She flung herself at his feet like a stricken child. He went down to her. "Marie-Louise, stop. Sit up and tell me what's the matter."
She sat up. "I shall ask Anne. I shall go and get her and ask her."
He found himself calling after her, "Marie-Louise," but she was gone.
She came back presently, dragging the protesting Anne. "But Marie-Louise, what do you want of me?"
Richard, rising, said, "Please don't think I permitted this. I tried to stop her."
"I didn't want to be stopped," Marie-Louise told them. "I want to know whether you and Geoffrey Fox are going to be married."
Anne's cheeks were stained red. "Of course not. But it isn't anything to get so excited about, is it, Marie-Louise?"
"Yes, it is. He told Dr. Dicky that you were, and he lied. And I thought, oh, you know the wonderful things I thought about him, Mistress Anne."
Anne's arm went around the sad little nymph in green. "You must still think wonderful things of him. He was very unhappy, and desperate about his eyes. And it seemed to him that to assert a thing might make it come true."
"But you didn't love him?"