there was the least flaw in the serene content of her day. I held myself on my guard, fearing her purpose, but at the last she caught me as, of course, she had intended. The whistle blew and with it the time to say good-by. Molly, little trump, held up with forced gayety and so did Anne, though I saw such suffering in her eyes that it was all I could do not to take her impulsively in my arms: for, no matter what I had protested for her sake, to know that she cared was a great consolation.
When it came Letty’s turn, quite as the most natural thing in the world (as, of course, to the others it was), she flung her arms about me and kissed me; there—before Ben. Then she went off, protesting it was bad luck to see a ship out of port, thoroughly pleased with having planted a last dart. And Ben and I, with that kiss between us, went up the gangway.