“It’s not as if this were a light thing between us. I want you to know me as I am. If I thought that at that moment…when you were on your way here, almost–-“
He dropped her hand and stood up. “Yes, yes—I understand.”
“But do you?” Her look followed him. “I’m not a goose of a girl. I know…of course I KNOW…but there are things a woman feels…when what she knows doesn’t make any difference. It’s not that I want you to explain—I mean about that particular evening. It’s only that I want you to have the whole of my feeling. I didn’t know what it was till I saw you again. I never dreamed I should say such things to you!”
“I never dreamed I should be here to hear you say them!” He turned back and lifting a floating end of her scarf put his lips to it. “But now that you have, I know—I know,” he smiled down at her.
“You know?”
“That this is no light thing between us. Now you may ask me anything you please! That was all I wanted to ask YOU.”
For a long moment they looked at each other without speaking. She saw the dancing spirit in his eyes turn grave and darken to a passionate sternness. He stooped and kissed her, and she sat as if folded in wings.
XII
It was in the natural order of things that, on the way back to the house, their talk should have turned to the future.
Anna was not eager to define it. She had an extraordinary sensitiveness to the impalpable elements of happiness, and as she walked at Darrow’s side her imagination flew back and forth, spinning luminous webs of feeling between herself and the scene about her. Every heightening of emotion produced for her a new effusion of beauty in visible things, and with it the sense that such moments should be lingered over and absorbed like some unrenewable miracle. She understood Darrow’s impatience to see their plans take shape. She knew it must be so, she would not have had it otherwise; but to reach a point where she could fix her mind on his appeal for dates and decisions was like trying to break her way through the silver tangle of an April wood.
Darrow wished to use his diplomatic opportunities as a means of studying certain economic and social problems with which he presently hoped to deal in print; and with this in view he had asked for, and obtained, a South American appointment. Anna was ready to follow where he led, and not reluctant to put new sights as well as new thoughts between herself and her past. She had, in a direct way, only Effie and Effie’s education to consider; and there seemed, after due reflection, no reason why the most anxious regard for these should not be conciliated with the demands of Darrow’s career. Effie, it was evident, could be left to Madame de Chantelle’s care till the couple should have organized their life; and she might even, as long as her future step-father’s work retained him in distant posts, continue to divide her year between Givre and the antipodes.
As for Owen, who had reached his legal majority two years before, and was soon to attain the age fixed for the taking over of his paternal inheritance, the arrival of this date would reduce his step-mother’s responsibility to a friendly concern for his welfare. This made for the prompt realization of Darrow’s wishes, and there seemed no reason why the marriage should not take place within the six weeks that remained of his leave.
They passed out of the wood-walk into the open brightness of the garden. The noon sunlight sheeted with gold the bronze flanks of the polygonal yews. Chrysanthemums, russet, saffron and orange, glowed like the efflorescence of an enchanted forest; belts of red begonia purpling to wine-colour ran like smouldering flame among the borders; and above this outspread tapestry the house extended its harmonious length, the soberness of its lines softened to grace in the luminous misty air.
Darrow stood still, and Anna felt that his glance was travelling from her to the scene about them and then back to her face.
“You’re sure you’re prepared to give up Givre? You look so made for each other!”
“Oh, Givre–-” She broke off suddenly, feeling as if her too careless tone had delivered all her past into his hands; and with one of her instinctive movements of recoil she added: “When Owen marries I shall have to give it up.”
“When Owen marries? That’s looking some distance ahead! I want to be told that meanwhile you’ll have no regrets.”
She hesitated. Why did he press her to uncover to him her poor starved past? A vague feeling of loyalty, a desire to spare what could no longer harm her, made her answer evasively: “There will probably be no ‘meanwhile.’ Owen may marry before long.”
She had not meant to touch on the subject, for her stepson had sworn her to provisional secrecy; but since the shortness of Darrow’s leave necessitated a prompt adjustment of their own plans, it was, after all, inevitable that she should give him at least a hint of Owen’s.
“Owen marry? Why, he always seems like a faun in flannels! I hope he’s found a dryad. There might easily be one left in these blue-and-gold woods.”
“I can’t tell you yet where he found his dryad, but she IS one, I believe: at any rate she’ll become the Givre woods better than I do. Only there may be difficulties–-“
“Well! At that age they’re not always to be wished away.”
She hesitated. “Owen, at any rate, has made up his mind to overcome them; and I’ve promised to see him through.”
She went on, after a moment’s consideration, to explain that her stepson’s choice was, for various reasons, not likely to commend itself to his grandmother. “She must be prepared for it, and I’ve promised to do the preparing. You know I always HAVE seen him through things, and he rather counts on me now.”
She fancied that Darrow’s exclamation had in it a faint note of annoyance, and wondered if he again suspected her of seeking a pretext for postponement.
“But once Owen’s future is settled, you won’t, surely, for the sake of what you call seeing him through, ask that I should go away again without you?” He drew her closer as they walked. “Owen will understand, if you don’t. Since he’s in the same case himself I’ll throw myself on his mercy. He’ll see that I have the first claim on you; he won’t even want you not to see it.”
“Owen sees everything: I’m not afraid of that. But his future isn’t settled. He’s very young to marry—too young,
