“Where is the child?” she inquired, making an effort to shoulder her new responsibilities.
He looked pleased. “In the apartment in Gramercy Park. He has a trained nurse, and is getting along very well. I had a cable yesterday. Oh, Anne, will you try to love him?”
Anne smiled through the leaden lassitude that had suddenly fallen upon her. “I shan’t have to try. He is little and helpless and yours.”
“Anne, my beautiful one, my angel!”
This time she did not evade the effusion, but resigned herself to the hungry young arms.
Much later, after Alexis had gone, and the fire had smouldered into a mound of white dust, Anne went to the telephone, and sent Vittorio the wire which was to nullify so completely her summons of a few short hours ago.
CHAPTER XXVIII
“PITY THAT PAINS”
Anne’s villa delighted Alexis, especially the small music room with its frescoed walls and paucity of furniture. It was, he said, the ideal room for music, and they spent their evenings there and many afternoons.
To-day, an outburst of spring rain had driven them gustily indoors. It fell from the skies like a sable veil through which smiling hillsides showed ashen like a woman in mourning. In the garden the cypresses dripped heavily. Water foamed down the gutters in amber cataracts.
A shower of slanting missiles, the rain hurled itself against the windows, drumming upon the panes with the beat of a thousand nervous fingers. Anne shivered a little. From a stool at her side Alexis looked up into her face anxiously. It was pale, and the large eyes gleamed from out dark circles. He took her relaxed hand and stroked it tenderly.