Anne sat very still, her hands folded quietly. Her calm eyes were on the golden fish which swam in the waters at the base of the fountain.
"I am not sure," she said; "it all has so much to do with—old traditions—and inherited feelings—and ideals. He could be just as useful here, but he would never be happy. You can't imagine how they look up to him down there. And here he looked up to you."
"Then you think I didn't give him a free hand?"
"No. But there he is a Brooks of Crossroads. And it isn't because he wants the honor of it that he has gone back, but because the responsibility rests upon him to make the community all that it ought to be. And he can't shirk it."
"Eve Chesley says that he is tied to his mother's apron strings."
"She doesn't understand, I do. I sometimes feel that way about the Crossroads school—as if I had shirked something to have—a good time."
"But you have had a good time."
"Yes, you have all been wonderful to me," her smile warmed him, "but you won't think that I am ungrateful when I say that there was something in my life in the little school which carried me—higher—than this."
"Higher? What do you mean?"
"I was a leader down there. And a force. The children looked to me for something that I could give and which the teacher they have isn't giving. She just teaches books, and I tried to teach them something of life, and love of country, and love of God."