Annie Kilburn

Annie accompanied the doctor's words, which she took in to the last

syllable, with a symphony of conjecture as to how the change in Mr. Peck's

plans, if they prevailed with him, would affect her, and the doctor had

not ceased to speak before she perceived that it would be deliverance

perfect and complete, however inglorious. But the tacit drama so vividly

preoccupied her with its minor questions of how to descend to this escape

with dignity that still she did not speak, and he took up the word again.

"I confess I've had my misgivings about Mr. Peck, and about his final

usefulness in a community like this. In spite of all that Putney can say of

his hard-headedness, I'm afraid that he's a good deal of a dreamer. But I

gave way to Putney, and I hope you'll appreciate what I've done for your

favourite."

"You are very good," she said, in mechanical acknowledgment: her mind was

set so strenuously to break from her dishonest reticence that she did not

know really what she was saying. "Why--why do you call him a dreamer?" She

cast about in that direction at random.

"Why? Well, for one thing, the reason he gave Putney for giving up his

luxuries here: that as long as there was hardship and overwork for underpay

in the world, he must share them. It seems to me that I might as well

say that as long as there were dyspepsia and rheumatism in the world, I

must share them. Then he has a queer notion that he can go back and find

instruction in the working-men--that they alone have the light and the

truth, and know the meaning of life. I don't say anything against them. My

observation and my experience is that if others were as good as they are in

the ratio of their advantages, Mr. Peck needn't go to them for his ideal.

But their conditions warp and dull them; they see things askew, and they

don't see them clearly. I might as well expose myself to the small-pox in

hopes of treating my fellow-sufferers more intelligently."

She could not perceive where his analogies rang false; they only

overwhelmed her with a deeper sense of her own folly.

"But I don't know," he went on, "that a dreamer is such a desperate

character, if you can only keep him from trying to realise his dreams; and

if Mr. Peck consents to stay in Hatboro', perhaps we can manage it." He

drew his chair a little toward the lounge where she reclined, and asked,

with the kindliness that was both personal and professional, "What seems to

be the matter?"